The FCC closed out the comment cycle last week for an NPRM on proposed changes to wireless infrastructure rules, with support from industry and continuing opposition from RF safety advocates and many local government groups (see 2601150043). Reply comments were due Thursday (docket 25-276) in response to the item, which commissioners approved 3-0 in September (see 2511250075), and there were still no signs of agreement among the different sides.
The administration’s pro-5G, pro-business agenda may be about to clash with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda of some of President Donald Trump's loyalists. As the FCC wraps up an NPRM on proposed changes to wireless infrastructure rules to make 5G deployments faster (see 2601160045), reports are emerging that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is ramping up a study of the risks from cellphone radiation. The Food and Drug Administration has also taken down webpages saying that cellphones aren’t dangerous. The FCC didn't remove similar declarations on its website.
A Verizon representative apologized to subscribers Thursday after an outage cut service to tens of thousands of its wireless customers across the country Wednesday (see 2601140050). It's also offering a $20 credit to customers who lost service. In an email Wednesday night, a spokesperson said the outage had been resolved and customers still having problems should restart their devices to reconnect to the network.
Questions remain about the future of the FCC’s voluntary cyber trust mark program, which commissioners approved 5-0 in March 2024 (see 2403140034), because of concerns that progress has stalled after UL Solutions dropped out as lead administrator. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr earlier raised concerns about UL’s purported ties to China. Last week, the agency asked for applications from companies willing to replace UL Solutions, which are due Jan. 28.
Brandy Reitter, executive director of the Colorado Broadband Office, warned Wednesday that the Trump administration's changes to the BEAD program have delayed deployment in the state by about 18 months. “We would have been able to put shovels in the ground last year,” Reitter said during a Fiber Broadband Association webcast with Gary Bolton, the group's CEO. For people waiting for broadband, “it’s going to be a little while,” especially for satellite service, she said.
Wireless carriers aren’t unique in raising concerns about an FCC proposal to allow correctional facilities to jam cell signals in an effort to curb contraband phones, CTIA said in reply comments posted Tuesday in docket 13-111. Public interest groups, often at odds with the wireless industry, and other commenters also called on the FCC to think twice before steaming forward on rules that some states and corrections officials are pushing (see 2512300043).
A judge for the U.S. District Court for Northern Indiana on Friday upheld a decision by the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) in Elkhart, Indiana, to deny Verizon Wireless’ application to build a 135-foot monopole. In 2024, the court found that by not issuing a written reason, the city improperly denied the carrier’s application and sent the matter back to the BZA for further work (see 2409090036), which the board did. The case comes as industry urges the FCC to revise its rules to speed deployments (see 2601050029).
How the U.S. Supreme Court will view the appeal of the FCC data fine case remains unclear, and it could be a close decision for the court, industry experts said Monday. Justices agreed Friday to hear FCC v. AT&T and address a split in the judicial circuits (see 2601090067). The fines were handed down in the last administration and opposed by FCC Republicans at the time, but the Trump administration wants SCOTUS to uphold the penalties and preserve the agency's enforcement mechanisms.
In a win for Verizon, the FCC Wireless Bureau absolved the carrier Monday of requirements that it has faced since 2008 to unlock the handsets of subscribers, showing the agency's complete turnaround on the issue under Chairman Brendan Carr. The action was taken by the bureau without a commissioner vote and initially announced by Carr on X.
The U.K.’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) announced Friday that it has decided to allow the use of outdoor and higher-power Wi-Fi devices in the lower 6 GHz band, provided that they're controlled by an automated frequency coordination system. Ofcom also said it plans to award mobile licenses in “high density” areas of the U.K. in the upper band. While it's a more constrained approach than the U.S., where all 1,200 MHz of the band is available for unlicensed use, Wi-Fi advocates told us that Ofcom’s policy calls were a victory for their side.