NTIA is going to look into excessive screen use in schools by youths, with an eye toward what federal policies and incentives might be contributing to the problem, NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth said Tuesday at a Free State Foundation event. NTIA will also look at what market dynamics and marketing efforts are driving excessive screen use, she said.
The FCC's proposal to license submarine line terminal equipment (SLTE) owners and operators is facing strong opposition from the industry, according to comments posted Friday in docket 24-523. The commission in August adopted a submarine cable licensing further NPRM that proposed SLTE blanket licensing (see 2508070037).
U.S. Supreme Court justices in oral argument Monday repeatedly challenged and tested Cox Communications' claim that it bears no liability for online piracy by its broadband subscribers. Cox is challenging a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that upheld a lower court's contributory copyright infringement finding against the ISP (see 2408160034). The docket is 24-171.
The FCC seems likely to move toward looser spectrum-sharing rules between non-geostationary and geostationary orbit satellites, allowing for NGSOs to operate at higher equivalent power flux density (EPFD) levels, satellite and spectrum experts tell us. That could mean big momentum for NGSO efforts to get similar changes made at the 2027 World Radiocommunication Conference, we're told. The FCC chairman's office didn't comment.
EchoStar faces litigation from two tower companies over lease agreements from the now-ended nationwide wireless network buildout by its Dish Wireless subsidiary, but few if any other tower company suits are likely, said Ken Schmidt, president of Steel in the Air cell tower lease consultancy. American Tower and Crown Castle represented the vast bulk of Dish's wireless network deployment, and have substantially more to lose than other tower companies, Schmidt added.
A state law barring the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) from sharing information about Lifeline program subscribers with other government agencies, including immigration authorities, means the state can no longer do its own Lifeline subscriber verifications, according to the FCC. The Wireline Bureau ordered Thursday that the state could no longer opt out of using the National Lifeline Accountability Database (NLAD) federal verification system. "Going forward, federal processes will be used to conduct eligibility verifications and perform duplicate checks for federal Lifeline program applicants in California."
ORLANDO -- BEAD-related fiber deployments will face sizable data center competition for fiber-optic cabling, and the BEAD camp is likely to lose out, supply chain experts predicted this week at the Broadband Nation Expo.
Final BEAD proposals from 18 states and territories have been approved, NTIA said Tuesday. They are Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia, Wyoming, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. One of those, Louisiana, has signed the National Institute of Standards and Technology award amendment, letting the state start accessing BEAD funds, NTIA added.
ORLANDO -- BEAD projects face an array of potential complications and hurdles, from unanticipated rising costs to persistent problems of underserved locations being left out, speakers said this week at the annual Broadband Nation Expo. Like previous subsidized broadband deployment programs, BEAD projects will inevitably face inflation of labor and supply chain costs, WISPA President David Zumwalt said Tuesday. He said that could be a challenge for operators in their BEAD deployment plans, as there's not an escalator in the program's funding.
ORLANDO -- This year has already seen multiple blockbuster mergers and acquisitions in telecom, and the relatively modest levels of BEAD-related consolidation should start to heat up in 2026, said Jonathan Adelstein, TWN Communications' chief strategy and external affairs officer, at the annual Broadband Nation Expo on Monday. Pointing to such activity as Verizon/Frontier, AT&T/Lumen and regional deals, the former Wireless Infrastructure Association CEO said mobile network operators are interested in fiber. The state of BEAD had been unclear going into 2025, but now the rules seem set, and BEAD activity is picking up, he added.