While 5G network slicing has gotten the most attention, it hasn’t proved to be successful in most cases, and fiber slicing may have more promise, said Nick Saporito, executive director at GFiber Labs, during a Fiber Broadband Association webinar Wednesday. Also at the event, FBA CEO Gary Bolton said early indications show that fiber will play an important role in the restructured BEAD program.

The cable ISP industry has assembled a coalition of senior executives to combat vandalism and other damage to communications networks. Chairing the Strategic Threat Response & Infrastructure Knowledge Exchange (STRIKE) is Comcast Chief Network Officer Elad Nafshi. Tom Monaghan, Charter Communications' executive vice president of field operations, is vice chairman. NCTA and CableLabs subsidiary SCTE, which are spearheading STRIKE, said members also include Altice USA, Cable One, Cox, Mediacom, Rogers and GCI.

The House Appropriations Committee was debating at our deadline Wednesday afternoon the Financial Services Subcommittee’s FY 2026 funding bill, which proposes to maintain the FCC’s annual allocation at $390.2 million (see 2507210064). Meanwhile, House Appropriations’ Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee voted 11-7 Tuesday to advance its FY26 funding bill, as expected, without language to restore the $1.1 billion for CPB that Congress clawed back in July via the 2025 Rescissions Act (see 2508290060).

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on Wednesday circulated two items targeting programs created under the Biden administration to fund Wi-Fi hot spots and Wi-Fi on school buses. Commissioner Anna Gomez immediately indicated she opposed cutting the programs, which have long been lightning rods for Republican objections.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and the Center for American Rights (CAR) have taken aim at CBS over edits to an interview featuring Noem, which aired Sunday on Face the Nation. In a release from the Department of Homeland Security the same day, Noem accused CBS of editing the interview to remove portions where she talked about criminal allegations against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration has repeatedly sought to deport.

Incarcerated people’s communications service (IPCS) providers and some public safety groups are leaning on the FCC not to rescind a Wireline Bureau order delaying some prison-calling deadlines until April 1, 2027. In a surprise move, the bureau postponed implementation deadlines that took effect in January and had been approved by commissioners last year (see 2506300068).

West Kentucky and Tennessee (WK&T) Telecommunications Cooperative CEO Karen Jackson-Furman and other witnesses plan to highlight for the House Small Business Committee their hopes for a restarted congressional working group’s bid for a USF legislative revamp (see 2507030051), according to written testimony released ahead of Wednesday's hearing on broadband deployment’s effect on rural entrepreneurs. Some urge lawmakers to continue addressing internet affordability as part of the USF revamp. Several of the witnesses also back Republicans’ bid to further ease permitting reviews of connectivity projects, including via the controversial American Broadband Deployment Act (see 2305240069). The House Small Business hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 2360 Rayburn.

EchoStar is asking the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to require the FCC to change rules in the AWS-3 auction order that commissioners approved in July (see 2507240055). In the order, the FCC rejected arguments by EchoStar, parent of Dish Network, that the agency should use the same designated entity (DE) rules in the reauction that it employed in the original (see 2507220033).

New Environmental Health Trust (EHT) President Joe Sandri said he wants to popularize the idea that, similar to how cars are marketed based on their safety, wireless services and devices can be sold based on their safety in terms of RF exposure. Sandri was a longtime telecom executive who headed FiberTower, which was bought by AT&T, and IDT Spectrum, which Verizon ultimately absorbed. “I know a lot … from the perspective of an industry player,” he said. He was picked for the top job at EHT in August.

The FCC unanimously approved an FY 2025 regulatory fee order Thursday that hewed closely to the agency’s June NPRM. The order, released Friday, reclassifies 61 indirect full-time equivalents (FTEs) as direct FTEs but rejects calls to create new categories of regulatory fee payors. The FCC will add a new fee category only when “significant FTE resources of a core bureau are being spent on oversight and regulatory activities with respect to a specific service,” the order said. “Such circumstances have not been presented here.” The order will take effect upon publication in the Federal Register, and fees will be due by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.