Fiber and fixed wireless are expected to keep eroding the dominant market share of cable in North American broadband in the coming years, Dell'Oro Group's Jeff Heynen said Wednesday at a Fiber Broadband Association webinar. Cable had been dismissive of how resilient fixed-wireless access (FWA) would be as a competitor, but the industry has now accepted that a lot of its subscriber losses are due to FWA, Heynen said.

The advent of AI means that everything is changing for the telecom industry, Qualcomm Chief Information Officer Atilla Tinic said Wednesday at the Mobile World Congress in Las Vegas. AI was again the main topic of keynote discussions on the second day of the conference (see 2510140041), which is co-sponsored by CTIA and GSMA.

Experts warned Wednesday that there are no easy answers to shoring up the USF and making predictable funding available for years to come. During a Broadband Breakfast webinar, panelists noted that some federal funding is disappearing, with FCC commissioners voting 2-1 last month to delete support for school bus Wi-Fi and internet hot spots that aren't on school or library premises (see 2509300051).

The U.S. “faces a fork in the road” on wireless, and the spectrum that will be made available under the reconciliation package “comes none too soon,” new CTIA President Ajit Pai said Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress in Las Vegas. Pai warned that a lot of work remains to get more licensed spectrum in play. “Identifying bands and setting an ambitious target is not the same as making spectrum available.”

The broadband industry was already having trouble finding qualified workers, and the seemingly imminent release of BEAD funds to states could exacerbate that, according to workforce experts. "I'm scared to death" that the industry won't be able to build a stable, well-trained workforce but will focus on "warm bodies [and] quickie" on-the-job training (OJT), said Deborah Kish, the Fiber Broadband Association's vice president of research and workforce development, during the group's webinar Tuesday. "Quickie OJT doesn't work" as a long-term strategy, she said.

Much of the discussion Tuesday was on AI during the Day 1 keynote addresses at the Mobile World Congress in Las Vegas (see 2510140032), just as it was a dominant theme for the MWC earlier this year in Barcelona (see 2503200051). Speakers agreed that the wireless industry will play a major role as AI unfolds.

As the FCC looks at revising or doing away with its dual network and local TV rules, MVPDs told us they're likely to object along familiar lines about broadcaster consolidation tipping the balance of power in retransmission consent negotiations. FCC commissioners unanimously approved a 2022 quadrennial review NPRM in September that asks whether the local TV and dual network rules remain necessary (see 2509300062).

The FCC appears unlikely to make any moves to enforce the data privacy rules approved under the Biden administration, which were recently upheld by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, industry experts said Friday. Last week, the panel that decided the case agreed to hold it in abeyance pending the FCC’s review of the 2023 order, as the agency requested. The panel ordered the FCC to file status reports every 60 days, with the first due Dec. 16.

Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., said Thursday that he opposes language in the Senate's FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act version (S-2296) that would give the DOD and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman authority to essentially veto commercial use of the 3.1-3.45 and 7.4-8.4 GHz bands. Hudson said during a Punchbowl News event that his next priority as Communications chair will be to enact legislation aimed at easing broadband permitting rules, despite Democrats’ recent criticism of a mostly GOP-led set of proposals during a Sept. 18 hearing (see 2509180069).