A draft further NPRM proposing the relaxation of some FCC requirements for broadband labels is expected to be approved at the agency’s Oct. 28 meeting, but it isn’t yet clear how Commissioner Anna Gomez will vote on it.

The U.S. is at a “crossroads” concerning the standards process, and decisions made in the next two years could have big effects for a long time, said Laurie Locascio, CEO of the American National Standards Institute, during a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference Friday. Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions CEO Susan Miller warned that as the process becomes more political, the Trump administration isn’t putting enough attention on standards work.

Eric Tamarkin, Samsung's public policy counsel, called on the FCC to move forward to fully implement the voluntary cyber trust mark program, approved by FCC commissioners 5-0 in March 2024 (see 2403140034). Tamarkin spoke during the final policy panel of the Mobile World Congress last week in Las Vegas.

The ongoing federal shutdown is causing anxiety and a lack of clarity for both FCC staff and industry attorneys, they told us in interviews. The FCC’s expectations for required filings during the shutdown are unclear, agency staffers are uncertain about when or if they will be paid, and less than two weeks remain before the Oct. 28 open meeting, which has the longest agenda the FCC has seen in years. Industry officials told us the shutdown could lead to some items being taken off the October agenda, but all three commissioners told us they're still taking meetings and calls on the planned items.

Changes to rules for how wireline is deployed, not just wireless, are important to Southern Linc, said Holly Henderson, its external affairs and compliance director, during a panel discussion this week at the Mobile World Congress in Las Vegas. Other speakers at the conference, which is sponsored by CTIA and GSMA, highlighted the importance of the upper C band to the wireless industry.

AT&T's purchase of EchoStar's 3.45 GHz and 600 MHz spectrum licenses won't reduce wireless competition, but instead it will make the two wireless providers "stronger and better able to compete in an increasingly competitive wireless marketplace," they told the FCC in a public interest statement posted Thursday (docket 25-303). The companies said the deal gives spectrum-constrained AT&T the spectrum it needs and takes care of the "overwhelming headwinds" that EchoStar faced at the FCC in trying to become a facilities-based nationwide carrier. AT&T and EchoStar announced the $23 billion spectrum deal in August (see 2508260005).

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

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).