The Ecommerce Innovation Alliance updated the FCC last week on its request for a declaratory ruling that people who provide prior express written consent to receive text messages can't claim damages under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for those received outside the hours of 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. (see 2503030036).

Oppenheimer downgraded T-Mobile on Friday from "outperform” to "perform," citing concern that the carrier will have a tough time beating subscriber and free cash flow estimates after a decade of share gains and margin expansion. The wireless industry “price war will hurt flowshare and margins," Oppenheimer said in a note to investors. "Competitive intensity is high but will increase with [T-Mobile] having the most to lose."

The fight continues at the FCC over a NextNav proposal asking the regulator to reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band to enable a “terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) and a Pericle study on potential interference filed by the Security Industry Association (see 2510230041).

The FCC may approve Verizon's request to remove the handset-unlocking requirement that the carrier agreed to, but that may not completely address the carrier’s long-standing problems with subscriber churn, New Street’s Blair Levin said Thursday in a note to investors. The FCC sought comment last year on broad unlocking rules, while Verizon has asked the agency to remove its own unique mandate, which was a provision of its acquisition of Tracfone and purchase of 700 MHz C-block licenses in a 2008 auction (see 2507090030).

Direct-to-device service will have a worldwide total addressable market of $33 billion to $40 billion annually by 2030, Mach33 said Wednesday. It said its modeling shows that rather than being focused on high-income markets, most of the demand would be in "large, middle-income regions where hundreds of millions of users experience meaningful coverage gaps at any one time." Africa and Asia account for more than half of the global addressable market, it added.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told reporters Thursday that concerns remain around the cyber trust mark program and possible ties to China. Carr mentioned UL Solutions, which was designated as the lead administrator during the Biden administration. “As a general matter, I think if you’re going to have a U.S. cyber trust mark administrator, it needs to be pretty clean in terms of concerns about ties back into China.” Asked if the FCC might choose a different administrator, Carr said the agency was examining its options.

Small wireless interests are pushing back on plans by AST SpaceMobile, AT&T and Verizon to offer supplemental coverage from space service that doesn't reach the entire continental U.S. The requested CONUS coverage waivers could create interference risks for rural carriers and exclude them from SCS participation, the Competitive Carriers Association argued in its opposition to AST and the carriers' joint application. The group's filing, posted Wednesday (docket 25-201), said waiving the requirement that service cover all CONUS would force primary licensees to prove that it's causing them interference, instead of requiring the applicants to show how they will protect the primary service licensees.

Four major public safety groups on Wednesday opposed a NextNav proposal for the FCC to reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band to enable a “terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT).

The FCC Wireless Bureau on Wednesday extended the comment deadlines on the Alaska Connect Fund eligible-areas map and performance plan template. Comments were previously due Oct. 31, replies Nov. 14. The new deadlines are Dec. 4 for initial comments, Dec. 19 for replies, in docket 23-328.

The wireless market is highly competitive, but T-Mobile likes how it’s positioned, said Jon Freier, president of the carrier's consumer group, at a Wells Fargo conference late Tuesday. Freier noted that T-Mobile recently updated its guidance to predict 3.3 million net postpaid phone adds this year, up from 2.95 million to 3.1 million, which speaks to growth in the current quarter. “We're feeling really good about that momentum, the overall switching dynamic that's happening in the marketplace and our ability to compete very effectively.”