U.S. broadband speeds continue to increase, Ookla said Monday. In the first half of 2025, 60% or more of Speedtest users in 38 states and the District of Columbia saw at least 100/20 Mbps service, up from 22 states and D.C. in the second half of 2024, it said. The states that had the best results, with 70% or more of fixed users getting at least 100/20 service, were Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, North Dakota and Rhode Island. Ookla also said that when it specifically looked at Starlink subscribers, rural users got better speeds than their urban counterparts in 26 out of 50 states. South Dakota fared best for Starlink service, with 37.1% of those users getting at least 100/20 Mbps speeds, followed by Maine with 35.3%.

The FCC's draft incarcerated people’s communications services (IPCS) order, which is set for a vote Tuesday, will vastly increase costs for the families of inmates, is based on questionable evidence, and doesn’t address legal questions about the Wireline Bureau’s June suspension of the agency’s existing IPCS deadlines and requirements (see 2506300068), said Worth Rises and the United Church of Christ Media Justice Office during a press call Monday. By raising rate caps and incorporating facility security costs into the price of calls, the draft item would force the families of incarcerated people to “pay for their own surveillance,” said UCC attorney Cheryl Leanza.

The Consumer Technology Association acknowledges “the seriousness of the strategic challenge posed by China” and is aware of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s concerns about Chinese tech and national security, the trade group said in an ex parte filing documenting a meeting Wednesday between CTA CEO Gary Shapiro and Carr. “For decades, [Shapiro] has highlighted the potential negative impact of America’s reliance on imported Chinese goods and inputs,” it said. CTA urged the FCC to take “a measured approach that safeguards security while preserving innovation,” the filing added. “CTA shares Chairman Carr’s concerns about the impact of the ongoing government shutdown on device certifications and looks forward to working with him to find a solution to benefit manufacturers and consumers.”

The FCC's proposed changes to its revoke-all robocall rule show that the agency sees the problems with the regulation, Klein Moynihan telecommunications lawyer David Klein blogged last week. The caller ID further NPRM on the FCC's October agenda proposes dialing back the rule, which lets consumers revoke consent using any "reasonable means." The NPRM would drop that ambiguous standard from the regulation, Klein said.

More than 1 million locations could remain unserved once BEAD is completed, even as states and territories are likely spending only about $21 billion of the $42 billion they have been allocated, New York Law School's Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute (ACLP) said in a pair of reports last week.

The FCC is moving forward on proceedings to withdraw accredited test lab recognition for labs that the agency says the Chinese government has some ownership or control over. It started proceedings in September to remove the recognition (see 2509080058), and a number of the labs argued against loss of accreditation, saying their operations were independent or adhered to testing lab quality standards (see 2510170024). However, the commission's Office of Engineering and Technology rejected those arguments in a series of orders Friday, saying the People's Republic of China is a prohibited entity, and FCC rules are clear that it will withdraw recognition of any lab owned by or subject to the direction of a prohibited entity.

The FCC should rescind the post-Salt Typhoon cyberattack declaratory ruling it made in January, which requires carriers to secure their networks against unlawful access and interception, said CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom in an ex parte filing posted Thursday. The trade groups filed a petition for reconsideration of the ruling in February (see 2502190081).

It's concerning that the FCC's further NPRM on broadband labeling, which is on the agency's October meeting agenda, doesn't address concerns about whether providers are complying with the rule or ask how the label can be improved, tech policy groups told Commissioner Oliva Trusty's office. In a docket 22-2 ex parte filing Thursday, they criticized the draft FNPRM for focusing solely on weakening requirements.

Amazon Web Services inexplicably gets a pass on the regulatory standards that far smaller enterprises such as telecom providers work under, Strand Consult's John Strand wrote Tuesday. AWS consistently lobbies against requirements for it to financially support more accessible and resilient access networks, including investments in broadband infrastructure and connectivity vouchers for low-income users, he said. There's a discussion to be had about whether AWS operates "a parallel internet" of fiber-optic backbones, routers and interconnection points and "whether these elements constitute 'telecommunications' under U.S. law." AWS likely is already eligible to contribute to USF but doesn't due to FCC forbearance, which lets AWS claim a self-provider exemption, he noted.

The FCC should “reverse course” on superseding and suspending its 2024 incarcerated people’s communications services (IPCS) order (see 2506300068), said the United Church of Christ, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, the Pennsylvania Prison Society and other justice reform groups in a letter posted Tuesday in docket 23-62. Evidence in the record shows that jails that providers said would lose service because of the 2024 order haven’t, the letter said. Continued reliance on claims that jails have lost service due to the 2024 order would be “arbitrary and capricious.” It's also arbitrary and capricious for the FCC to vote on the draft IPCS order slated for the Oct. 28 meeting without first taking up the pending application for review challenging the bureau-level suspension of the 2024 order, the groups said, because they address similar issues. “Given that the Commission has considered substantively a number of issues in its order, it is the height of arbitrary and capricious behavior for the Commission to fail to grant or deny the Application, at least as to the issues it will address if the Draft Order is adopted.”