Telecom carriers are changing how they work together and cooperating on making application programmable interfaces (APIs) available to customers, speakers said Thursday during a TelecomTV conference. They also warned that while carriers are anxious to find new business lines, much about how the future will look remains unclear.
Chairman Charlie Ergen and others from EchoStar met with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and his aides to emphasize that the company didn’t want to sell its spectrum licenses to AT&T and SpaceX (see 2509090036) but was left with little choice, according to an ex parte filing posted Thursday. Meanwhile, EchoStar and AT&T jointly defended the deal in a separate filing posted Thursday in docket 25-303.
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.
California’s continuing interest in VoIP regulation is a concern, and the lack of FCC preemption of state VoIP oversight is proving to be a problem, speakers said Wednesday at a vCon conference about AI and telecom issues. Also at the event, Ecommerce Innovation Alliance (EIA) President David Carter said the e-commerce industry, faced with rocketing amounts of “shakedown litigation" about texts sent during quiet hours, is anxiously hoping that the FCC will act soon on the group's 9-month-old petition for a declaratory ruling (see 2503030036). An agency affirmation that prior consumer consent means those texts don’t violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) “should have been a no-brainer,” Carter said.
Satellite-based internet is unavoidable as part of the BEAD program, speakers agreed Wednesday during a Broadband Breakfast webinar. Steven Hill, president of the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association, and David Zumwalt, president of WISPA, downplayed concerns that BEAD will lead to “two tiers” of broadband, with fiber on top and other alternatives not as good. While most BEAD money is still expected to fund fiber, as much as 15% will pay for fixed wireless and 20% for low earth orbit satellite broadband, speakers said.
House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said Wednesday that he's demanding that CBS News Ombudsman Kenneth Weinstein investigate whether President Donald Trump improperly influenced and coerced the network’s editing of a 60 Minutes interview that aired in early November.
The House Commerce Committee advanced the American Broadband Deployment Act (HR-2289) Wednesday by a closer-than-expected 26-24 party-line vote, with unified Democratic opposition and a smattering of Republican absences at that point in the markup session. The panel also unanimously advanced the Broadband and Telecommunications Rail Act (HR-6046) and five other bipartisan connectivity bills, as expected (see 2512020063).
The FCC will be expanding its rule deletion efforts in 2026, tackling more items at open meetings and focusing on churning out orders stemming from the many NPRMs it issued in 2025, said Chairman Brendan Carr and bureau and 10th-floor staff at a Practising Law Institute event Wednesday. “I think you’re going to see even more results in getting to orders here in the second year” of his chairmanship, Carr said during a Q&A.
AT&T became the latest carrier to reassure FCC Chairman Brendan Carr that it's moving away from any trace of diversity, equity and inclusion in its hiring and other practices. Verizon and T-Mobile previously made similar promises to win favor with the FCC and approval of transactions before the agency. Commissioner Anna Gomez warned AT&T that appeasing President Donald Trump's administration carries reputational risks.
NTIA is going to look into excessive screen use in schools by youths, with an eye toward what federal policies and incentives might be contributing to the problem, NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth said Tuesday at a Free State Foundation event. NTIA will also look at what market dynamics and marketing efforts are driving excessive screen use, she said.