Sinclair has purchased an 8.2% stake in E.W. Scripps as part of an effort to buy the entire company, Sinclair told the SEC in a filing Monday.
ORLANDO -- This year has already seen multiple blockbuster mergers and acquisitions in telecom, and the relatively modest levels of BEAD-related consolidation should start to heat up in 2026, said Jonathan Adelstein, TWN Communications' chief strategy and external affairs officer, at the annual Broadband Nation Expo on Monday. Pointing to such activity as Verizon/Frontier, AT&T/Lumen and regional deals, the former Wireless Infrastructure Association CEO said mobile network operators are interested in fiber. The state of BEAD had been unclear going into 2025, but now the rules seem set, and BEAD activity is picking up, he added.
FCC commissioners are expected to approve an NPRM Thursday to seek comment on rules for an upper C-band auction, most likely with a few tweaks from the draft notice that Chairman Brendan Carr circulated (see 2510290047), industry officials said Monday. The FCC has heard from various parties asking for questions to be added.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau has reached a $7,200 settlement with a Massachusetts pirate broadcaster, said an order and consent decree in Friday’s Daily Digest. The order was adopted Sept. 30, but its release was likely delayed by the federal shutdown. The FCC approved a $40,000 notice of apparent liability against Robert Bellinger of Cotuit, Massachusetts, in April 2024. According to Friday’s order, Bellinger asked the FCC to cancel the proposed forfeiture due to his inability to pay it, and the agency verified his financial information and confirmed that his unauthorized broadcasts have ceased. Under the terms of the settlement, he will have to pay the remaining $32,800 if he is found to be engaging in unauthorized broadcasts again in the next 20 years.
Free State Foundation President Randolph May said in a post on X Friday that he was asked to sign a recent petition against the FCC’s news distortion policy (see 2511130052) but declined because the document was too one-sided. “While I declined to sign the petition, I do favor elimination of the news distortion rule,” said May, a former assistant general counsel and associate general counsel at the FCC between 1978 and 1981. “It will be difficult to move forward until the signers acknowledge abuses occurred under previous Democrat FCCs.” The petition was signed by several former Republican FCC chairmen and commissioners. Former FCC aide Gigi Sohn, who represents the petitioners, said May didn't tell them he believed the petition was too one-sided when he declined to sign. May didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The National Association of Utility Consumer Advocates, the Utility Reform Network and other state interests protested FCC proposals to speed copper retirements and other network changes (see 2510010031) in reply comments posted Friday in docket 25-208. Also signing the filing were state regulators in Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland and Oregon.
Los Angeles County supports the Safer Buildings Coalition's request that the FCC launch a rulemaking on guidelines for getting consent from licensees to install signal boosters (see 2511130025), it said in comments filed Thursday in docket RM-12009. The county is “experiencing dynamic, wave-like rolling patterns on our public safety frequency spectrum,” the filing said. Interference is due to multiple public safety radios and bidirectional amplifier systems “interacting and adjusting their bandwidth usage in real-time, affecting over 500 known devices on our licensed spectrum.”
Airlines for America CEO Chris Sununu met with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr last week about his industry’s work with wireless carriers on protecting radio altimeters in the upper C band. Sununu asked the agency to allow more time for comments than is proposed in a draft NPRM, set for a vote Thursday.
EchoStar’s Dish Wireless filed at the FCC a third amended petition for designation as an eligible telecommunications carrier in the federal default states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire and North Carolina, as well as the District of Columbia and all federally recognized tribal areas. The petition, posted Friday in docket 09-197, “amends and replaces in its entirety” a petition from April 2024, Dish said. Granting the ETC designation “serves the public interest because the Company is well-positioned to make wireless broadband services more robust and more affordable to low-income consumers.”
The FCC Wireline Bureau partially granted Copper Valley Telephone Co-op's requested review of a Universal Service Administrative Co. decision that the Alaskan provider wasn't in compliance. But in a docket 10-90 order Friday, the bureau said USAC nonetheless is to proceed with recovering more than $1.5 million in high-cost support from Copper Valley. USAC sought recovery of $1,547,112 in 2018 due to two findings of noncompliance related to affiliate transactions between Copper Valley and its Copper Valley Long Distance. The bureau said Friday it agreed with Copper Valley that its transactions with a subsidiary didn't violate FCC rules, but Copper Valley incorrectly recorded the interexchange transport service purchased from its affiliate. Copper Valley inflated operating expenses, and USAC is to proceed with recovering $1,526,960 in high-cost support, the order said.