Somos urged the FCC in a filing posting Thursday to make changes to its numbering rules, consistent with the agency’s “Delete, Delete, Delete” proceeding. The company also has a petition before the commission asking it to alter how phone numbers are assigned and move away from its legacy systems to an IP environment (see 2601090040). The FCC shut down the North American Numbering Council last year (see 2506240074).
Groups representing local governments filed FCC comments accusing the wireless industry of distorting the record on the real issues that carriers face in wireless siting. Reply comments were due Thursday (docket 25-276) in response to the FCC’s wireless infrastructure NPRM, which commissioners approved in September (see 2511250075). RF safety advocates continued to flood the record with objections as well.
A Verizon representative apologized to subscribers Thursday after an outage cut service to tens of thousands of its wireless customers across the country Wednesday (see 2601140050). It's also offering a $20 credit to customers who lost service. In an email Wednesday night, a spokesperson said the outage had been resolved and customers still having problems should restart their devices to reconnect to the network.
Representatives of the Industry Traceback Group (ITG) provided preliminary observations on its work in 2025 in an FCC filing posted Thursday in docket 17-59. Since 2020, tracebacks “increasingly end with providers identified as U.S.-based,” rather than foreign-based, the ITG said. More than 30 new providers are identified in tracebacks on average each month, and last year, 110 U.S. and 82 non-U.S. providers failed to respond to traceback requests, it said. “Patterns of repeated and overlapping relationships may indicate intentional strategic obfuscation rather than isolated incidents.”
The FCC sought comment Thursday on a proposal to transfer telecom assets from Hayneville Telephone and Hayneville Fiber to Synergy. Hayneville Telephone is an incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) providing traditional voice, long-distance and broadband services to rural customers in central Alabama, the Wireline Bureau said. Synergy, a subsidiary of Western Kentucky Rural Telephone Co-op, is based in Tennessee and is the parent of Ardmore Telephone Co., an ILEC serving customers in Alabama and Tennessee. Comments are due Jan. 29, replies Feb. 5, in docket 25-312.
Alpine Group’s Greg Walden, a former House Commerce Committee GOP leader whose clients include NextNav, told us Thursday that he's meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill advocating in favor of the company’s petition for the FCC to reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band to enable a “terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing (see 2404160043). The Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies and other public safety groups have raised interference concerns about the NextNav proposal (see 2511210022).
Best Best localities lawyer Gerry Lederer pushed back Wednesday night against comments from Wireless Infrastructure Association CEO Patrick Halley that the American Broadband Deployment Act (HR-2289) represents a “partnership between industry and local government” aimed at easing connectivity permitting processes (see 2601090064). The House Commerce Committee in December advanced HR-2289, which combined language from 22 GOP-led connectivity permitting bills, by a closer-than-expected 26-24 party-line vote (see 2512030031). It would, in part, set a 150-day shot clock for states and localities to approve new deployments and a 90-day window for modifications to existing infrastructure.
A group of press freedom and civil liberties groups, including several that commonly work on FCC matters, issued a joint statement Thursday condemning an FBI search of a Washington Post reporter’s home. Signatories included Free Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, the Radio Television Digital News Association, the Media and Democracy Project, the Newsguild sector of the Communications Workers of America, the American Civil Liberties Union and others. The FBI searched reporter Hannah Natanson’s home Wednesday in connection with an investigation into leaks of classified information.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., is continuing to push for some of the public broadcasting funding that Congress rescinded last year to return as part of an FY 2026 appropriations minibus bill currently under negotiation (see 2601080070), but lawmakers and observers see diminishing chances that will succeed. Meanwhile, Congress continued Wednesday night and Thursday to advance separate FY26 appropriations packages that would fund the FCC and NTIA.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted unanimously Thursday to approve Verizon's purchase of Frontier Communications. The deal represents “a major shift” in the communications competitive landscape in California, CPUC President Alice Reynolds said. A lot of Frontier's network in the state needs investment, particularly in rural and tribal areas, and Verizon will bring that, she said. She and other commissioners repeatedly cited what they called significant commitments that Verizon made for broadband deployment, digital equity, service quality, discounted service for low-income households and labor protections.