A total of 180 Amazon Leo satellites were launched in 2025, it told the FCC Space Bureau last week. Three satellites were subsequently removed before beginning regular operations, it noted.
SpaceX is lowering roughly 4,800 satellites orbiting at about 550 kilometers to about 480 kilometers in the name of greater space safety, Vice President of Starlink Engineering Michael Nicolls wrote Thursday on social media. The lowering will happen over the course of 2026 and is "being tightly coordinated" with other satellite operators, regulators and U.S. Space Command, he said. Lowering the satellites "results in condensing Starlink orbits, and will increase space safety," because the amount of space debris and planned satellite constellations is notably less below 500 km, meaning a smaller aggregate likelihood of collision.
Broadcaster consortium Pearl TV has launched a new effort to create “affordable, basic” converter boxes to allow ATSC 3.0 signals to be received on existing non-3.0-capable TVs, it said in a news release Friday. Although 3.0 converter boxes are already commercially available, the Pearl TV program is aimed at creating lower-cost models, in line with the low-cost converters sold during the digital TV transition, a spokesperson told us.
Eliminating some of the requirements that the FCC has proposed to slash in its broadband labels further NPRM is ill-conceived, said Jon Peha, a former FCC chief technologist and professor at Carnegie Mellon University, in comments last week in docket 22-2 (see 2512290038). A consumer can’t “make an informed decision about whether to keep … current service or switch to another service unless the customer can see the label associated with that current service,” Peha said. The FCC should “require ISPs to display the label in the online account portal, and to clarify that the label should be updated when the customer’s plan changes.”
Georgia wireless ISP SmartWave Technologies urged the FCC last week to protect operations in the citizens broadband radio service band in response to a request by Brownsville, Texas, for an FCC waiver to operate a city network that uses the band at higher power levels than allowed by agency rules (see 2511250015). In a filing in docket 17-258, SmartWave noted that it doesn’t hold priority access licenses and depends on the use of general authorized access spectrum. “The predictable access to GAA channels, combined with the established CBRS technical rules, enables us to deliver consistent service that would be difficult, and in some areas impossible, to replicate with other spectrum options at reasonable cost.”
Dish Wireless' 2021 service colocation agreement (SCA) with American Tower doesn't require Dish to keep making payments for tower space that's no longer usable due to "the FCC’s unprecedented and unforeseeable regulatory actions," EchoStar subsidiary Dish said last week. In an answer to American Tower's complaint (docket 1:25-cv-03311), Dish told the U.S. District Court for Colorado that the FCC's actions "were unrelated" to any of EchoStar's FCC obligations and forced "the involuntary sale and loss of the necessary spectrum licenses essential to Defendant’s wireless network operations." American Tower is suing Dish, which said it would no longer make payments under the terms of the companies' tower lease agreement (see 2510280038). Crown Castle is similarly suing Dish (see 2511260013).
The FCC Wireline Bureau on Friday approved an interconnected VoIP numbering authorization sought by DayStarr. The FCC sought comment on the application last month (see 2512020045).
The Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector, aka Team Telecom, told the FCC this week that it’s starting a review of Interactive’s proposed purchase of customers, network gear and other assets from TelNet. No one filed comments on the transaction when the Wireline Bureau requested them (see 2512050020). “The Committee will not be sending further Tailored Questions to the Applicant before starting the 120-day initial review period,” said a filing Wednesday in docket 25-189.
If the U.S. Supreme Court rejects President Donald Trump’s firing of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and defies conventional wisdom (see 2512080047), it would go a long way to counter the prevailing view that the court is doing Trump’s bidding regardless of the law, argued Peter Shane, chair in law emeritus at Ohio State University, in Friday's Washington Monthly. If SCOTUS upholds the firing, Trump could also fire members of the FCC with whom he disagrees, including Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr faces a tough decision in 2026 on whether to push forward with rules that would allow prison officials to jam cellphone signals, with no easy answer in sight, industry officials said. The proposal in a further NPRM faces a tidal wave of opposition from wireless companies and associations but has the backing of many correctional groups and officials in mainly Republican-dominated states (see 2512300043).