The cost of gigabit broadband service is anywhere from $15 to $40 a month more expensive when there's only a single gigabit provider, according to a study last week by the California Public Utilities Commission's Public Advocates Office. The study looked at the prices of stand-alone residential internet access charged by California’s four largest fixed providers in San Mateo, Oakland, Los Angeles and San Diego. The benchmark price for competitive broadband service in those markets averages about $51 a month, it said. When comparing locations with limited competition to those with overlapping gigabit networks, "Californians could save more than $1 billion annually if competitive pricing prevailed statewide."
Close to two dozen providers notified the FCC last week about possibly or actually having fallen short of Rural Deployment Opportunity Fund (RDOF) deployments that were to be completed by the end of 2025. Several said pole attachment and permitting woes were the hold-up or cited delays tied to the fall 2025 federal government shutdown and changes to the BEAD program. The RDOF notifications involved locations in at least 28 different states.
The FCC closed out the comment cycle last week for an NPRM on proposed changes to wireless infrastructure rules, with support from industry and continuing opposition from RF safety advocates and many local government groups (see 2601150043). Reply comments were due Thursday (docket 25-276) in response to the item, which commissioners approved 3-0 in September (see 2511250075), and there were still no signs of agreement among the different sides.
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.
Verizon and Frontier Communications are urging the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to reject calls by advocacy groups for what the carriers are calling "near-ubiquitous fiber buildout obligations and overreaching compliance measures." In reply comments posted Tuesday, the companies urged the CPUC to approve Verizon's proposed purchase of Frontier. The CPUC is scheduled to vote on it Thursday.
States have good ideas about AI regulation that the federal government shouldn’t try to block, said two state officials and a U.S. Senate Democratic staffer during a Federal Communications Bar Association panel Tuesday. In a separate session, however, telecom industry officials suggested that a “patchwork” of state AI requirements could be more difficult for businesses than dealing with today’s array of state privacy laws.
The House Communications Subcommittee’s FCC oversight hearing Wednesday is highly likely to echo the dynamics and most of the same topics that dominated an identical Senate Commerce Committee panel last month (see 2512170067 and 2512170070), lawmakers and lobbyists said in interviews. Democrats are expected to again place a major emphasis on castigating FCC Chairman Brendan Carr over his media regulatory actions, while Republicans are likely to defend Carr even more strongly than Senate Commerce GOP members and steer the hearing’s focus toward less controversial matters.
Argo Space is aiming to launch its Navigator reusable spacecraft in March, according to an FCC Space Bureau application Friday. The California-based startup asked for authorization for a prototype mission intended to verify Navigator's performance in low earth orbit and conduct maneuvers in medium earth orbit. Navigator is designed for in-space transportation and will use S-band frequencies for telemetry, tracking and control, Argo added.
California lawmakers are proposing to require that calls to 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline centers in the state be automatically routed to a LGBTQ+ suicide prevention specialist when the caller presses "3." Under AB-1540, introduced Monday, the state Office of Emergency Service would have until July 1, 2027, to ensure that technology is available to allow transfers of those calls between 988 centers and a subnetwork of LGBTQ+ specialized youth suicide prevention service providers. The state Health and Human Services Agency would have the same deadline for creating a Protecting Suicide Prevention Resources for LGBTQ+ Youth Fund grant program for entities that specialize in suicide prevention.
The California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) is urging the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to strengthen language about broadband infrastructure buildout in its proposed approval of Verizon's purchase of Frontier Communications. In a filing posted Monday, the digital divide nonprofit said CPUC Administrative Law Judge Elizabeth Fox's proposed approval of the deal (see 2512150008) includes ambiguous language about infrastructure buildout conditions.