The California Public Utilities Commission voted Thursday to start a rulemaking to update the state's Lifeline program. CPUC had been scheduled to vote that day on submitting the state's final BEAD proposal to NTIA (see 2511180007), but that was delayed until the agency's Dec. 18 meeting.
A state law barring the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) from sharing information about Lifeline program subscribers with other government agencies, including immigration authorities, means the state can no longer do its own Lifeline subscriber verifications, according to the FCC. The Wireline Bureau ordered Thursday that the state could no longer opt out of using the National Lifeline Accountability Database (NLAD) federal verification system. "Going forward, federal processes will be used to conduct eligibility verifications and perform duplicate checks for federal Lifeline program applicants in California."
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez and top Democrats on the House and Senate Communications subcommittees raised concerns Wednesday night and Thursday about a draft executive order that would direct NTIA to potentially curtail non-deployment BEAD funding for states that the Trump administration determines have AI laws that are overly burdensome (see 2511190069). Gomez questioned the legality of a provision in the draft order directing the FCC to consider adopting a national standard for AI models that preempts state laws.
Citing a California law barring the state from collecting Social Security numbers or sharing data with the federal government, the FCC said Thursday that it was suspending California's ability to run its own Lifeline verification program. Instead, the state will have to go through the federal Lifeline verification system, the commission said. A spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) didn't immediately comment.
Final BEAD proposals from 18 states and territories have been approved, NTIA said Tuesday. They are Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia, Wyoming, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. One of those, Louisiana, has signed the National Institute of Standards and Technology award amendment, letting the state start accessing BEAD funds, NTIA added.
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.
The FCC began to restart operations Thursday that were suspended during the government shutdown (see 2509300060) but immediately extended most post-shutdown deadlines in a bid to control the anticipated avalanche of filings. The agency furloughed 81% of its staff when the shutdown began Oct. 1 (see 2510010065). FCC staff and industry attorneys had raised alarms about what they saw as unclear filing requirements (see 2510160044). The 42-day shutdown, the longest in modern U.S. history, ended late Wednesday night when President Donald Trump signed a legislative package that restored federal appropriations at FY 2025 levels through Jan. 30.
As the longest federal government shutdown in history likely nears an end, industry lawyers who depend on FCC decisions said there’s no question the companies they represent have taken a hit. Among the biggest problems, they said, are that everything the FCC has done has taken longer, while some transactions and license applications aren’t being processed with key systems offline.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., confirmed Thursday that she won't seek reelection to the San Francisco-based seat she has held for 20 terms, potentially paving the way for California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D), who has focused on tech and telecom policy issues, to succeed her. Pelosi led the House for four terms, from 2007-11 and 2019-23, most recently when Democrats had a majority in the chamber. She relinquished her leadership role at the beginning of the last Congress to now-Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
Generative AI platform Midjourney, Disney, Comcast and Warner Bros. Discovery have agreed to consolidate the two suits brought by the content companies against Midjourney, according to a joint stipulation to consolidate filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court for Central California (docket 2:25-cv-05275). Both suits accuse Midjourney of direct and secondary copyright infringement by using content owned by the companies' studios to train its AI models (see 2510080029).