California faces higher-than-expected construction costs as it works to complete the state’s middle-mile network, said Mark Monroe, deputy director-California Technology Department (CDT) Broadband Middle-Mile Initiative, at a partly virtual California Broadband Council meeting Thursday. And many more miles of fiber will be needed than originally planned, he said. Other state broadband officials said it’s important to keep funding the federal affordable connectivity program (ACP) as California makes gains enrolling households.

AT&T is working with the EPA to address questions about its legacy lead-sheathed telecom cable (see 2307210004) but questions the health risk to the public, CEO John Stankey said Wednesday as the company reported Q2 results. In April, AT&T’s stock price fell more than 10% after free cash flow (FCF) was below analyst expectations. AT&T reported FCF of $4.2 billion, up $1 billion in the first-half of 2023 compared with last year, and projected full-year FCF of $16 billion or better. AT&T’s stock price rose less than 1% Wednesday, closing at $14.90.

House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., is eyeing how to move forward on her Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining Act (HR-1338) after the chamber failed to pass the FCC licensing revamp measure Tuesday under suspension of the rules. Meanwhile, the panel is set to mark up the NTIA Reauthorization Act (HR-4510) and two other Communications Subcommittee-cleared bills Thursday. The House Appropriations Committee is eyeing a potential markup this week of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee’s FY 2024 funding bill, which would end advance money to CPB beginning in FY 2026 (see 2307140069), subpanel Chairman Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., told us.

Congress needs to establish a national commission to license and audit AI companies, Senate Privacy Subcommittee Chairman Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Tuesday.

Massachusetts advocates are optimistic about making jail and prison calls free in this year’s state budget, they said in interviews this week. Legislators, who are a month late passing the budget, heard testimony on a stand-alone no-cost calls bill at a Joint Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday. If lawmakers can quickly finish the job, call costs will be “one less thing I have to worry about,” said Joanna Levesque, an advocate whose partner is incarcerated in Massachusetts.

Verizon added 384,000 fixed wireless access customers in Q2, with 8,000 net postpaid phone adds, as the carrier Tuesday became the first of the big three wireless providers to report. Despite questions about legacy lead-sheathed telecom cables used by Verizon (see 2307210004), the company maintained its full-year earnings and revenue guidance. Officials said it's too early to estimate the cost of lead remediation. AT&T reports Wednesday.

The FCC remains focused on the lower 3 GHz band for commercial use and will consider an auction of spectrum remaining, or returned, from past auctions when its auction authority is restored, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Tuesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The U.S. must lead the world on 5G, which is critical to the U.S. economy and to export democratic values “to the rest of the world,” she said. Rosenworcel spoke with Clete Johnson, CSIS senior fellow.

Congress should continue to fund the affordable connectivity program, the FCC may not be the right entity to regulate AI and the agency's spectrum auction authority should be restored, said former FCC chairs and commissioners at the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council’s 2023 virtual Former Chairs’ Symposium Tuesday. Panelists -- including former acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn and former Chairman Richard Wiley -- also discussed diversity, the failed Standard/Tegna deal, and the confirmation of nominee Anna Gomez. Gomez is “a mainstream Democrat” who will “work well on a bipartisan basis,” said former Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. “She’s not particularly ideological even though she’s been a strong fighter.”

The FBI’s circumvention of court orders by purchasing cellphone data "violates the spirit of the Constitution,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told us Thursday.

The U.S. Supreme Court should “unequivocally abandon” the contemporary Chevron deference doctrine “because it contradicts Articles I, II, and III of the Constitution,” said an amicus brief (docket 22-451) in support of the petitioners in Loper Bright v. Raimondo submitted Monday by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., and 34 other Republican members of Congress.