While the FCC saw lukewarm interest from terrestrial wireless players in greater access to the 42-42.5 GHz band (see 22308310053), the agency might find more enthusiasm from satellite interests, satellite spectrum experts tell us. The agency's May 22 meeting agenda will see it voting on a Further NPRM that proposes allowing more intensive satcom use of the 12.7 and 42 GHz bands, either as an alternative or complement to terrestrial wireless (see 2505010037). Some satellite operators are pushing the FCC to broaden the discussion to include the 51.4-52.4 GHz band.

Steps that EU countries are taking to protect data have major implications for the telecom sector, software provider CSG's Sean Casey said Thursday during a Mobile World Live webinar. Other speakers said geopolitical considerations are playing a big role in how carriers manage their move to the cloud and regulators are forced to pay more attention to where data is stored.

Broadcasters are poised to execute a rush of mergers and acquisitions if the FCC relaxes ownership rules, but uncertainty about markets, the direction regulators may take and the future of broadcast networks could influence deal-making, broadcast brokers said in interviews this week. The agency's failure to relax ownership rules could spur a wave of bankruptcies, they said. “The industry is crying out for some relief, and it really deserves some relief, because we can't compete with the giant companies that we're forced to compete with now,” Media Services Group co-founder George Reed said. Tideline Partners Managing Partner Gregory Guy said “2025 is the most fundamentally important year for broadcasters in decades.”

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chair Deb Fischer, R-Neb., doubled down Thursday on her opposition to the House Commerce Committee’s budget reconciliation package spectrum language (see 2505120058), saying it didn’t adequately protect DOD-controlled bands. House Commerce voted Wednesday to advance the measure, which would restore the FCC’s lapsed auction authority through FY 2034 and mandate the commission auction 600 MHz within six years (see 2505140062).

Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.

The Trump administration’s tariffs will affect the cost of network equipment used in building BEAD projects, but they aren’t the program's biggest challenge, experts said Wednesday during a Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition webinar.

NextNav on Wednesday called on the FCC to move forward with an NPRM looking at its proposal for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) in the 902-928 MHz band as an alternative to GPS. Others urged the FCC to encourage multiple alternatives as a backup to GPS. Reply comments were due Wednesday on a notice of inquiry that commissioners approved 4-0 in March (see 2503270042). Numerous commenters sharply criticized the NextNav proposal.

The vast private capital investment in fiber is focused almost exclusively on getting it into the hands of the major wireless carriers since that is seen as a safer investment, Ting CEO Elliot Noss said Wednesday. Speaking at an American Association for Public Broadband and New America conference in Washington, he said municipal broadband projects can't count on private equity financing. Municipal broadband network operators also said a big challenge is constant lobbying attacks by large for-profit incumbents.

The FCC said in a release Wednesday that it has saved more than $567 million via cuts to contracts in an internal effort coordinated with the Department of Government Efficiency, but experts said those numbers may be misleading.

House Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., told us Tuesday night that he doesn’t see it as a setback that several Senate Commerce Committee Republicans want to pursue alternatives to parts of the House panel’s budget reconciliation package spectrum proposal (see 2505120058), even as some congressional DOD supporters raised their own objections to the measure. House Commerce cleared its spectrum and AI reconciliation language early Wednesday on a party-line, 29-24 vote after Democrats unsuccessfully floated a handful of amendments that reflected their objection to using future FCC auction proceeds as an offset for extending the 2017 tax cuts and other GOP priorities.