An estimated 6 billion people were online in 2025, up from a revised estimate of 5.8 billion in 2024, ITU said in a report released Monday. Some 2.2 billion people remain offline, fewer than the estimated 2.3 billion in 2024. Last year, 5G covered about 55% of people worldwide, “reflecting strong momentum in advanced mobile technologies.” But, ITU found, only 4% of people in low-income countries had access to 5G, compared with 84% in high-income countries.
FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty emphasized the importance of cutting red tape for building infrastructure Monday in a speech to the ITU’s World Telecommunication Development Conference in Azerbaijan. “Connectivity flourishes under pro-market policies that foster mutually beneficial innovation,” she said.
The FCC announced new deadlines Monday for a host of filings and filing categories delayed by the federal shutdown. The public notice superseded previous deadlines, making Tuesday the new due date for most filings that had been due from Oct. 1 to Nov. 17, except those singled out with different dates.
New Verizon CEO Dan Schulman plans to cut about 15,000 jobs, which would be the carrier's largest ever layoffs, Reuters reported Thursday, citing an unnamed source. The report pointed to pressure on Verizon to cut costs as its customer pool shrinks. A spokesperson declined comment.
The telecom industry will see further consolidation of smaller carriers, similar to what happened 20 years ago, Recon Analytics’ Roger Entner said Wednesday during a webinar hosted by Georgetown University's Center for Business and Public Policy. There are still about 1,300 ISPs left in the U.S., which is “a staggering” number, Entner said. He cited examples of the deals being made, including T-Mobile’s purchase of stakes in fiber-based providers like Metronet and Lumos (see 2507090034). There’s a “tremendous amount of activity here underneath the surface" that only sometimes makes headlines.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a post on X Wednesday that the agency will soon be issuing more information on post-shutdown filing deadlines. “Particularly since the shutdown has stretched on for an unprecedented length of time, the agency will be putting additional guidance out at an appropriate time on the reopening process,” Carr said. “FCC staff is going to work in good faith with stakeholders to address the range of questions that will arise and the potential high volume of filings that folks will be seeking to make.”
The public interest standard “grants FCC officials too much unconstrained discretion in today's competitive media and telecommunications environment,” wrote Free State Foundation President Randolph May in a blog post Friday. Congress should update the Communications Act and “jettison” the public interest standard, he said, arguing that the economic circumstances and viewpoint diversity concerns that were used to justify the standard no longer apply. “Today, reliance on the dictates of competitive marketplace forces is much more likely to enhance consumer welfare -- and to be consistent with constitutional free speech and due process dictates -- than reliance on immodest bureaucratic diktats.”
Consumers’ Research and other parties challenging the legality of the USF contribution factor at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals urged the court not to allow various public interest groups to intervene. Motions to intervene were filed last month by the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition and jointly by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance and the Center for Media Justice (see 2510300042). The 5th Circuit stayed the case Tuesday because of the federal shutdown (see 2511040071).
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the USF in Consumers’ Research v. FCC could prove critical as justices hear argument Wednesday on President Donald Trump’s legal authority to impose tariffs, said Adam White, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, in a blog post Monday. The case turns on how justices view presidential authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, White wrote. “If justices see the Trump tariffs as mainly a matter of foreign policy, and if they see IEEPA’s ‘regulate’ provision as ambiguous, then perhaps they will give substantial deference to the president’s interpretation.”
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday agreed to stay Consumers’ Research’s latest challenge to the USF because of the federal government shutdown, as requested by the FCC (see 2510310043), said an order in docket 25-60535. The request wasn’t opposed by any of the parties in the case. A lawyer involved in the proceeding said the order was “no big deal” and responds to a motion that the government is filing in almost all new non-urgent cases.