Verizon notified the FCC on Friday that its purchase of Frontier is completed. The companies announced the $20 billion deal in September 2024, with a goal of closing within 18 months (see 2409050010).

Fiber is now passing 84.6 million homes, or about 60.5% of U.S. households, with an additional 11.8 million homes reached in 2025, according to the Fiber Broadband Association's (FBA) most recent fiber deployment cost report, which was produced with consultancy Cartesian and released this week. Of the 84.6 million passings, 40 million homes are actually connected to fiber, it said. The technology also "won big" with BEAD, as 63% of eligible locations will be served by fiber. FBA predicted that fiber should reach 90% of U.S. homes by 2030.

Representatives of the North American Submarine Cable Association met with FCC Office of International Affairs staff last week about the agency’s controversial proposal to license submarine line terminal equipment (SLTE) owners and operators (see 2512010043), according to a filing posted Tuesday in docket 24-523.

Representatives of Colorado-based H&B Communications, joined by NTCA, met with FCC staff on potential improvements to the agency's process for challenging the broadband data collection fabric, said a filing Friday in docket 19-195. They discussed “concerns regarding the accuracy of the location fabric and the impact of these issues on H&B’s ability to accurately report and verify broadband serviceable locations” in its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund award area.

Verizon has closed its purchase of Frontier after getting final regulatory clearance last week from the California Public Utilities Commission (see 2601150035), the carrier said Tuesday. Verizon CEO Dan Schulman said in a note to employees that the company is committed “to making this transition clear, supportive and focused on our people.”

The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau on Friday extended for six months, through July 16, the conditional certifications for Rogervoice to provide IP captioned telephone service and for Tive to provide video relay service, supported by the telecommunications relay service fund. In 2024, the bureau granted Rogervoice conditional certification to provide service for a period of two years, which was set to end Tuesday, the order said.

USTelecom will warn the FCC in comments next week that while the benefits of IP interconnection are “clear and compelling,” moving to an all-IP world remains “a daunting task.” The existing regulatory framework for time-division multiplexing (TDM) interconnection “itself poses a significant barrier to IP interconnection and, more broadly, to the transition to an all-IP network,” said an early summary of the comments made available Friday.

Representatives of the Industry Traceback Group (ITG) provided preliminary observations on its work in 2025 in an FCC filing posted Thursday in docket 17-59. Since 2020, tracebacks “increasingly end with providers identified as U.S.-based,” rather than foreign-based, the ITG said. More than 30 new providers are identified in tracebacks on average each month, and last year, 110 U.S. and 82 non-U.S. providers failed to respond to traceback requests, it said. “Patterns of repeated and overlapping relationships may indicate intentional strategic obfuscation rather than isolated incidents.”

The FCC sought comment Thursday on a proposal to transfer telecom assets from Hayneville Telephone and Hayneville Fiber to Synergy. Hayneville Telephone is an incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) providing traditional voice, long-distance and broadband services to rural customers in central Alabama, the Wireline Bureau said. Synergy, a subsidiary of Western Kentucky Rural Telephone Co-op, is based in Tennessee and is the parent of Ardmore Telephone Co., an ILEC serving customers in Alabama and Tennessee. Comments are due Jan. 29, replies Feb. 5, in docket 25-312.

Comments are due Jan. 27, replies Feb. 3, in docket 25-301 on the sale of Epic Touch and Elkhart Telephone Co. to IdeaTek, said an FCC Wireline Bureau notice in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. Epic Touch and Elkhart Telephone -- both based in Kansas -- are currently owned by a collection of family trusts. IdeaTek provides broadband and telecom services in Kansas and Missouri.