The FCC sought comment Friday on Verizon's request that the commission zero out the unlocking commitment it stipulated as a condition of approving the company’s purchase of Tracfone (see 2505200051). Comments are due July 7, replies July 21, and must reference dockets 06-150, 24-186 and 21-112, said a Wireless Bureau notice.

The FCC Wireless Bureau on Friday established a pleading cycle on Verizon’s proposed $1 billion buy of wireless licenses from UScellular. The companies announced a deal in October (see 2410180004). Verizon would get 39 licenses from the smaller carrier, in the cellular, AWS-1, AWS-3 and PCS bands. Petitions to deny are due July 7, oppositions July 22 and replies Aug. 1 in docket 25-192, the bureau said. The licenses cover 618 counties across 19 states, or about 8% of the U.S. population, it said. “Post-transaction, according to the Applicants, Verizon Wireless would be attributed with a maximum of 372 megahertz of spectrum, including up to 72 megahertz of below-1-GHz spectrum.”

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials on Friday urged the FCC to address “dispatchable location” information as it reconsiders rules for wireless calls to 911. APCO filed in response to a March Further NPRM on wireless location accuracy, approved in a 4-0 vote by commissioners. Comments were due Friday in docket 07-114.

UPM asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse FCC decisions backing Digicel-Haiti’s 2014 deactivation of thousands of SIM cards that UPM purchased from a third party and that granted access to a Digicel-Haiti discount roaming plan, the Helsinki-based company said in a brief Wednesday. In response to a UPM complaint and rulings by lower courts, the FCC found that Digicel-Haiti didn’t qualify as a U.S. telecommunications carrier under the agency’s jurisdiction and that Digicel’s deactivation of the cards didn’t violate the law (see 2501150076).

The FCC Wireline Bureau sought comment Thursday on a petition by Oxio seeking a waiver of a requirement in the commission’s numbering assignment rules. Those seeking initial numbering resources must include in their applications evidence that they're authorized to provide service in the area for which the numbering resources are requested. Oxio argues that it needs to “ensure that it has access to telephone numbers for its innovative hybrid wireless service,” the bureau said. Comments are due July 7, replies July 22, in docket 13-97.

Verizon, AT&T, EchoStar, Comcast and Altice made filings at the FCC in response to letters from the Wireless Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics as the agency examines the broader wireless market in light of T-Mobile’s proposed buy of wireless assets, including spectrum, from UScellular (see 2504230019). The filings, posted this week in docket 24-286, were fully redacted.

The Commerce Department should take its time to ensure it gets BEAD rules right, WISPA President David Zumwalt said in a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Moving too quickly “only serves to perpetuate the flaws in BEAD’s original design,” said the letter, released Wednesday. It also urged Lutnick not to ignore the service offered by wireless ISPs.

Smith Bagley Chairman Kevin Frawley met with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to discuss changes to USF, including the company's proposal to allow wireless carriers to use legacy high-cost support to “rapidly construct 5G” within their eligible telecom carrier service areas. Frawley “described the longstanding and ongoing challenges in constructing, operating, and maintaining mobile wireless network infrastructure on remote Tribal lands, including challenges in upgrading to 5G due to the extreme expense of extending fiber to all of [Smith Bagley's] towers,” said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 20-32.

President Kris Hutchison and others from Aviation Spectrum Resources Inc. met with FCC Wireless Bureau staff on a request the company made as part of the “Delete” proceeding. In that proceeding, ASRI asked the commission “to eliminate an outmoded rule specifying a geographic restriction for the aeronautical VHF channel of 136.750 MHz, which limits the efficient and constructive use of the aeronautical VHF band by the aviation industry.”

The FCC Wireless Bureau on Wednesday approved a request from the C-band Relocation Payment Clearinghouse (RPC) to end operations at the end of June (see 2505140034). The bureau also designated Verizon, “on behalf of all the 3.7 GHz Service licensees, to directly assume responsibility for the RPC’s last outstanding program cost ‘in the event of a favorable Commission or favorable final court ruling regarding the pending appeal.’” That step was at the request of the RPC.