Foothills Connect, which notified the FCC early this year that it wouldn't meet its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund first interim buildout milestone in Kentucky (see 2501220004), told the agency this week that it's "making substantial progress" on closing the milestone gap. In docket 19-126 Tuesday, Foothills said it's still struggling with delays beyond its control in getting right-of-way approvals and obtaining easements. It also cited workforce issues related to hiring qualified construction contractors.

As states race to meet NTIA's Sept. 4 deadline to submit their revised final BEAD plans under the agency's new rules, the future of the program's non-deployment funding is in “uncharted territory,” wrote CCG Consulting President Doug Dawson in a blog Wednesday. Dawson raised questions about whether NTIA can ignore Congress’ directive to spend the full $42.5 billion on both broadband infrastructure and non-deployment initiatives (see 2507300011). Although NTIA didn't definitively eliminate non-deployment uses for BEAD funding, Dawson noted that some in the industry believe the agency might “kill all non-deployment funds as a way to take credit for ‘returning’ money to Treasury,” while others remain hopeful NTIA will allow certain projects. He warned that the shift could also lead to “significantly less BEAD funding for fiber and more for satellite and fixed wireless broadband” after the agency removed its fiber-first preference. "It’s one thing for the White House to issue executive orders that countermand Congressional spending," Dawson wrote: "It’s a whole lot fuzzier if an agency like NTIA can directly ignore Congress."

VoIP-Pal's antitrust complaint is full of "prolix, repetitive, and at points incoherent allegations" and is "a last-ditch effort by a failing company to avoid the inevitable," defendants AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon told a federal court in a motion to dismiss the case Friday. VoIP-Pal is suing the three carriers in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that they're using their market dominance to deliberately withhold unbundled voice-over-Wi-Fi calling and texting from consumers (see 2410300004). The carriers' motion to dismiss (docket 1:24-cv-03051) said that since VoIP-Pal has suffered multiple court defeats in patent-infringement lawsuits, it's using its complaint as a different way of monetizing its patents. VoIP-Pal's offer to settle if one of the Big Three would buy it for $8.75 billion "lays bare what this case is really about," the carriers said. They added that VoIP-Pal lacks antitrust standing and that its complaint fails to allege that any defendant engaged in racketeering activity or that racketeering activity caused VoIP-Pal injury.

The FCC Wireline Bureau on Monday released a list of U.S. counties where conditional forbearance from the obligation to offer Lifeline-supported voice service applies. Under the commission’s 2016 Lifeline order (see 1807230027), the "forbearance applies only to the Lifeline voice obligation of eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) that are designated for purposes of receiving both high-cost and Lifeline support" and not to Lifeline-only ETCs, the bureau said. The 2016 order established the forbearance "in targeted areas where certain competitive conditions are met,” and the FCC “directed the Bureau to release a yearly public notice announcing the counties in which the competitive conditions are met.”

Public interest groups raised concerns about an FCC draft notice of inquiry that proposes changes to how the agency prepares its Telecom Act Section 706 reports to Congress (see 2507170048). Commissioners are set to vote on it at their meeting Thursday. Representatives of Public Knowledge, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance and X-Lab met with an aide to Commissioner Anna Gomez, according to a filing Thursday in docket 25-233.

AT&T has used a third-party radio access network automation app (rApp) from Ericsson to optimize its network, the companies announced Tuesday, noting that it's the first such use of an rApp on a live network. “This accomplishment marks a decisive moment in the industry’s move from closed, single-vendor Self-Organizing Networks toward an open, future-proof architecture based on the standards and frameworks set out by the Open RAN Alliance,” said a news release.

With an almost 65% reduction in BEAD-eligible locations over the past two years, broadband experts on Wednesday highlighted several challenges to deployment and funding that could affect the program's progress.

NTIA should "expressly condition" BEAD funding on a state's commitment not to enforce rate regulation, ACA Connects said in a letter Tuesday to recently confirmed NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth. The agency should also clarify that it won't issue waivers, the group added. Doing so "will have the most immediate impact" in New York, ACA Connects said, noting that ISPs are subject to the state's Affordable Broadband Act (see 2505290045). The law requires ISPs operating there to offer an affordable service plan for low-income households.

Keysight Technologies said on Thursday the only clearance still needed for its proposed buy of wireless tech and testing company Spirent Communications is from China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR). “With support and assistance from Spirent, Keysight remains committed to working quickly and constructively with SAMR to obtain clearance for the Acquisition,” Keysight said.

Fiber, coaxial cable, fixed wireless access and satellite all meet the 100 millisecond latency requirement in June's BEAD rules restructuring, but they start to differentiate when it comes to other BEAD requirements, Rysavy Research said this week. Rysavy said FWA and satellite don't readily address the 100/20 Mbps throughput requirement. SpaceX data on its Starlink service's uplink performance shows that in every state, Starlink had a range of uplink throughputs in which the lower value fell below the required 20 Mbps speed, it said. Rysavy said some quoted uplink throughput rates for FWA services fall below the required 20 Mbps threshold, though 5G network providers could meet the required threshold via outdoor antennas instead of indoor customer equipment, densifying networks and deploying additional spectrum. It said fiber and coax "offer considerable flexibility" regarding the BEAD requirement of easily scaling speeds over time. It said FWA providers can scale bandwidth through such steps as more spectrum use and deployment of better antenna systems. It questioned how easily satellite operators can scale, given the expense of satellites and their limited operational lifetimes. Rysavy said fiber and 5G-based services "clearly meet" the BEAD requirement of supporting 5G and successor wireless technologies, but called satellite "a poor choice ... due to its limited capacity and throughput rates."