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  2. August 2025

August 2025

FCC Ordered To Turn Over More DOGE Documents

US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the Federal Communications Commission must produce more documents related to its communications with Elon Musk's government-slashing Department of Government Efficiency. Public interest group Frequency Forward and journalist Nina Burleigh have sought agency records tied to the work of Musk's DOGE and moved for a preliminary injunction forcing the agency to fully comply with their Freedom of Information Act request.

BEAD’s Bidding for Broadband: Why Williamson’s 1976 Analysis Still Matters

A problem inherent to the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment Program and any similar infrastructure subsidy program: Winners’ incentive to come back to the government later to ask for more subsidies and the inability to credibly claim they won’t. The post-award incentive to return to the trough does not have an easy solution.

Are consumers winners or losers in AT&T's EchoStar deal?

First, UScellular fell. And now, so has EchoStar/Dish with the sale of key spectrum licenses to AT&T. Does that mean wireless competition in the U.S. is dead? Was it ever really alive? It really depends on who you ask. UScellular was the largest regional operator before selling its wireless assets—spectrum, retail stores, and customer roster—to T-Mobile.

So far, Two-Thirds of BEAD Locations Getting Fiber

Eight more states are taking public comment on their final spending plans under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, bringing the total to at least nineteen. New Hampshire, New Mexico, Delaware, and New Jersey posted drafts of their final proposals on August 26. Oklahoma, Georgia, and Maryland posted their draft plans on August 25, and Montana posted its plan on August 22.

NYC immigrants want safer, better-paying work. A major hurdle: building digital skills.

Inside a small house in the Parkchester neighborhood of the Bronx, seven Bangladeshi women sat around a large table earlier this month, trying to figure out how to mute themselves on Zoom. It was the first time many were using the video conferencing software. “ We should always stay mute until our turn to talk,” instructor Sakib Shikder told the class.

Is AT&T/EchoStar a competitive pitfall for cable?

Change is afoot in the U.S. wireless market with EchoStar’s $23 billion spectrum sale to AT&T—a deal that also has implications for cable operators looking to make their mark in wireless.

Island Cellular, a Fixed Wireless Provider, the Big BEAD Winner in Washington State

Island Cellular LLC, with awards totaling almost $332 million, was by far the biggest grant winner in Washington’s Final Proposal for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program. Northwest Open Access Network was second, with almost $130.6 million. The comment period on the awards will end at 5 p.m. Pacific time on September 1. Island Cellular provides fixed wireless access internet service through its Emerge Technologies brand.

EchoStar's future as a facilities-based MNO is toast amid spectrum sale to AT&T

EchoStar's path as the nation's fourth facilities-based wireless carrier is vanishing after the struggling Colorado-based company agreed to sell a swath of low-band and mid-band spectrum to AT&T for a tidy sum of $23 billion. However, it's not immediately clear if the agreement will fully satisfy the Federal Communications Commission's investigation into EchoStar's federa

AT&T's deployment of EchoStar's lowband spectrum could take years

AT&T CEO John Stankey shed a bit more light on how quickly his company will be able to deploy the spectrum it's poised to acquire from EchoStar for $23 billion.

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