Monica Alleven

It was a busy weekend for Verizon engineers thanks to an outage that affected voice services for thousands of customers in some parts of the U.S. Verizon didn’t reveal the cause of the outage but said the issue was resolved by around 4 p.m. Pacific time. At the time, the carrier advised customers who were still experiencing problems to restart their devices. That wasn’t the end of Verizon’s network problems.

AT&T closed its transaction with EchoStar to acquire about 30 megahertz (MHz) of nationwide 3.45 gigahertz (GHz) mid-band spectrum and about 20 MHz of nationwide 600 MHz low-band spectrum for about $23 billion. The spectrum deal was announced in August 2025 and the closure puts a final endpoint to EchoStar Chairman Charlie Ergen’s bid to own and operate a facilities-based wireless network.

A federal judge in Washington (DC) signed off on a U.S. Department of Justice request to relieve EchoStar of its commitment to build and operate a mobile network. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly issued the decision after the DoJ sought public comment on terminating EchoStar’s obligation.

It wasn’t a surprise when Carolina West Wireless decided to sell its wireless business to Verizon. It’s the same old story for a lot of regional and rural carriers. It wasn’t always like this. Twenty or so years ago, smaller carriers raked in the dough from roaming revenues as larger carriers paid for their subscribers to roam onto their networks. But nationwide carriers slowly but surely expanded their coverage, encroaching on the regional operators’ territories, leaving little by way of roaming revenues.

One of the biggest things to emerge from Dish’s bankruptcy filing is EchoStar’s plan to sell Dish Wireless, with EchoStar acting as a stalking horse bidder, meaning it would set a minimum price for the assets. Under the plan submitted to the U.S.

What’s the status of the Boost Mobile cell phone service now that Dish Wireless and Dish DBS filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection? In a few words: It’s business as usual, as EchoStar pointed out in its press release.

Some T-Mobile customers are being notified today that they’re getting moved to newer, sometimes pricier, rate plans. Basically, a lot of customers are on plans so old that they can’t experience the full greatness of T-Mobile’s current 5G and 5G Advanced network. At least, that’s how they’re justifying the switch. “We think ultimately it will improve their experience with us,” said T-Mobile Chief Marketing Officer Allan Samson. A segment of customers will see a price increase of about $4 per line; others will see less and some will see “a little bit” more, he said.

Another struggling rural carrier is shutting down. Carolina West Wireless struck an agreement to transition its wireless network to Verizon and will end its wireless services effective September 30, 2026. Terms were not disclosed. Based in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, Carolina West Wireless was formed 35 years ago and is owned by a partnership of Skyline Telephone and Surry Communications. The company provides wireless service across 11 western North Carolina counties.

Of all the analyses coming out ahead of SpaceX’s big initial public offering, one in particular stands out. First, some background. All three of the big mobile network operators in the U.S. have said “no” to an MVNO deal with Starlink, SpaceX’s most profitable unit.

Appearing at the Mizuho Technology Conference in New York, AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches was asked about what some may call the “elephant in the room,” i.e., SpaceX’s increasingly aggressive moves to chip away at the broadband market. His answer? Between fiber, cable, fixed wireless, and the wireless infrastructure that exists in the U.S., that probably covers 99 percent of the population, but there’s 1 percent of the population that’s not covered today in very rural areas.