The Federal Communications Commission announced the winning bidders and the final bid totals in Auction 107—commonly referred to as the C-band auction. Auction 107 net winning bids totaled $81,114,481,921 and gross winning bids totaled $81,168,677,645. Twenty-one bidders won all of the available 5,684 licenses. Verizon was the big winner -- nearly $45.5 billion spent to gain 3,511 licenses. AT&T was a distant second: nearly $23.5 billion spent on 1,621 licenses. T-Mobile spent $9.3 billion on 142 licenses. Down payments on the spectrum licenses are due March 10. The winning bidders will also spend an estimated $14 billion more to cover the costs of the satellite operators shifting their operations to a narrower band of the spectrum. Other expected bidders remained largely on the sidelines. An affiliate of Dish Network bid $2.5 million, suggesting the satellite-TV operator will rely on its existing cache of spectrum to build a new 5G network from scratch. C&C Wireless Holding Co., a joint venture of cable operators Comcast and Charter Communications, won no licenses.

In light of the ongoing pandemic, the Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau finds good cause to extend, on its own motion, its prior waivers of the Lifeline program rules governing documentation requirements for subscribers residing in rural areas on Tribal lands, recertification, reverification, general de-enrollment, and income documentation through June 30, 2021.1 However, the bureau declines to further extend the existing waiver of the FCC's Lifeline usage requirement beyond May 1, 2021. At the expiration of the current waiver period on February 28, 2021, the requirement that Lifeline subscribers who are not paying an end-user fee for their Lifeline service must use their service at least every 30 days, with an additional 15-day cure period, will have been waived for almost a year. As the length of the non-usage waiver has increased, so has the likelihood that universal service funding is being disbursed for connections that have not been used.

Democrats are morphing their scrutiny of online falsehoods into a broader campaign against misinformation on right-leaning television outlets — a development that Republicans and some media organizations are calling a government attack on the First Amendment. The Democratic efforts include a House hearing where lawmakers lambasted conservative-leaning broadcasters and cable channels as sources of dangerous conspiracy theories about the pandemic and the November election. Two House Democrats also sent letters to cable, satellite and streaming providers asking why they carry Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network, all of which had spent months echoing President Donald Trump's baseless claims of election fraud. Democrats, who have spent years pounding online companies like Facebook and Twitter for spreading misinformation, say it's just as important to scrutinize falsehoods by media outlets whose coverage reaches tens of millions of Americans. Their questions also reflect the blurring lines between the broadcasting and online realms, as more televisions are hooked to the internet and more video-streaming platforms begin to resemble traditional cable TV. But Republicans said Democrats are steering their misinformation crusade in a dangerous direction by wielding the government’s powers against the editorial decisions of news outlets and television providers.

Without the fear of Republican obstruction, tech and public interest advocates have begun pushing for President Joe Biden to act quickly to fill out the Federal Communications Commission. They say the president has come at a "critical opportunity" to pick a "bold" choice. President Biden can go one of two ways to fill out the FCC. He could elevate Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to become the permeant chair of the agency, or he could nominate someone who would come in with the expectation that they would become the chair. Any pick would have to go through a Senate confirmation process, but with Democratic control, it is likely they would be confirmed. He will need to pick someone he is confident can make it through the process.