Six years ago, I stood with President Trump in the Roosevelt Room of the White House to announce America’s 5G strategy. It was the first time next-generation wireless technology had been elevated to a presidential policy priority. The results were immediate. The U.S. freed up more commercial spectrum than ever before. We modernized outdated infrastructure rules and created an environment in which U.S. wireless providers could build world-class networks. By the end of President Trump’s first term, the U.S. led the world in 5G availability. But in the past few years, that urgency has waned in Washington—and so has our lead. Without strong national leadership, those investments will be undercut by policy paralysis. The Federal Communications Commission’s auction authority—critical to deploying commercial airwaves through a transparent, free-market approach—was allowed to lapse in 2023, for the first time in three decades. Coordination between the FCC and other federal agencies on spectrum ground to a halt. Without action, this self-imposed bottleneck will constrain our ability to compete—not only in wireless, but in every industry that depends on communication technologies.

[Ajit Pai is president and CEO of CTIA, a wireless telecommunications trade group. He served as FCC chairman, 2017-21.]

Just when we were wondering what’s been going on with Dish, apparently it went and sold its fiber business. Mereo Networks, a bulk broadband provider, announced it acquired Dish’s fiber unit. Dish Fiber is a bulk fiber business launched in 2019 aimed at multi-family communities. According to Mereo, Dish’s fiber biz serves over 25,000 residential units across 33 states. Mereo Networks will rebrand to Mereo Fiber as part of the deal and plans to increase its footprint of over 80,000 residential units to 37 states. Mereo is backed by investment firm Macquarie Capital as well as WaveDivision Capital and Freedom 3 Capital.

The formal agenda of the Federal Communications Commission's April open meeting seemed well in line with its normal wonky pursuits. Commissioners spoke, proposals were voted on unanimously, and Chairman Brendan Carr, appointed by President Trump, ran things smoothly, though his demeanor was rather boisterous. An observer might conclude that despite the new administration, it was business as usual at the FCC. Then came the regular press Q&A. The beat journalists politely probed the Chairman about recent moves he’d made—like using the power of his role to investigate news organizations for airing stories that make President Trump unhappy. Chairman Carr’s response to questions about his probe into CBS was: “All options remain on the table,” even the “death penalty” of the network’s broadcast license. He also indicated that NBC and the other networks that have covered the case of the legal immigrant mistakenly deported to an El Salvadorian prison might be in similar trouble. His justification was that since broadcast outlets have exclusive access to their slice of public airwaves, their content must be in the public interest. If they don’t like that, he said, they can be podcasters. The trouble with this—well, there are a lot of troubles with this—is that it’s obvious that “the public interest” here is being interpreted as “stuff President Trump likes.”

The Federal Communications Commission moved to terminate over 2,000 official proceedings that have become dormant and no longer serve a purpose for the American people. In particular, the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau is seeking public comment on reasons not to terminate these dockets that have been identified by staff from around the agency as inactive or moot. Nearly 100 other dockets were closed administratively in advance of the release. Although the FCC has moved to close dormant proceedings before, this is far and away the largest number of dormant dockets the FCC has ever sought to remove in a single proceeding, with the oldest docket teed up for termination dating back to 1991.