Verizon has avoided paying local taxes on telecommunication equipment in many New Jersey municipalities over the past decade, but a proposed state law would force the company to pay back taxes for all the payments it didn't make. The bill, filed on May 23 by NJ State Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D–Paulsboro), "would force Verizon to pay local taxes on telephone poles, lines, land, and other equipment that the telecom giant has refused to fork over in an increasing number of NJ municipalities, starving them of tens of millions of dollars a year in tax revenue." As of 2015, Verizon had reportedly stopped paying the tax in more than 150 of the 565 municipalities in NJ.  The tax Verizon has avoided ranges from $15,000 to more than $1 million a year for each municipality, taking revenue away from local budgets or forcing residents and other businesses to cover the shortfalls. Despite not paying tax in many cities and towns, local officials point out that Verizon "continues to benefit from the use of municipalities' poles, utility lines, and switching facilities even when it no longer pays taxes," a 2015 Inquirer article said.

AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile were the biggest spenders on a pair of Federal Communications Commission auctions designed to spark investment in next-wave 5G networks. The auctions covered two swaths of wireless spectrum -- the 24 gigahertz (GHz) and 28 GHz millimeter wave bands -- frequencies once considered too extreme for cellphone service. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has made those frequencies a cornerstone of his strategy to spur 5G investments. Bidding across both auctions totaled less than $3 billion, compared with nearly $20 billion raised in a previous FCC auction that freed up frequencies used by local television broadcasters for cellphone use.

Verizon led spending on the first auction around 28 GHz after it bid $505 million. The leading cellphone carrier by subscribers was expected to focus on that auction to fill in gaps in the more than $3 billion worth of licenses it had already bought through private purchases. AT&T spent the most on 24 GHz licenses, bidding $983 million. It was followed by T-Mobile, which bid $803 million in the auction. Midwestern carrier US Cellular Inc. also earmarked cash for licenses in its service area and won $129 million and $127 million worth of spectrum in the 28 GHz and 24 GHz auctions, respectively.

The House Communications Subcommittee began its review of the STELAR compulsory copyright legislation -- STELAR is the latest name for the bill, which dates from 1988, that established the compulsory license that allows satellite operators to import distant network TV station affiliates into local markets where viewers lack access to them for a variety of reasons. The act must be renewed (and historically renamed) every five years or the compulsory distant signal copyright license and a provision requiring broadcasters and satellite operators and cable operators to negotiate carriage in good faith will expire. At the hearing, there appeared to be general agreement by legislators on both sides that broadcasters provided a vital service, including local news and weather and emergency alerts and diverse programming. But there was less agreement on how renewing and/or sunsetting key STELAR provisions would affect all those. Those opposed to sunsetting STELAR could take some comfort from Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA), who said that while he agreed that while the license and good faith components were hardly a perfect solution, allowing it so sunset would result in a "crisis," of lost viewership and invite bad behavior and consumer harm.