Uniti submitted its second quarterly report regarding the status of its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund milestone compliance for locations in several states. The company reported on how many new locations in each state were reached with service in the second quarter of 2026:

• Alabama: 1,115
• Arkansas: 648
• Georgia: 2,760
• Iowa: 207
• Kentucky: 814
• Minnesota: 50
• Missouri: 149
• Mississippi: 150
• Nebraska: 102
• New Mexico: 151
• Oklahoma: 238
• Pennsylvania: 1,112
• South Carolina: 0
• Texas: 211

The AWS-3 reauction closed at $3.57 billion, and the number is inflated. Strip out EchoStar, which bid to raise prices rather than to win, and the auction raises about $2.0 billion. EchoStar walked away with two trivial licenses in Guam. Its purpose was never to win spectrum; it was to push the clearing price past the roughly $2.9 billion that erased its own default penalty, and Verizon and T-Mobile paid the difference. That is the story of this auction.

[Roger Entner is an analyst and founder of Recon Analytics]

A few weeks after Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr called for a broad review of the 30-year-old federal E-rate program, the FCC issued a notice of proposed rulemaking June 26 that floated the idea of ending the program. Education leaders and experts on the digital divide have since weighed in, arguing that would be a grave mistake. The E-rate program, which provides financial support to schools and libraries for broadband connectivity, was established in 1996 and funded starting in 1997. At that time, 65 percent of U.S. public schools had Internet access, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The FCC's notice asked whether the program has fulfilled Congress’ original objective of bringing Internet access to schools and libraries, given that “virtually all schools report having broadband connectivity and Wi-Fi." It also cited ill effects of screen time as a reason to rethink the program.

Nearly six-in-ten U.S. adults support banning anyone under the age of 16 from using social media sites, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. The survey comes as governments around the world weigh new restrictions on teens’ use of social media. About one-in-five adults oppose banning those under 16 from using social media. And roughly a quarter are unsure, according to the survey conducted May 26-June 1, 2026. Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom are among the countries that have set or are considering a minimum age of 16 for social media use. In the United States, lawmakers in California are considering similar legislation. Many social media platforms currently require users to be at least 13 to create an account.

On November 13, 2025, a bipartisan group of former Federal Communications Commission officials filed a Petition for Special Relief with the Commission seeking a repeal of the FCC’s news distortion policy and subsequently filed a petition for mandamus with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia seeking to compel action by the FCC on such petition. In response to the court’s order requiring the Commission to respond to the mandamus petition, on June 22, 2026, the FCC filed its response and included a copy of an unpublished letter dismissing the News Distortion Petition that was signed by the Acting Chief of the Media Bureau on delegated authority. The FCC has increasingly used its regulatory authority as a cudgel against broadcasters whose coverage it dislikes rather than as a neutral enforcement tool, and license renewals and merger approvals have been treated as leverage over editorial judgment rather than as the objective processes the Communications Act requires them to be. This is not an isolated tactic, and the FCC has repeatedly reached for rarely used or long dormant authority to discipline broadcasters it views as critical, including reviving a license renewal mechanism that had not been invoked in over half a century apparently to target a single company's news coverage. This includes repeated reliance on the previously rarely invoked news distortion policy at issue here. That pressure has had a real effect, and station groups and local broadcasters across the country have asked my office what topics are now considered too risky to cover, a question that should never need to be asked in a country with a First Amendment. When a federal agency with the power to grant or revoke broadcast licenses starts weighing in on editorial content, the chilling effect reaches far beyond any single station or story, and it is compounded here by the FCC's choice to resolve this particular petition through an unpublished staff letter rather than a public vote of the full Commission.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced that U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has appointed four public safety, technology, and business leaders to the Board of the First Responder Network Authority. The four new members selected by Secretary Lutnick for the FirstNet Authority Board are: 

• Mayor Mary Boyd of Comanche (TX). In addition to her extensive experience in local government, Boyd is the former President of the National Emergency Number Association and a founding member of the National Association of State 9-1-1 Administrators. 
• Telecommunications Expert Allen Proithis of Lancaster (PA). Proithis is the CEO of Capstone Partners and former CEO of GXC. 
• 9-1-1 technology expert Jeff Robertson of Carlsbad (CA). Robertson is President of Allerium; former President and CEO of Intrado Life and Safety; and former Senior Vice President and General Manager of Public Safety with Rapid SOS. 
• Public safety expert Jeffrey Streeter of Littleton (CO). Streeter recently retired from his position as Executive Director of Jefferson County 9-1-1 Center and previously served as Chief of Police of Lone Tree, Colorado.