The Federal Communications Commission's move to potentially gut or end E-Rate is just the latest under Chairman Brendan Carr to place limits on the program. The FCC also rolled back rules that allowed E-Rate to fund school bus Wi-Fi and voted to approve a competitive bidding portal for participation in the program, described as "overly burdensome" by the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition. But a new effort to potentially kill the program has broad implications for the country's progress on ending the digital divide. While the FCC Chair is framing the E-Rate Notice of Proposed Rulemaking around a missive to curb kids' screen time, SHLB executive director Joey Wender says such concerns, while "valid," should not be "a back door for cutting school and library funding to connect to the Internet." Notably, E-Rate does not just fund kids' use of necessary connectivity services, but it also ensures schools and libraries have the resources they need to operate everything from HVAC systems to security cameras. "The whole point of E-Rate was to close the digital divide between poor communities and wealthy communities, and so if you take the E-Rate funding away, who's going to suffer the most? Disadvantaged and low-income communities that are going to have a hole blown into their school budgets or their library budgets, that's the effect," says Wender.

On June 25, 2026, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would, for the first time, set nationwide limits on how much time state and local governments may take to approve wireline telecommunications deployments (networks delivered over physical lines such as fiber-optic, copper, or coaxial cable) in public rights-of-way and how much they may charge for that access. The proposals would reach state and local governments at every level that issue permits, right-of-way agreements, or pole attachment approvals for fiber and other wireline builds. Federal agencies are unaffected: the proposals rest on Section 253 of the Communications Act, which limits only state and local requirements that prohibit or effectively prohibit the provision of telecommunications service. The stakes run in several directions at once. For providers, the proposals promise faster, cheaper access to rights-of-way. For state and local governments, the proposed rules threaten permitting revenue, budget flexibility, and control over public property. (The City of Dallas warned the FCC that fee limits could force property tax increases.) And for communities, the proceeding raises less obvious questions: Will "dig once" policies, spare conduit requirements, and other in-kind conditions that localities use to advance their own connectivity goals survive? Is the FCC quietly extending federal protection to broadband deployment through a proceeding nominally about telecommunications services (broadband internet access service is classified as an information service—not a telecommunications service—under the Communications Act as courts currently construe it)?

Republican Steve Hilton has found rare common ground with Democrats in an unlikely arena: landline phone service. The GOP candidate for governor is urging the federal government to stay out of California’s push to prevent AT&T from ending landline service via copper wiring to around 184,000 residential customers and 15,000 business customers. The debate stems over a Federal Communications Commission action on June 29 that advanced the company’s plans, over the objection of California regulators, many residents, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta. In a letter to FCC Chair Brendan Carr, Hilton said he too opposes the move, which he claims was driven by “Washington bureaucrats.” The former Fox News host, who faces an uphill campaign against Democrat Xavier Becerra in a deep blue state, argues the change would jeopardize service used by rural Californians. And while Hilton has regularly taken aim at California regulations that he argues stifle the state’s economy, he said the state is “more than capable of deciding whether our own residents still need landlines as a public-safety backstop.”

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. Same goes for Gen Mobile, the lesser-known prepaid brand owned by EchoStar. It’s not just EchoStar saying that. Jeff Moore, principal of Wave7 Research that closely tracks the prepaid and postpaid cellular industries, said his sources confirmed it’s “business as usual.” Boost Mobile has struggled since it came under Dish and then EchoStar management after the T-Mobile-Sprint merger in 2020, but it remains a highly valued cell phone brand, he said. Boost Mobile operates more than 3,000 stores and Wave7’s checks show they’ve been operating “very normal,” he said.