Nondeployment Funds Still in Limbo

Arielle Roth, the NTIA Administrator, recently testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Before the hearing, Roth provided a written statement covering a range of the activities currently being pursued at NTIA. This includes:

  • The effort the NTIA is undertaking to help the FCC find 800 MHz of spectrum for public auction. This directive was mandated by the One Big Beautiful Bill. For those who might not be aware of the details of spectrum management, the FCC regulates spectrum used by the public, and NTIA oversees spectrum used by the government.
  • How NTIA is working with the standards bodies that are developing the specifications for 6G. This includes a forum hosted in March that focused on the supply chain issues for U.S. companies building advanced robotics, which I assume must somehow involve 6G.
  • Bragging about progress with universal broadband availability, stressing the role that satellite broadband plays in making broadband available everywhere. She is still touting how the BEAD Benefit of the Bargain rules lower costs to taxpayers. She said the average cost per BEAD location is $4,765. Illinois and California BEAD applications are still pending at NTIA, with the agency having the Illinois proposal for eight months.
  • How NTIA is enhancing public safety through approval of FirstNet and how NTIA got AT&T to agree to take $2 billion less in funding.
  • Finally, Roth talked about an initiative to reduce screen times for school students. It’s a topic I’m still trying to get my head around since I can’t see how NTIA, which is essentially the government’s IT department, has any role in this kind of issue.

There was one big item that was conspicuously missing from her written comments. NTIA is still deciding what to do with the $21 billion of BEAD nondeployment funds that are left after making grants for BEAD broadband infrastructure. This is by far the biggest dollar item sitting at the NTIA, and it’s curious that there was no mention of it in the written comments, since many members of Congress are highly interested in how and when this money will be used.

During her testimony, Roth said that BEAD nondeployment funds are still up in the air. To provide a little history on BEAD nondeployment funds:

  • The original BEAD legislation, passed back in 2020, said that permissible uses of nondeployment funds included digital skills training, telehealth and remote learning access, cybersecurity education, digital navigator programs, or direct subsidies to low-income homes.
  • Originally, twelve states were sure they would have money left over after infrastructure deployment, twelve were sure they would not, and the rest kept the door open to possibly having some nondeployment funding.
  • NTIA completely rewrote the BEAD grant rules in its June 2025 BEAD Restructuring Notice. Those rules greatly reduced the amount of money that would be spent on infrastructure (greatly increasing the nondeployment funds). That Notice made it clear that NTIA intended to redefine the ways that nondeployment funds could be used. After that Notice, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick began referring to BEAD nondeployment funds as a “saving” for the taxpayer, implying that the funds would be eliminated or greatly curtailed.
  • During the rest of 2025, as the country awaited the new rules related to nondeployment, a number of Senators, Representatives, and Governors from both parties pleaded with NTIA to release the funds.
  • In December 2025, Executive Order 14365 directed Commerce to withhold nondeployment funds from any states with “onerous” AI regulations and also gave NTIA until March to announce its plans for releasing the nondeployment funds.
  • In February 2026, Commerce Secretary Lutnick announced that Commerce had no plans to withhold nondeployment funds, and NTIA held two “listening sessions” to hear ideas on how to use the nondeployment funds.
  • In March, NTIA slipped the date for making a decision on nondeployment until June 2026. Throughout 2026, both Secretary Lutnick and Administrator Roth have occasionally referred to nondeployment as a savings for taxpayers.
  • During testimony in the House hearing, Roth said that she now expects the plans for BEAD nondeployment to be announced sometime this summer (which could be any time before September 21). Roth said that NTIA wants to get the guidance right and not rush through the process.

It’s anybody’s guess if nondeployment funds will ever be released. It’s now been 13 months since the NTIA changed the rules for nondeployment funds, and they are obviously in no hurry to see these funds ever get spent.

Broadband Shorts July 2026

These are all interesting topics that didn’t fit an entire blog.

GAO Dings NTIA. The General Accounting Office wrote a memo to Arielle Roth, the Administrator of NTIA, that dinged the agency for not reacting to priority recommendations made by the agency. The memo said that NTIA had implemented 77% of the recommendations made by GAO five years ago, but that there are still twenty-two open recommendations that have not been implemented, including ten priority recommendations. The letter says that implementing the remaining priority recommendations would significantly improve NTIA operations.

The priority recommendations say that NTIA should be collaborating better with the FCC for designing studies to evaluate domestic and international spectrum management. The memo says that NTIA needs to step up cybersecurity measures for wireless infrastructure. GAO says NTIA should be communicating and coordinating better with other federal agencies related to broadband funding.

Right to Not Repair. In a 606-page filing at the FCC, AT&T is asking for emergency authorization to stop repairing copper networks that suffer storm damage or damage caused by vandalism. The report lists hundreds of locations that suffered damage across multiple states, covering just the period between April 30 and June 20 of this year, where the company says it will not restore voice services after outages. The company says it wants to instead deploy its resources to build the next-generation networks that will replace copper.

This certainly creates a shortcut way to retire copper – knock copper routes out of service and then seek FCC permission to not fix them. AT&T’s rationale for not restoring service is that it has alternative technology available to customers. But the concept of having a substitute for copper works in cities and towns, but much of rural America doesn’t have AT&T cell towers capable of reaching disconnected copper customers with cellular or FWA service. Anybody who has spent any time with the FCC cellular maps can see the huge holes in rural coverage, and that assumes the cellular coverage maps are accurate, which is often not the case.

Fiber Shortage. Connexon Connect recently told the FCC that it is falling behind on some of its RDOF buildout obligations due to a severely constrained domestic fiber supply. The company said that it has had fiber delivery commitments canceled by vendors that are instead directing fiber to hyperscale data centers. The company said its problems are made worse by the requirements of having to use American-made fiber due to the Build America, Buy America rules required by the BEAD program. The company specifically identified CommScope for canceling commitments for BEAD contracts. CommScope blames Corning on canceling orders to provide glass to CommScope, which it thinks is related to Corning accepting large orders from data centers.

Legislative Mandate for American-made Fiber. A group of bipartisan House members introduced a bill being called the FIREWALL Act that would mandate that fiber used to satisfy all federal grants must be manufactured in the U.S. In the announcement of the bill, Representative Gus Bilirakis of Florida said that the U.S. government shouldn’t be subsidizing technology sourced from countries that pose a threat to our national security. That’s an odd statement since it’s hard to imagine a threat that comes from fiberglass. An odder statement was that he wants to avoid a future rip-and-replace effort related to fiber. Unlike Chinese electronics and software, there is no functional difference in fiberglass strands, regardless of where they are made. I had to laugh when I pictured crews ripping up thousands of miles of fiber.

EchoStar Bankruptcy. EchoStar filed a prepackaged bankruptcy plan for the satellite business and the cellular business.  The company was facing a $2 billion dollar loan payment in July, and didn’t have the cash due to delays in getting paid for spectrum sales to AT&T. The company is counting on over $20 billion in net closing proceeds from the sale of spectrum to AT&T. The company also sold spectrum to SpaceX, which should bring $8.5 billion in cash, $11 billion in SpaceX stock, and $2.2 billion to assist with debt. The company is heavily leveraged and has over $6 billion in current debt and $18 billion in long-term debt.

While the company recently exited the facility-based cellular business, it still owns Boost Mobile, the HughesNet satellite business, the Dish satellite TV business, and online provider Sling TV. None of these businesses are thriving. The company is also facing a slew of lawsuits from vendors and fiber providers who were left stranded when the company suddenly ceased business. It will be interesting to see what the company does with any excess cash after the spectrum sales close.

The Amazon Leo Mystery

Amazon Leo recently launched 29 new satellites, bringing the size of its constellation to 396. To the surprise of everybody who follows the industry, the company announced that it has enough satellites to begin initial service later this year.

This has everybody wondering what initial service means. The company hasn’t announced its pricing yet, which has been a closely held secret. The big mystery is how the company could launch service with such a small number of satellites.

When Starlink began beta service, it had over 600 satellites in orbit. Starlink beta customers reported slow speeds and spotty coverage, and said they routinely lost broadband service when there was no satellite in range of their home. Starlink didn’t start getting good reviews on its coverage until it had over 2,000 satellites in orbit.

A recent article in PC Magazine speculated that Amazon might launch by serving a narrow geographic band that would extend from Phoenix, across the U.S., and that enters into Canada in Michigan. The company might be able to use its small number of satellites to offer service in this narrow band as a way to work out any bugs. Amazon is not using the term beta test, but that’s what a limited launch of this nature would realistically be.

It’s hard to see Amazon Leo being a serious competitor to Starlink for the foreseeable future. By the end of this year, Starlink will have nearly all of it’s original constellation of 12,000 satellites in orbit, and Starlink currently has FCC approval to launch 15,000 total satellites. SpaceX recently asked the FCC for permission to grow the constellation to 100,000 satellites. By contrast, earlier this year, Amazon Leo asked the FCC for a two-year delay for meeting the requirement to have over 1,600 satellites in orbit this summer. When its first constellation is complete, Amazon Leo will have just over 3,200 Gen1 satellites in orbit, with an additional 4,500 that was approved by the FCC earlier this year.

Amazon Leo is starting with one edge, in that its first satellites have a lot more capacity than the current Starlink satellites already in orbit. But Starlink says it will begin launching the more powerful V3 satellites sometime in the second half of this year. The V3 satellites are said to have ten times the capacity of current V2 satellites. The V3 launch has been delayed, with the original plan to start the improved satellites in the first quarter of this year. The delay has mostly been due to the need to use the larger Starship rocket rather than the current Falcon 9 rocket to launch the heavier V3 satellites. It’s going to take a number of years for Starlink to replace the older V2 satellites, with an announced capacity of 60 V3 satellites per launch using the Starship rocket.

Perhaps the early announcement from Amazon Leo of pending service is meant to mollify the FCC and NTIA, which are both anxious to see satellite competition. Amazon Leo won preliminary awards to serve over 300,000 locations awarded in the BEAD grant program, and states and the federal government have to be worried about the company being able to fulfill that obligation.

The whole industry is waiting to see Amazon’s pricing and bundling strategy. There has been a lot of speculation that Amazon would bundle Prime memberships, AWS cloud services, or other bundles of non-traditional market goods and services. Such bundles would be unique, and something that Starlink and other ISPs could not match. Picture buying satellite broadband and getting free shipping and access to a huge video library as part of the bundle.

The biggest question is if Amazon Leo will offer prices below Amazon’s standard $130 per month (recently increased from $120). Doing so would put a lot of pressure on Starlink to lower its prices. Unfortunately, there is also the possibility that the two companies will have similar pricing and will form a duopoly of expensive satellite broadband.

Digital Equity Grants Inch Forward

You may read headlines that lead you to believe that the courts have restored the Digital Equity Act as a result of a lawsuit by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA). The ruling from Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is a lot more complicated than that.

If you’re brave enough to venture into the court order, you’re going to quickly figure out that, unless you are a constitutional lawyer, you aren’t going to understand a lot of the background and discussion inside the order. If you want a plain English summary of the order, I direct you to the excellent summary from the Benton Institute – and even that is challenging to read in places for those not used to reading court orders. Rather than rehash everything in the order, which was done well by Benton, I’m going to cut to the conclusions of the case and talk about what this might mean for those still hoping to get digital inclusion grants.

What did the Court order? The Administration killed the $2.75 billion grant programs that were part of the Digital Equity Act. This suit specifically challenged the termination of the Digital Equity Competitive Grant program, where NTIA made direct grant awards for digital inclusion activities. This suit did not address the Digital Equity Capacity Grant program, where State Broadband Offices were slated to make digital inclusion grant awards.

The Court did not yet order the NTIA to continue with the Competitive Grant program. The order basically eliminated the government’s stated reason for canceling the grant program. The government argued that making grants based on race was unconstitutional. The court agreed with that argument, which is a big win for the Administration, since this is the first Court to so plainly agree with that assertion. But the Court further ruled that if grant requirements based on race are removed, the rest of the lawsuit can continue. The government said in a footnote of their pleading that they would be willing to immediately reinstate the Competitive Grant program if the race issue were removed. The two sides are now required to file a joint status report by August 1 that proposes a schedule for continuing the case.

So what’s next? One possibility is that the government will want to continue to dispute some of the other claims by NDIA, and if that happens, the court case would continue.

The possibility that digital inclusion advocates hope for is that the government will be good on its word and will agree to end the suit now that the race criteria are gone. If that happens, it’s likely that the Court would order NTIA to restart the Competitive Grant program.

Nobody knows what that would mean. NTIA could decide to get moving again with the grant program. However, NTIA might still be reluctant to award these grants if that’s the message they get from the Administration, and they could slow-roll the process, just like they are doing with the BEAD nondeployment funds. NTIA could decide to take a fresh look at the grant rules now that race has been removed and start the process over. Even if NTIA moves forward, I find it unlikely that NTIA would automatically honor the grants that were already awarded and would make everybody apply again. I wouldn’t make any bets that NDIA is going to get a grant award from this program.

The other half of this program is the Capacity Grant program, which was going to give money to states to make digital inclusion grant awards. There doesn’t seem to be any direct ties between this case and that grant program, so it likely stays in limbo, even if the Competitive Grant program restarts.

There is also a big concern that the Administration has recommended no funding for this program in next year’s budget, so the entire program could quietly die through lack of funding, even if NDIA prevails in this lawsuit.

There is a ray of hope here, and digital inclusion folks should continue to hope and should continue lobbying Congress to keep the funding alive and to press NTIA to make the awards. But I can’t foresee anything happening quickly, even if the Court clears this off its docket in August.

Comcast to Spin Off Entertainment

Comcast recently announced plans to spin off its entertainment businesses. The newly created NBCUniversal will include the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, Bravo, Peacock, the European media business Sky, along with theme parks and other businesses. The Peacock subsidiary has been actively buying rights to sporting events. Comcast had begun the spinoff of entertainment subsidiaries early this year when it spun off cable networks, including MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, E!, Syfy, Oxygen, the Golf Channels, and digital brands like Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes into the Versant Media Group. A Comcast shareholder will get a share of each new business. Comcast says it will retain a 19.9% share in NBCUniversal for at least a year.

The post-split Comcast will retain the core broadband, cellular, and cable TV business lines. The company will also retain Comcast Spectator, which owns the Xfinity Arena in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Flyers, and the FreeWheel tech ad business. The public announcement said that the company no longer sees any synergies or financial benefits from operating two distinct lines of business. Wall Street instantly applauded the move with an upward bump in the Comcast stock price.

This should allow Comcast to concentrate on the increasingly competitive communications business. The company has been steadily losing broadband customers every quarter since 2023. It’s seeing competition from fiber overbuilding, FWA cellular, and even satellite. The cable TV business has continued its long, downhill slide. Comcast has seen significant growth in the cellular business and is approaching 10 million cellular customers.

The news instantly set off speculation about how both of the new businesses are attractive M&A targets now that they are separate. I saw speculation that Netflix, Amazon, and Disney/Paramount/Fox ought to be interested in NBCUniversal. I saw instant speculation that SpaceX, Charter, or one of the big cellular companies would be interested in a standalone Comcast.

I could never understand the presumed benefits of combining ISPs and media companies. When Comcast purchased the entertainment businesses, the reason given at the time was to take advantage of the content. But I never understood this since an ISP already delivers all kinds of content.

The other attempts in the industry to combine an ISP with content were big failures. The biggest failure of all was AT&T’s $85 billion purchase of Time Warner in 2018. Within a few years, in 2022, AT&T spun off Warner Media to Discovery for $43 billion. This bad deal was bad for AT&T in many ways. CEO Randall Stephenson, a champion of the merger, stepped down in 2020. AT&T’s stock took a huge hit during the time that it owned Time Warner, and AT&T had to slash its dividend in half.

Verizon also took a shot at buying content. The company purchased AOL in 2015 for $4.4 billion, a price that startled the market. The company then purchased Yahoo in 2017 for $4.48 billion. Verizon repackaged the two companies into a new subsidiary called Oath, which was later renamed Verizon Media. Verizon eventually sold Verizon Media to Apollo Global Management for $5 billion. Before that sale, Verizon had separately sold HuffPost, Tumblr, and MapQuest.

The Comcast sale means there are no ISPs left with big content businesses. Combining the disparate businesses never made sense since Verizon’s purchase of AOL, and hopefully, the Comcast spin-off ends this failed experiment.

The Blueprint for Equitable Digital Participation

Today’s blog is about a report titled The Blueprint for Equitable Digital Participation that was sponsored by Public Knowledge, UnidosUS, and NDIA. It’s a lengthy report that takes a deep dive into issues related to digital inclusion and digital equity and looks at the problems experienced by homes that don’t have or can’t afford broadband.

The report is based on seven focus groups conducted in Colorado, Georgia, New Mexico, and Ohio. The focus groups included households with annual incomes no greater than $70,000, with many far below that. The focus groups were followed by a more detailed nationwide survey based on questions developed during the focus groups.

The report documents the same kind of findings that have come from many other sources. It’s worth reading the report just for the 60 footnotes that lead to a lot of other research in this area. The report documents the primary reasons why homes don’t have adequate broadband.

  • The issue for many unconnected homes is the ability to afford a monthly broadband subscription.
  • The focus groups included folks who settle for low-cost broadband alternatives that are too slow to meet household needs.
  • There were people in the focus groups who lived in places with no good broadband infrastructure.
  • There were focus group participants who have a hard time affording computers and devices to use the Internet.
  • A lot of folks admitted to not having the skills needed to use computers and navigate the Internet.

The report reached some key findings and recommendations.

  • The research found that many people without broadband have a sophisticated understanding of what they need to use broadband, but face systematic barriers to having a monthly broadband subscription.
  • Being on the wrong side of the digital divide compounds other challenges facing struggling households. Lack of broadband contributes to problems with housing stability, healthcare, employment, and education.
  • Programs to tackle the digital divide have to meet people where they live instead of being done at a statewide or county level.
  • The report concludes that the size of the monthly subsidy needed to get broadband into homes has to be around $40 per month. This could come from the Universal Service Fund or some other mechanism. The report concludes that this is enough to get broadband into most homes.
  • Federal broadband projects in the future should concentrate on network resiliency and ISP operational support, and not just on building infrastructure.
  • There needs to be federal or state support for broadband adoption programs for digital skills training, digital access, and culturally responsive digital training and digital navigation.

The conclusion of the report is worth thinking about: The digital divide is fundamentally about power and resource distribution. Closing it requires not just building infrastructure but ensuring people can actually benefit from networks through comprehensive adoption support, community ownership models, and policy frameworks that prioritize human dignity over corporate profits. The communities most affected by digital exclusion possess the wisdom to drive solutions—they just need the resources and power to implement them.

 

The Spectrum Auction Winners

After a four-year hiatus, the FCC recently held a spectrum auction of 200 licenses for AWS-3 spectrum in the 1695-1710 MHz, 1755-1780 MHz, and 2155-2180 MHz bands. The last FCC auction was in 2022 for 2.5 GHz spectrum. The FCC lost the ability to hold spectrum auctions when its Congressional authority lapsed and was not renewed. This spectrum was touted by the FCC as being 5G-grade. The license areas included in the auction covered over 100 million people across 48 states and two US territories, and included major markets like New York, Chicago, Boston, Tampa, and Charlotte. The FCC announced before the auction that much of the proceeds will be used to continue to fund the rip-and-replace of Chinese electronics from Huawei and ZTE.

The winning bidders collectively bid more than $3.57 billion. The winners are as follows, from largest to smallest:

  • Verizon Wireless: $3,162,445,000 for 82 licenses in 82 markets
  • T-Mobile: $277,787,000 for 102 licenses in 102 markets
  • AT&T: $120,774,000 for 10 licenses in 10 markets
  • SpaceX: $8,490,200 for two licenses in two markets
  • Blue Ridge Wireless II LLC: $2,090,000 for one license in one market
  • Conundrum Wireless, LLC: $1,228,000 for two licenses in one market
  • Citizens Band License Company, LLC: $75,000 for one license in one market

Not surprisingly, 99.7% of the spectrum was claimed by the three big cellular carriers, with Verizon snagging 88.5% of the awards. Folks might be surprised to see SpaceX as the fourth-largest winner. The company is looking for spectrum to enhance its direct-to-cell mobile services. Analysts speculated that this auction was a trial run for the company to learn about the auction process since the company has already agreed to buy $2.6 billion in spectrum in the AWS-3, AWS-4, and H-blocks from EchoStar.

Verizon was using the auction to fill holes in its spectrum portfolio and spent almost $2 billion of its winning bids in New York, Chicago, and Boston. AT&T’s biggest focus was for Charlotte. T-Mobile dropped out of all of the expensive markets, but still won the most licenses spread across small metropolitan areas.

ike many actions by the federal government these days, there is also an interesting backstory to this auction. The spectrum that was included in this auction originally came from EchoStar (originally Dish Networks). Two companies, SNR Wireless and Northstar Wireless, originally purchased the spectrum in the 2014 AWS-3 auction for $3.3 billion. When the FCC learned that Dish was the secret backer of the two companies, the FCC voided the awards. The FCC ruled that when this spectrum was eventually reauctioned, that Dish would owe the FCC any shortfall if the new auction raises anything less than $2.9 billion.

Roger Entner of Recon Analytics says that EchoStar bid up the current auction to save itself from having to pay for any shortfall in the auction. EchoStar entered the recent auction with almost as many bid credits as Verizon. Entner claims that EchoStar was in the auction for no other purpose than bidding up the price, and in doing so, increased the proceeds of the auction from $2 billion to the final $3.57 billion. He says that EchoStar stayed in the auction until the auction reached the threshold where the company was off the hook for paying for the shortfall. In the next two rounds, the company dropped out of every market except for two licenses it got stuck with in Guam. The company is no longer in the cellular business, and Entner expects it will sell this spectrum at a discount to a local cellular provider or just ride out the build-out shot clock until the FCC is forced to reclaim the spectrum.

It’s going to be interesting to see if the three big carriers take any action against EchoStar for driving up the prices. I don’t have the slightest idea if EchoStar did anything illegal, but its bidding actions were certainly shady.

FCC Proposes New Permitting Rules

The FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking titled Build America: Eliminating Barriers to Wireline Deployments. The stated purpose of the proposed new rules is “to cut red tape and excessive fees imposed by some state and local governments in the public rights-of-way for wireline deployments”. There are several important provisions in the new rules.

First, the FCC proposes a 120-day shot clock for local governments to approve a request for rights-of-way. If the local government doesn’t respond in that time frame, then the application is presumed to be approved. That may seem like a reasonable time frame when you first hear about. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask a local government to approve or reject a right-of-way request to build fiber on a single street or a small neighborhood. But consider if a fiber overbuilder requests rights-of-way for an entire city. Such requests are complicated. Such a request would include residential neighborhoods and business districts. A city would have to consider a lot of factors, like planned road relocations or rebuilds, other construction activity that is already occurring, and issues related to the condition of existing rights-of-ways that might already be overcrowded with other utilities.

The docket also proposes to limit fees to a reasonable approximation of the government’s actual, direct costs of managing the rights-of-way with respect to a particular application. This implies the FCC will only allow fees associated with establishing the original right-of-way and will not allow fees to cover some of the costs for managing the right-of-way over future years.

The FCC plans to establish safe harbor fees for rights-of-way. For those not familiar with that term, a safe harbor fee generally means a standard rate or affordable guideline. The problem with safe harbor rates is that they don’t recognize the difference between a right-of-way fee in a small rural town and one for the biggest metropolitan areas of a state.

The new rules will count in-kind compensation as part of any fee. Local governments often negotiate in-kind contributions with fiber builders. For example, they might grant a right-of-way and ask the fiber builder to provide a few free fibers to connect between government buildings. The FCC new rules will mandate that any such in-kind contribution be counted as part of the fee. That would mean putting a dollar value on the in-kind contribution and subtracting it from the fees. That may sound reasonable, but this is being done in the context where the local government has to prove its fees are cost-based while a fiber builder will not. I have many clients who have been handed inflated estimates from cable companies for providing short fiber routes.

Finally, the new rules will prohibit a local government from charging higher fees when the proposed infrastructure will support multiple purposes. An example would be a fiber route that is being built to bring fiber to a neighborhood and also serve a cell tower.

The most interesting thing about the docket to me is that FCC Chairman Carr said when he took the job that his philosophy was “light touch regulation”, meaning he didn’t foresee the FCC implementing a lot of new regulations. Instead, this and other FCC proceedings are adding a lot of new federal regulations. Many of the other FCC proceedings are similar to this one in that the FCC wants to wrest away any regulatory authority from states and localities and regulate everything at the federal level.

I’m sure that industry comments will include some horror stories from fiber builders about cities that have stonewalled new fiber construction or that charge a lot of fees. My guess is that these are the exception rather than the rule since most communities want more fiber and are willing to work with anybody willing to invest in their market.

Satellite Shorts July 2026

Accelerated Satellite Regulatory Approvals. The FCC announced that it will vote at its July 22 meeting to overhaul the regulatory process for satellite broadband. The proposed rules are in an order titled Space Modernization for the 21st Century. The proposed rules are to meet four specific goals: to improve the speed of processing applications for new satellites, to provide more predictability to applicants and licensees, to provide more flexibility for innovation, and to still meet the FCC’s responsibilities. It’s one of the longest FCC orders I can recall, at 296 pages.

The new rules would eliminate a lot of old regulations and replace them with new rules intended to speed up the paperwork process by applying “bright-line” criteria for approving new satellites. For those not familiar with that term, a bright-line regulation is one with a clear, objective rule or standard that leaves no room for subjective interpretation or exceptions, that is designed to create highly predictable outcome. A bright-line approval process would list specific requirements, and any applicant who meets those requirements would be approved. Perhaps I’m naïve, but I would expect that approving new satellites should include a thorough engineering review at the FCC. There should also be an opportunity for other satellite providers to note any problems with an application. I’m all for improving the processing time at regulatory agencies, but changing from today’s through review to a set of bright-line rules is going too far in the direction of simplification and assumes that satellite companies won’t propose any bad or unworkable ideas.

100,000 Satellites for Starlink? Perhaps this is a coincidence for the FCC wanting to simplify satellite applications, but Starlink filed an application to expand to 100,000 broadband satellites to its constellation, up from the 12,000 that will be in orbit at the end of this year and the 15,000 total that have been authorized by the FCC. The application includes a request to get access to new spectrum in the W and D bands between 92 and 275 GHz. The filing says that the new satellites will be the new Gen3 that will be capable of speeds up to several gigabits per second. Never one for modesty, the filing from Elon Musk says that SpaceX has a goal of handling the majority of the world’s internet traffic.

Rocket Lab Buys Iridium. In an $8 billion deal, Rocket Lab is acquiring the satellite company Iridium. Iridium currently operates a constellation of 66 satellites that provide a range of services that include phone and data services using the L-band spectrum, positioning services, and navigation and timing services. Rocket Labs is a launch service that hopes the deal will make the company into a full-service provider that both launches and operates satellites. The company hinted earlier this year that it was interested in developing its own constellation but said it’s not ready to announce specific plans and services until it acquires the needed spectrum.

NASA Warns About Launch Site Capacity. A report from the inspector general of NASA warns that the increasing number of space launches is posing problems for spaceports. The report warns that the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia are approaching operational capacity and will hit their limits between 2028 and 2029. The prediction is that the number of launches will grow from the current 109 annual launches to 268 per year by 2030, which will overstrain the launch facilities that were constructed years ago to support the Apollo program. The report warns that an investment of at least $1 billion is needed to future-proof the sites. The launch sites are controlled under the NASA budget, and the administration has proposed a 24% cut in NASA’s budget for the next fiscal year, which includes eliminating forty scientific programs.

Premium Fees from Starlink? A recent article in Futurism reports that SpaceX is charging some users a demand surcharge of $500 to $1,500 because their address is within a high-demand area. The article cites several customers who have been hit with the surcharge, and who complain that it’s nearly impossible to fight the issue through the company’s slim customer service process.

The article notes that the congestion charge was quietly reintroduced in 2024 at a one-time fee of $100 for high-congestion areas. PC Magazine reported in 2025 that the fees had been increased to as much as $1,000. As of last month, there are reports of surcharges of $1,500 in parts of Alaska.

Meanwhile, Starlink has increased prices. While it now offers usage-capped plans for $55 or $85 in selected areas, the price for normal unlimited Starlink broadband was increased from $120 to $130.

Behind the Scenes at T-Mobile

There is some interesting corporate maneuvering happening behind the scenes at T-Mobile. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall) talks about the plans that Timotheus Höttges, the CEO of Deutsche Telekom, has for his company. The company is already the biggest cellular company in the world with over 273 million mobile customers in fifty countries.

Höttges is now trying to orchestrate a full merger between the two firms. Deutsche Telekom currently owns 54% of T-Mobile, and during his twelve years in charge of the company, he’s changed T-Mobile from a company that perpetually lost money to one of the most recognizable brand names in the industry. He thinks a merger is needed to give T-Mobile the resources it needs to fully succeed.

T-Mobile recognizes that the key to success is to own a large number of both fiber and cellular customers. The company has been engaging in partnership deals to gain a share of fiber overbuilders. A few years ago, the company purchased a 50% stake in Metronet, a Midwest fiber overbuilder. The company engaged in a joint venture with EQT to acquire Lumos. More recently, T-Mobile purchased 50% of i3 Broadband, GoNetspeed, and Greenlight Networks. The company bought all of the ownership of US Internet in the Twin Cities.

The Wall Street Journal reports that T-Mobile is financially constrained from growing through big acquisitions and deals. The current T-Mobile corporate structure makes it impossible for the company to buy companies by issuing stocks without diluting the ownership of Deutsche Telekom, and it’s limited on how much debt it can take on.

Höttges believes that combining Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile into a giant $300 billion company will allow T-Mobile to take on the debt needed to grow. He thinks T-Mobile should be competing with AT&T and Verizon, and that’s going to take big acquisitions.

Höttges apparently has his work cut out for him. Current T-Mobile shareholders might not be interested in gaining ownership of the lower-margin Deutsche Telekom. He also needs to convince the German government, which owns a 28% share of Deutsche Telekom. And if he can pull off those steps, he has a lot of work to do to gain regulatory approval in the U.S. and Europe.

You have to wonder where an unconstrained T-Mobile would look for growth. There are still additional mid-sized and smaller fiber overbuilders it could pursue. The largest cable company that could be on the market is Altice, which is mired in a lawsuit against Apollo Global Management, Ares Management, and BlackRock that accuses the companies of trying to force it into bankruptcy.

The only other large companies that might make sense for a merger with T-Mobile would be Charter or Comcast. I’ve been reading several analysts lately who think the big blockbuster mergers are inevitable. But some think a more natural suitor for these companies would be SpaceX.

There is a lot that has to happen for Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile before any big blockbuster deal can be contemplated.  For those of us who enjoy watching the big boys maneuver, the next few years are going to be very interesting.