Weekly Telecom Intelligence: October 18–24, 2026
This week pushed satellite mobile from theory to tangible market pressure: Bloomberg reports SpaceX is negotiating access to at least 80,000 U.S. cell sites as it builds Starlink Mobile, and the FCC approved transfer of three AWS-3 licenses to Starlink Spectrum Holdings with milestone deadlines beginning in 2029. AST SpaceMobile said intermittent direct-to-device coverage windows will begin in five markets before year end, and Nokia with NVIDIA and T-Mobile completed the first AI-RAN call on a live commercial site. Taken together these developments signal a near-term emergence of hybrid satellite plus terrestrial wholesale offerings, and a shift toward software driven RAN and spectrum models that change how MVNEs must handle SLA, billing, and provisioning. MVNEs, tower partners, and MVNO brands should expect accelerated demand for hybrid connectivity products, tighter tower pricing leverage, and new regulatory and certification risks to factor into commercial contracts.
Weekly Telecom Intelligence: July 19–25, 2026
This week the FCC adopted a major satellite licensing overhaul, replacing legacy Part 25 with a new Part 100 intended to speed and standardize approvals. Concurrently Iridium reaffirmed its June 28 merger agreement with Rocket Lab and expects the deal to close in mid 2027, while DARPA began a yearlong in orbit servicing demonstration and Crown Castle updated Q2 outlooks amid portfolio shifts. Taken together these items point to accelerating commercialization and vertical integration across satellite and infrastructure stacks, and to new operational and compliance requirements for wholesale players. For MVNEs and MVNOs the net is clearer: faster satellite product time to market, more integrated supplier options, and additional contract work to manage data and lifecycle obligations.
Telecom Intelligence: Week of March 10, 2025
Deregulation got a battle cry. On March 12 FCC Chairman Brendan Carr opened a docket bluntly titled Delete, Delete, Delete, inviting the public to nominate any Commission rule for elimination and signaling the most aggressive deregulatory push in the agency's modern history. The market week belonged to Verizon's candor: at a March 11 investor conference the carrier warned that first-quarter subscriber growth would be soft amid a brutal promotional environment, knocking its shares down more than 7 percent and dragging the whole telecom sector with them. And Crown Castle completed its retreat to a pure tower company, agreeing March 13 to sell its fiber and small cells businesses to Zayo and EQT for a combined 8.5 billion dollars.