The busiest week of the month packed a switching offensive, a historic layoff, and the starting gun for the next big spectrum auction into three days. On November 19, T-Mobile unveiled Switching Made Easy at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, a 15-minute switching experience built around its AI-powered Easy Switch tool aimed squarely at AT&T and Verizon customers. On November 20, Verizon confirmed the rumors, with CEO Dan Schulman telling employees the company would cut more than 13,000 jobs, about 13 percent of its workforce. And at its November 20 open meeting the FCC adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to make as much as 180 megahertz of Upper C-band spectrum available for commercial wireless, feeding a congressionally mandated auction due by July 2027.
A week when two of the industry's biggest structures started to move. On November 13, Reuters reported that Verizon's new CEO Dan Schulman was preparing to cut roughly 15,000 jobs, the largest layoff in the company's history, as part of a restructuring aimed at reversing subscriber losses. The same day, Amazon retired the Project Kuiper name and rebranded its satellite constellation as Amazon Leo, unveiling a lineup of customer terminals as it shifts from launch project to commercial service. And on November 15, EchoStar completed its retreat from network ownership, shutting down its own 5G network and moving all Boost Mobile traffic onto AT&T under a hybrid arrangement, ending the four-network era in US wireless.
The month closed with the two remaining scorecards and a regulator squeezing in its meeting despite the shutdown. On October 28 the FCC held its Space Month open meeting, voting on items to streamline satellite and earth station rules and adopting a further notice proposing to pare back broadband consumer label requirements. On October 29 Verizon reported third quarter earnings in Dan Schulman's first appearance as CEO, where he reiterated guidance and promised a candid reset focused on returning the carrier to customer growth. And on October 31 Charter reported 493,000 new Spectrum Mobile lines, bringing cable's quiet wireless machine to 11.4 million lines at Charter alone.
The week Verizon hit reset. On October 6 the company abruptly named former PayPal chief Dan Schulman as CEO, replacing Hans Vestberg effective immediately, a board-driven change aimed at reversing subscriber losses at the largest US carrier by revenue. Two days later, AST SpaceMobile announced a definitive commercial agreement with Verizon to deliver space-based cellular service to Verizon customers starting in 2026, using Verizon's 850 MHz spectrum. All of it played out against a federal government shutdown that began October 1 and closed most of the FCC, furloughing the bulk of its staff and freezing filings, databases, and routine approvals across the industry.