The first week of November was a regulator's week with a satellite twist. On November 3 the FCC released its Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on broadband consumer labels, proposing to strip back parts of the labeling regime it finished building only a year earlier and opening a comment window through early December. On November 6 the Commission released its 2025 order on incarcerated people's communications services, revising rate caps and compliance deadlines under the Martha Wright-Reed Act. And on November 7, Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile announced plans for a new European satellite constellation for direct-to-device service, selecting Germany as the site of a sovereign European satellite operations centre for their SatCo joint venture.
A week about the plumbing of the industry rather than its headlines. Juniper Research published new figures showing travel eSIM revenue reaching 1.8 billion dollars in 2025, up 85 percent in a single year, confirming how quickly downloadable SIMs are eating international roaming. On October 14 Ericsson reported third quarter results, with sales down but margins holding as the vendor leaned on major contracts in India, Japan, and the UK. And on October 15 Samsung announced a multi-country deal to deploy virtualized, O-RAN compliant network equipment for Vodafone across Europe, starting in Germany and covering thousands of sites over five years.