The week before the election, four storylines that would define 2025 all surfaced at once. A Sixth Circuit panel heard oral arguments on the FCC's net neutrality rules and pressed hard on whether the agency had the statutory authority at all — foreshadowing January's decision to strike them down. Comcast used its earnings call to float spinning off its cable networks, the first domino in the great linear-TV unbundling. Apple committed $1.5 billion to Globalstar, converting iPhone satellite features from a supplier contract into semi-ownership of a constellation. And Charter's 545,000 new mobile lines showed cable's MVNO machine still compounding inside the big carriers' own networks.
Salt Typhoon went from national-security story to election story: reporting on Friday revealed the Chinese hackers had targeted phones used by Donald Trump, JD Vance, and people associated with the Harris campaign — placing the carrier breach at the center of American politics eleven days before the vote. Against that backdrop, earnings week played out almost quaintly: T-Mobile posted industry-leading growth and raised guidance across the board, while Verizon held serve on wireless service revenue while absorbing $1.7 billion in severance charges and doubling down on fixed wireless as its growth engine.
Vendor earnings told a tale of one market: Ericsson rode a 55% North America surge — powered by its landmark AT&T deal — back to fat margins, while Nokia posted its own gross-margin recovery on shrinking sales and kept waiting for the US spending wave to reach it. Meanwhile the quiet dismantling of UScellular continued, with Verizon writing a $1 billion check for 850 MHz and AWS spectrum the T-Mobile deal left behind. The week's throughline: capital is flowing again in US wireless — into radios and into spectrum — but it is flowing to fewer, bigger players.