February closed with devices, broadband subsidies, and European money all pointing in the same direction: scale wins. Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S26 series at its Unpacked event in San Francisco on February 25, and Boost Mobile pounced the same day with preorder offers of up to $1,000 off, showing how device launch windows have become carrier customer-acquisition events. In Washington, the Commerce Department approved BEAD spending plans for Washington state and Alaska, bringing the total to 47 states, with Alaska notably allocating about a third of its $629 million to low earth orbit satellite service, a milestone for Starlink's role in subsidized rural broadband. And in Bonn, Deutsche Telekom posted record full-year results on February 26, driven overwhelmingly by T-Mobile US, whose $71.3 billion in service revenue now powers a record dividend for German shareholders.
Spectrum policy took center stage this week. On February 18 the FCC unanimously adopted a Report and Order opening all ten megahertz of the 900 MHz band to broadband, handing utilities and critical infrastructure operators a dedicated home for private wireless networks. A day earlier, OpenVault's quarterly broadband report quantified something providers have long suspected: when subscribers get faster upstream speeds, they use them, with upstream consumption jumping 21.7 percent year over year and average household usage passing 767 gigabytes. And in the prepaid trenches, Boost Mobile refreshed its device lineup with the 2026 moto g family starting at $19.99, a reminder that the value segment fight is won and lost on affordable hardware. Together the week's stories show an industry widening its lanes: more spectrum for private networks, more upstream for home broadband, and cheaper 5G devices for the prepaid market.
A landmark close, a regulatory earthquake in Europe, and the first big vendor scorecard of the year. On January 20, Verizon completed its roughly $20 billion acquisition of Frontier Communications, instantly expanding its fiber reach to nearly 30 million homes and businesses across 31 states. The same day in Brussels, the European Commission published its Cybersecurity Act 2 proposal, which for the first time would give the EU a binding framework to phase out high-risk suppliers from telecom networks and 17 other critical sectors, a move widely read as targeting Huawei and ZTE. And on January 23, Ericsson closed out 2025 with fourth quarter organic sales growth of 6 percent and its strongest margins in years, evidence that network spending has stabilized even as the RAN market stays flat.
This week the MVNO economy got a growth forecast and the biggest fiber deal in America got a closing date. Juniper Research published a study on January 12 projecting global MVNO subscribers will climb from 333 million in 2026 to 438 million by 2030, crediting MVNO-in-a-Box platforms for letting enterprises launch mobile services without building telecom stacks. The same day, Keysight and Samsung demonstrated a standards-based 5G non-terrestrial network link in the new n252 band, a milestone for making direct-to-cell a native part of the 5G standard rather than a proprietary bolt-on. And on January 15, Verizon and Frontier announced they had cleared the final regulatory hurdle, setting January 20 as the closing date for the roughly $20 billion acquisition.
The year closed with the satellite industry publishing its own report card. On December 31 SpaceX released its third annual Starlink Progress Report, a 75-page account of a breakout year: a completed first-generation direct-to-cell constellation of more than 650 satellites, service in 22 countries across 6 continents, more than 6 million customers, and 27 mobile operator partnerships worldwide. Days earlier, coverage of the FCC's year-end space policy review detailed the mechanics behind the agency's move to higher direct-to-cell power levels, including revisions to the legacy power flux density limits written for a different satellite era. With the FCC's Upper C-band auction rulemaking heading toward a January 5 comment deadline, the quiet holiday week was really a starting line for 2026.
Year-end week delivered a victory lap, a rocket launch, and a regulator's scorecard. T-Mobile published its Un-carrier Unwrapped retrospective on December 22, claiming America's best network title, its strongest quarter in over a decade, and 90 million T-Life installs under new CEO Srini Gopalan. On December 23, AST SpaceMobile launched BlueBird 6 from India, a roughly 2,400 square foot phased array three times larger than its first-generation satellites and the largest commercial communications array ever sent to low Earth orbit. The same day, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr published a list of 75 wins delivered in 2025, confirming among them new frameworks allowing satellite operators to run direct-to-cell services at higher power levels.
The satellite layer of the US network got its commercial charter this week. On December 16 the FCC granted SpaceX and T-Mobile a landmark supplemental coverage from space license, moving direct-to-cell service from experimental authority to a fully commercial framework. The same day, Verizon and Array Digital Infrastructure announced a multi-year partnership giving Verizon streamlined access to Array's portfolio of more than 4,400 towers to accelerate its 5G buildout. And on December 18 the FCC held its final open meeting of the year, adopting a Third Report and Order that tightens VoIP providers' access to phone numbers in its campaign against robocalls, and deleting around 35 obsolete rules from the books.
A quieter week on the surface, but the signals underneath were about where enterprise connectivity money is flowing. Ericsson told RCR Wireless on December 9 that it now counts private 5G deployments across hundreds of enterprise customers, with roughly 95 percent using capabilities only 5G can deliver, a pointed contrast with rivals retreating from the segment. On December 10, Fierce Network announced the winners of its 2025 Innovation Awards, a useful map of where the industry thinks the next competitive edges sit. And on December 11 the FCC released the tentative agenda for its December 18 open meeting, headlined by a Third Report and Order tightening the rules that give VoIP providers direct access to phone numbers, the agency's latest move against robocall infrastructure.
Thanksgiving week slowed the news cycle but not the paperwork or the price wars. On November 24, Juniper Research forecast that global eSIM connections will grow 300 percent over the next five years, with China's newly opened market described as an immediate opportunity. On November 25, the FCC's bureaus accepted for filing the applications underpinning EchoStar's twin spectrum sales, moving both the SpaceX and AT&T transactions into their formal comment cycles on a coordinated schedule. And through Black Friday week the value segment put on its loudest show of the year, led by Mint Mobile cutting its unlimited plans to 15 dollars a month, half its standard rate.
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.
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.
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.
The month closed with a regulator racing the clock. On September 30, hours before federal funding lapsed, the FCC held its September open meeting, adopting a Notice of Inquiry on accelerating wireline infrastructure buildout and continuing its rule-deletion campaign. The same day the Commission formally accepted the SpaceX and EchoStar spectrum assignment applications for filing, starting the public comment clock on the 17 billion dollar transfer. And on October 1, as the government shut down, T-Mobile launched satellite data on T-Satellite, bringing app connectivity from space to dozens of phone models and moving direct-to-cell beyond messaging for the mass market.
The year changed and so did two decades of regulatory architecture. On January 2 the Sixth Circuit struck down the FCC's net neutrality rules outright, ruling in the first major post-Chevron test that the agency never had the authority to classify broadband as a telecom service, and ending a twenty-year seesaw unless Congress writes it into law. Days earlier, AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen declared their networks clear of Salt Typhoon, statements that landed awkwardly against a White House count that was still climbing. And Vodafone closed the books on its European retreat, completing the 8 billion euro sale of Vodafone Italia to Swisscom on New Year's Eve.