Consolidation went orbital this week. On July 17 SES completed its 3.1 billion dollar acquisition of Intelsat, uniting two of the oldest names in satellite communications into a multi-orbit operator with roughly 120 satellites. On July 14 the Government Accountability Office renewed public pressure on NTIA over unimplemented spectrum management recommendations, warning that federal coordination gaps are slowing the pipeline that feeds commercial wireless. And Ericsson's second quarter results on July 15 showed enterprise 5G momentum steadying the vendor while traditional network sales stayed soft, a snapshot of an equipment market waiting for its next buildout cycle.
The satellite era got a signup page. T-Mobile opened beta registration for its Starlink direct-to-cell service on December 16, inviting ordinary customers to test satellite texting on the phones already in their pockets, while the same day in Brussels the SpaceRISE consortium signed the 10.6 billion euro concession to build IRIS2, Europe's sovereign answer to the constellations it does not control. Two days later CISA told the government's most targeted people to stop trusting carrier voice and SMS altogether and move to end-to-end encrypted apps, the bluntest official verdict yet on the Salt Typhoon aftermath. And SoftBank's Masayoshi Son stood next to the president-elect and pledged 100 billion dollars for American AI infrastructure, the kind of number that eventually lands on networks.