Weekly Telecom Intelligence: July 19–25, 2026
This week the FCC adopted a major satellite licensing overhaul, replacing legacy Part 25 with a new Part 100 intended to speed and standardize approvals. Concurrently Iridium reaffirmed its June 28 merger agreement with Rocket Lab and expects the deal to close in mid 2027, while DARPA began a yearlong in orbit servicing demonstration and Crown Castle updated Q2 outlooks amid portfolio shifts. Taken together these items point to accelerating commercialization and vertical integration across satellite and infrastructure stacks, and to new operational and compliance requirements for wholesale players. For MVNEs and MVNOs the net is clearer: faster satellite product time to market, more integrated supplier options, and additional contract work to manage data and lifecycle obligations.
Telecom Intelligence: Week of December 15, 2025
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.
Telecom Intelligence: Week of July 28, 2025
An era ended on a Friday. On August 1 T-Mobile completed its 4.4 billion dollar acquisition of UScellular's wireless operations and select spectrum, absorbing the last major regional carrier's customers and stores while UScellular lives on as a tower and spectrum company. The close came one week after the FCC's July 24 open meeting, where commissioners unanimously adopted a rulemaking to accelerate the retirement of copper networks, formally starting the countdown on the century-old phone plant. And AT&T's Internet Air fixed wireless service posted another 200,000-plus customer quarter, evidence that even the carrier most committed to fiber keeps finding demand for wireless broadband it once dismissed.
Telecom Intelligence: Week of March 10, 2025
Deregulation got a battle cry. On March 12 FCC Chairman Brendan Carr opened a docket bluntly titled Delete, Delete, Delete, inviting the public to nominate any Commission rule for elimination and signaling the most aggressive deregulatory push in the agency's modern history. The market week belonged to Verizon's candor: at a March 11 investor conference the carrier warned that first-quarter subscriber growth would be soft amid a brutal promotional environment, knocking its shares down more than 7 percent and dragging the whole telecom sector with them. And Crown Castle completed its retreat to a pure tower company, agreeing March 13 to sell its fiber and small cells businesses to Zayo and EQT for a combined 8.5 billion dollars.
Telecom Intelligence: Week of September 30, 2024
Monday, September 30 packed a quarter's worth of news into one day. A nationwide Verizon outage left over 100,000 customers — many staring at 'SOS' on their iPhones — and drew an immediate FCC investigation. AT&T finally severed its television era, selling its remaining 70% of DirecTV to TPG for $7.6 billion, hours before DirecTV announced it would absorb EchoStar's Dish TV and Sling — consolidating a shrinking satellite-TV industry into one company. T-Mobile bought peace with the FCC over years of data breaches for $31.5 million, half earmarked for security upgrades. And Verizon quietly monetized more of its physical empire, handing 6,339 towers to Vertical Bridge for $3.3 billion.