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.
Mobile World Congress opened in Barcelona with one product on every stand: the 'AI phone,' as Samsung, Google, and every chipset vendor raced to define what on-device intelligence should mean before Apple showed its hand. Apple, meanwhile, was clearing the decks — canceling its decade-long electric car project and redirecting much of that talent to generative AI, the clearest signal yet of where Cupertino believes the next platform fight is. And the White House opened a new regulatory front, issuing an executive order to stop bulk sales of Americans' sensitive personal data — genomic, biometric, financial, and location — to China, Russia, and other countries of concern.