Interconnected TMT

Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) Chairman Brendan Carr released a tentative agenda for the FCC’s May Open Meeting headlined with a new proceeding that could remake aspects of the $4.5 billion High Cost program. The other three items on the May agenda advance existing efforts to improve the Broadband Data Collection (BDC), the robocall regulatory regime and the disaster outage reporting system. The FCC’s May Open Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 20, at 10:30 a.m. ET, and details on the four expected items to be considered at the Open Meeting are summarized below:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) released a tentative agenda for the FCC’s April Open Meeting scheduled for Thursday, April 30 at 10:30 a.m. ET. The items on the April agenda reflect three of Chairman Brendan Carr’s top priorities: modernizing regulations governing satellite broadband, protecting consumers from unlawful robocalls and strengthening national security safeguards in the equipment authorization and telecommunications service rules. Details on the six items expected to be considered at the Open Meeting are summarized and discussed below:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) announced that it will hold its February Open Meeting on Wednesday, February 18 at 10:30 a.m. ET. Details on the four items expected to be considered at the Open Meeting are summarized and discussed below:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is off to a busy start for the new year, with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr releasing a tentative agenda on January 8 for the Commission’s January Open Meeting, which is scheduled to take place on Thursday, January 29 at 10:30 a.m. EST. Details on the four items expected to be considered at the Open Meeting are summarized below:

On April 22, 2025, the NTIA issued a Notice of Programmatic Waiver (Waiver Notice) providing a 90-day extension of the Final Proposal deadline in the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. The issuance of the Waiver Notice signals that the Department of Commerce is pressing forward with its review of the BEAD program. The Waiver Notice also provides additional clues about the nature of the changes that the Department is contemplating for the BEAD program.

On May 9, President Donald Trump declared the Digital Equity Act unconstitutional and announced that he would be immediately “ending” the programs created under the law.

Olivia Trusty, nominee for the open Republican Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) Commissioner position, appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Trusty has significant telecommunications experience on Capitol Hill and is a longtime protégé of Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS). She is the Republican staff lead for the Senate Armed Services Committee, working with the Cybersecurity Subcommittee, where she has worked on issues related to spectrum allocated to military and national security uses. She was also a policy director for the Senate Commerce Committee, and specifically worked with the Communications, Media, and Broadband Subcommittee. Additionally, she was previously a legislative assistant to Sen. Wicker, focusing on matters related to communications, technology, innovation and the internet.

Targeting Overbuilds and Improving Coordination Among Agencies. Under Commissioner Brendan Carr, expect to see a new approach to broadband funding that is focused on encouraging coordination of broadband funds among agencies and eliminating the government-funded overbuilding of existing networks. Commissioner Carr has noted that although hundreds of billions of infrastructure dollars have been appropriated by Congress and budgeted by agencies in recent years, federal broadband efforts are “fragmented and overlapping, with more than 100 programs administered by 15 agencies,” which he says risks “overbuilding as well as wasteful duplication.” To combat this, Commissioner Carr has voiced support for the adoption of a new strategy designed to facilitate coordination between the various agencies responsible for awarding broadband funds.

To learn more, please find our detailed analysis linked here.