In this Order, the Federal Communications Commission adopts the final eligible services list for funding year 2025 for the schools and libraries universal service support program (more commonly referred to as the E-Rate program). The FCC also releases the final eligible services list for funding year 2025 and authorize the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to open the annual FCC Form 471 application filing window no earlier than 60 days after the release of this Order. For more information, visit the FCC's Order here.

For competitive reasons, wireless carriers typically don’t reveal too many specifics about their network expansion and upgrade plans. So when T-Mobile executives were asked to elaborate on their plans for mid-band 5G upgrades, they steered the conversation to the tools they use to determine how they’re going to expand coverage – as opposed to detailing exactly where and when they will deploy. Their approach – and brace yourself, this is going to be a real shocker – is based on artificial intelligence (AI). In a nutshell, they’re using “billions and billions” of data points to assess what customers are experiencing across the country. That data gets assigned a customer lifetime value (CLV) and plotted on a grid across the country. Think millions of little hexagons across a map of the U.S. “We are assigning those values relative to competition to allow us to know exactly where we can build to please customers,” said T-Mobile President of Technology Ulf Ewaldsson. “At the end of the day, this is not a POP drive where you’re just chasing populations and where populations live. It’s a much more complicated art to figure out exactly where customers will value most our build.”

From a tight Senate race in Arizona to congressional contests in Texas and Illinois, Democratic candidates are wrapping their arms around Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. But one candidate is keeping Khan at arm’s length. Vice President Kamala Harris has declined to appear with Khan or campaign on her energetic antitrust agenda — much less defend the FTC chair against a chorus of Silicon Valley donors calling for her head, or Khan’s GOP critics on Capitol Hill. Khan’s aggressive push to unwind monopolies and break up market concentration, particularly in the tech sector, has vaulted her to a prominence rarely enjoyed by an FTC chair or other agency heads. But it’s also splitting the Democratic Party on both substance and tactics in the final days of the presidential campaign. Wealthy Harris supporters, including billionaire tech investor Mark Cuban and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, have waged a high-volume campaign against Khan in the hope that Harris will fire her — and in the process, signal that her administration will take a more business-friendly bent than President Joe Biden’s. At the same time, a growing group of progressives see Khan’s fight against corporate power as a clear winning issue in a populist moment. And they’re warning that Harris’ failure to embrace Khan — and by extension, the agenda for which she’s become the figurehead — could cost her crucial votes.