The FCC clarified Monday that the USF contribution factor for Q1 will be 37.6%, down from 38.1% in Q4. But it's higher than the earlier projection of 30.9% (see 2511100035), analyst Billy Jack Gregg noted in an email Tuesday. That increase came after the Universal Service Administrative Co. revised its estimates for the high-cost and low-income fund by a total of $219.2 million, Gregg said. Neither USAC nor the FCC has explained the reasons for the higher demand projections, he added.

The FCC barred Q Link Wireless from participating in the agency's Lifeline or any other USF program, according to a letter posted in Friday’s Daily Digest. In July, Q Link Wireless CEO Issa Asad was sentenced to 60 months in prison after pleading guilty to fraud tied to the Lifeline program (see 2507280019). Asad and the company also pleaded guilty to money laundering through the COVID-19-era Paycheck Protection Program.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has lifted the stay in Consumers’ Research’s latest challenge to the USF, according to an order Wednesday in docket 25-60535. The FCC previously requested the stay during the government shutdown and earlier this week asked for it to be lifted (see 2512020011).

California’s continuing interest in VoIP regulation is a concern, and the lack of FCC preemption of state VoIP oversight is proving to be a problem, speakers said Wednesday at a vCon conference about AI and telecom issues. Also at the event, Ecommerce Innovation Alliance (EIA) President David Carter said the e-commerce industry, faced with rocketing amounts of “shakedown litigation" about texts sent during quiet hours, is anxiously hoping that the FCC will act soon on the group's 9-month-old petition for a declaratory ruling (see 2503030036). An agency affirmation that prior consumer consent means those texts don’t violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) “should have been a no-brainer,” Carter said.

The FCC asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to lift the stay in Consumers’ Research’s latest challenge to the USF, according to a filing Monday in docket 25-60535. Petitioners agreed to the motion, said the agency, which previously sought the delay until the government reopened (see 2511040071).

AT&T became the latest carrier to reassure FCC Chairman Brendan Carr that it's moving away from any trace of diversity, equity and inclusion in its hiring and other practices. Verizon and T-Mobile previously made similar promises to win favor with the FCC and approval of transactions before the agency. Commissioner Anna Gomez warned AT&T that appeasing President Donald Trump's administration carries reputational risks.

Congress should create a new USF-funded broadband affordability benefit program that includes data, voice and text services, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance wrote Monday. Citing comments that it submitted in September to the USF bicameral working group, NDIA said it shouldn't be a direct replication of the affordable connectivity program or Lifeline but instead should incorporate facets of both. The program should apply to mobile and/or home broadband and to all plans that ISPs offer, providing at least $40 a month minimum for non-tribal households and $110 a month for tribal households, the alliance said. The design of such a program should be specifically about affordability, "ensuring households whose primary barrier to broadband adoption is affordability can get and stay online."

A state law barring the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) from sharing information about Lifeline program subscribers with other government agencies, including immigration authorities, means the state can no longer do its own Lifeline subscriber verifications, according to the FCC. The Wireline Bureau ordered Thursday that the state could no longer opt out of using the National Lifeline Accountability Database (NLAD) federal verification system. "Going forward, federal processes will be used to conduct eligibility verifications and perform duplicate checks for federal Lifeline program applicants in California."

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the agency could look at driving “inefficiencies” out of the USF program and NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth clarified the agency’s focus for the BEAD program in separate Q&As onstage Tuesday at NTCA’s Telecom Executive Policy Summit. NTIA rules restricting the broadband funding that BEAD participants can receive are aimed at preventing bids that rely on “speculative, hypothetical funding” to complete their obligations and at avoiding defaults, Roth said. NTIA said Tuesday that it approved 18 state BEAD proposals (see 2511180007).

Consumers’ Research and its allies urged the FCC to zero out the proposed USF contribution factor for Q1 (see 2511100035), despite the U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer that the factor is constitutional (see 2506270054). “Several important arguments remain for why the USF, either in whole or in part, is unlawful, including in its application by the Commission,” said a filing Thursday in docket 96-45. The group makes a similar filing each quarter.