New Year, New Wins

It’s hard to believe that 2026 is already upon us.  I hope that everyone is easing out of their holiday food comas and feeling refreshed, recharged, and ready for another great year.

Looking back, I could not be more grateful for all of the wins the FCC’s talented staff delivered in 2025.  We opened up major swaths of spectrum, wiped more than a thousand obsolete rules off the books, advanced high‑speed infrastructure builds, and notched many other wins.  From boosting our space economy and unleashing American drone dominance to promoting U.S. leadership in AI, the FCC has a lot of momentum going that we will carry straight into 2026.

In fact, we will start off our January FCC meeting with some really great news for America’s consumers and innovators.  We will vote on an order that expands unlicensed operations in the 6 GHz band so that consumers can benefit from better, faster Wi-Fi and an entirely new generation of wireless devices—from AR/VR and IoT to a range of innovative smart devices.  We will do so through a set of forward-looking regulations that allow devices to operate at higher power while protecting incumbent users, including through geofencing systems.  This puts America back at the forefront of technological leadership, benefiting our consumers, economy, and innovators.  

Next up, we will be building on some of the important national security wins the FCC delivered last year.  On this front, we will be strengthening the security of U.S. communication networks by tracking many of the ideas in the bipartisan FACT Act legislation.  Specifically, the Commission will vote on an order establishing new attestation and disclosure requirements that enhance our ability to assess and protect the homeland against emerging national security threats.  As we proposed last year, this action requires holders of certain Commission licenses, authorizations, and other approvals to report if they are owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of a foreign adversary.  The measures give the Commission a more comprehensive, systematic view of potential threats and are essential to mitigating national security risks.

And because the new year is all about clarity, we’re bringing some here at the FCC as well.  This month, we’re voting on an order that codifies key foreign ownership requirements and streamlines our review processes.  For more than a decade, the Commission has used certain practices to address increasingly complex ownership structures, but they have never been formally codified.  And while some foreign investment can pose national security risks, this action sets out clear, well‑defined rules to mitigate those risks while still supporting robust foreign investment.

Finally, we’ll be voting on a proposal to enhance the effectiveness and functional equivalency of Internet-based telecommunications relay services (TRS).  When Congress passed the ADA in 1990, it required providers to offer TRS so people with hearing or speech disabilities can place and receive phone calls.  This order updates TRS for the modern era by improving service quality, increasing efficiency, and eliminating outdated regulations.

So as we settle into 2026, we have no plans to let the fresh‑start energy fade.  We’re hitting the ground running—resolutions kept (so far).