AT&T is finally putting all that T-Mobile unpleasantness behind it with a new filing at the FCC. AT&T and T-Mobile have filed for approval to transfer about $1 billion in AWS spectrum holdings to T-Mobile as penance for failing to ram the $39 billion acquisition through. AT&T has already paid $3 billion in cash to T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom AG. 
LTE wholesaler LightSquared is breathing a little easier today as its someday business partner Sprint has granted it a 30-day deadline extension. By that time, LightSquared hopes to finally have FCC approval to run its 4G LTE network in the US. Sprint announced the partnership last summer, but since then, GPS makers have been frighting back. They claim that LightSquared signals will interfere with nearly all available GPS receivers.
It was up to AT&T to convince U.S. regulators that its proposed $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile was in the best interest of the public. Plain and simple, "the applicants failed" to do that, the Federal Communications Commission found. Among the list of concerns in the FCC's 109-page report is that the merger would ultimately result in heavy job losses.
AT&T is reportedly taking a $4 billion charge as a precautionary measure in case its attempted merger with T-Mobile fails to win anti-trust approval. By taking the charge, analysts believe it's a clear sign the telecom has lost confidence in the deal going through, and on top of it all, AT&T is said to have withdrawn its application to the U.S. Department of Justice.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has thrown up another roadblock in the path of AT&T’s plan to get its hand on T-Mobile USA. The FCC Chair voiced concerns over the proposed merger back around the time the DOJ filed a lawsuit seeking to block the deal. Now Genachowski has requested official hearings to take place should that suit fail to stop the merger. AT&T’s legal counsel got a little snippy upon hearing the news.
It's not quite as cheap as NetZero's short-lived free dial-up service that was popular in the late 1990s and completely supported by ads, but the FCC's plan to bring affordable broadband service to low income families is a whole lot faster, and ironically enough is even less expensive than NetZero's current "accelerated" dial-up service, which runs $14.95 a month.
In Washington today, someone got something done. If that was not shocking enough, it was the FCC. We can wait while you compose yourself. The FCC voted unanimously today to re-purpose the universal service program, which was used to get phone service to rural Americans. The fun will now be used to deliver broadband internet access to the most remote areas of the nation. 
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