T-Mobile Supports Petitions Against 5G Fund, Verizon Opposes

WASHINGTON, April 2, 2025 – T-Mobile asked the Federal Communications Commission to grant requests from rural carriers to hold off on a planned $9 billion program to expand rural 5G coverage. Verizon opposed the rural carriers’ request to make more locations eligible for funding.

T-Mobile pointed to the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, which, despite the Trump administration’s preference for satellite, appears poised to fund some amount of fiber that could potentially be used by future mobile networks.

“Given the unprecedented infusion of billions of dollars of federal and state funding as well as ongoing private investment in 5G Fund infrastructure, it is premature for the Commission to proceed with the 5G Fund auction,” the company said in a filing penned by director of regulatory affairs Indra Chalk.

“Indeed, the auction may not be necessary at all,” Chalk said.

T-Mobile is pursuing BEAD dollars in at least Louisiana, where it partnered with a consortium of local fiber providers to win a tentative award. That money, approved in the waning days of the Biden administration, is being held up as the Trump administration mulls potential changes to program rules, namely shifting money away from fiber deployments.

Other states haven’t put forward their selected projects amid the uncertainty, but some, like Louisiana, were looking to boost mobile coverage with their BEAD cash, in part through pushing fiber deeper into unserved areas.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a commissioner at the time, dissented when the 5G Fund rules were adopted in August 2024, largely objecting on the same grounds as T-Mobile.

The rural carriers had also asked the agency to make more areas eligible for 5G Fund money, both by increasing the speed threshold and by using coverage maps that assume an in-vehicle user rather than a stationary user standing outside, and to increase the fund’s budget. 

T-Mobile agreed solely on the timeline ground, saying the agency didn’t need to address any other arguments. Verizon didn't address thetiming issue, but asked the FCC to deny the requests to expand eligibility and spending.

Between the two, the “proposed change would dramatically expand the eligible areas,” Verizon wrote in a filing signed by Will Johnson, the company's senior vice president and deputy general counsel. The FCC should not address the risk of stranding locations without adequate mobile coverage “by expanding the 5G Fund as petitioners propose, which is guaranteed to waste much of the budget on large areas that already have good coverage,” the company argued.

A separate group representing smaller wireless carriers, the Competitive Carriers Association, took the agency to court over the issue in February, asking judges to toss the 5G Fund order. The FCC asked judges to put the case on hold while it handles the petitions for reconsideration, which the court agreed to do on March 19. The agency noted that Carr dissented from the order.

“If the Commission were to grant the petitions for reconsideration in whole or in part, that decision could render moot or significantly alter the issues raised by the petition for review in this case,” the agency wrote.