Signal
The infrastructure you never see.
The decisions you always feel.
One idea per wall.
Lean closer.
The 800 MHz Mandate
Congress just handed the FCC a timeline: auction 800 megahertz of mid-band spectrum within eight years. We unpack what "contiguous blocks" means for 6G readiness — and why the lower 3 GHz fight is the one to watch.
BEAD Rewired
With 84.6 million homes now passed and AT&T adding a million locations annually starting this year, the bottleneck has shifted from capital to permits. We trace exactly where fiber stalls — and who profits from the delay.
SES × Intelsat: The Orbit Math
The FCC approved the merger. Now the real question: can two legacy GEO operators build a combined network that competes with LEO constellations on latency, not just coverage? The numbers are more complicated than the press release.
Infrastructure is political.
We follow the wire.
Signal pulls apart the invisible infrastructure connecting eight billion phones. Each episode dissects one layer — spectrum auctions, fiber rollouts, backroom carrier deals — with the precision that telecom engineers, FCC policy analysts, and regional carrier executives actually need.
No surface-level trend coverage. No breathless 5G hype. Just the docket numbers, the interference calculations, and the regulatory footnotes that decide who gets coverage — and who gets dead zones.
Tuning in during long commute drives, validating spectrum math against lived RF experience.
Prepping for FCC docket reviews, tracking auction authority and rip-and-replace funding.
Scanning for competitive intelligence before quarterly board meetings at regional operators.
Reading FCC filings for fun. You know who you are.
From the people who read FCC filings
for fun.
"The only podcast where I have to pause to look up a docket number. That's a compliment."
"Marcus actually understands propagation loss. I've been waiting six years for a podcast that gets the physics right."
"I forward the BEAD episode to every state broadband director I brief. It saves thirty minutes of background."
"We use Signal as pre-read before board meetings. The competitive framing is exactly what a regional operator needs."
"The Auction 113 breakdown was sharper than the analyst reports I pay for. And it was free."
"The only podcast where I have to pause to look up a docket number. That's a compliment."
"Marcus actually understands propagation loss. I've been waiting six years for a podcast that gets the physics right."
"I forward the BEAD episode to every state broadband director I brief. It saves thirty minutes of background."
"We use Signal as pre-read before board meetings. The competitive framing is exactly what a regional operator needs."
"The Auction 113 breakdown was sharper than the analyst reports I pay for. And it was free."