The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) teamed with federal, state and local agencies to ensure secure communications across host cities as the FIFA World Cup 2026 football tournament kicked off.
FCC chair Brendan Carr welcomed the start of matches yesterday (11 June), stating the commission’s public safety, enforcement and radio engineering experts collaborated with the White House Task Force, private sector communications providers and stadium operators to support robust networks throughout the tournament.
“This event will be an incredible showcase of America’s strength and spirit as we celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday,” Carr said, also thanking Task Force Executive Director Andrew Giuliani and the FCC’s own staff for their work on the effort.
On the public safety front, the FCC has been preparing for rapid interference detection and response during matches, helping ensure first responders and emergency communications systems operate without disruption.
The commission has also been working with federal, state and local partners to support lawful counter-drone operations under the Safer Skie Act and has issued 10 Special Temporary Authorizations for wireless devices and broadcast operations to aid global media coverage.
Wireless interference has been a central focus given the extraordinary demand placed on networks when large crowds converge in concentrated areas.
The FCC collaborated with industry partners to support high-capacity wireless and 5G connectivity in and around host venues, ensuring reliable operations for broadcasters, wireless carriers and media organisations.
To monitor the radio spectrum in real time, the FCC deployed a networked constellation of advanced spectrum sensors across all US venues, to enable remote monitoring and rapid identification of harmful interference.
The FCC is ensuring spectrum requirements for broadcast operations, public safety communications, event security and national security preparations are fully supported at the tournament locations.
It also conducted advance planning, testing and coordination activities with host cities ahead of the tournament.
The FCC noted these efforts lay the groundwork beyond the World Cup itself, strengthening national communications coordination frameworks in preparation for the 2028 Olympics and other future major events.
China Unicom’s US division warned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) a Trump administration proposal to bar US operators from interconnecting with Chinese telecoms firms deemed national security risks could severely disrupt global communications.
In a filing, the subsidiary stated the FCC’s proposal will “harm US companies with significant business and supply chain interests in China”.
It explained global communications infrastructure is built on a complex web of interconnection agreements between carriers across national borders, and Chinese-funded operators collectivity serve as the primary gateways for traffic flowing between the world’s two largest economies, the US and China.
“A blanket prohibition on interconnection with these entities would fundamentally fracture a critical segment of the global communications network,” the filing read.
As a solution, the unit suggested taking a more narrowly tailored approach that addresses national security risks, “while preserving an open and dependable interconnected global network would better serve the public interest and support the US government’s economic policies”.
In April, FCC commissioners voted unanimously to advance a sweeping notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) which would bar China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom from operating data centres and PoPs in the US.
The NPRM also seeks to prohibit US operators from interconnecting with entities on the national security covered list, including facilities such as data centres, gateways and internet exchange points owned by those entities.
China Unicom filed right at the FCC’s comments deadline which were due 8 June, 2026, with reply comments due 60 days after on 7 July.
Massive curriculum changes are required for UK school Geography after the Met Office's climate projections were ruled "implausible" by the IPCC. But don't expect the revisions any time soon, says Chris Morrison.
Amazon no longer faces a July 30 cutoff for deploying half its planned 3,232 broadband satellites, but the reprieve comes with a temporary loss of spectrum priority that could give SpaceX and other rivals more leverage in orbit.
Mobile World Live brings you our top three picks of the week as Anthropic widened access to its Claude Mythos model despite security concerns, the European Commission (EC) unveiled a fresh digital sovereignty push and the FCC commenced its first spectrum auction in four years.
Anthropic expands Mythos access to 150 new companies
What happened: Anthropic expanded access to its controversial Claude Mythos AI model under the Project Glasswing to 150 additional companies in sectors including power, healthcare and communications, after initially restricting it to a group of private technology players.
Why it matters: Anthropic said the latest cohort brings in sectors underrepresented in the first wave. In commentary to security publication CSO Online, experts noted the expansion could add to security concerns around the model. Carmi Levy, an independent technology analyst, questioned what Glasswing will be able to accomplish by adding 150 more participants, noting the initial point was to allow the AI player to work closely with a small, fully vetted group of vendors to develop stronger defences against cybersecurity risks. “Expanding access into the hundreds may very well bring in more minds to build better defensive measures, but it simultaneously introduces significant concerns around potential leaks.”
Research director for AI security at IDC, Grace Trinidad, added that Anthropic’s announcement pointed out that each of the 150 new participants “will need to meet our security requirements before they gain access”, which also did not build confidence. “Nobody knows what those security requirements are.”
Earlier this week, Anthropic also confidentially filed IPO paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), ahead of rival OpenAI’s rumoured float.
What happened: The EC unveiled a fresh digital sovereignty package targeting semiconductors, AI, cloud, open source and energy infrastructure in a bid to accelerate Europe’s push for digital sovereignty.
Why it matters: The package includes a proposed a revamped Chips Act 2.0 and a Cloud and AI Development Act to streamline data centre deployment and introduced measures to expand open source use, support startups and digitalise the energy system. EC president Ursula von der Leyen said Europe “cannot afford to depend on others for the technologies that keep our hospitals running, our energy grids stable and our services secure”.
Jennifer Okafor, a UN and Global Health strategist and AI and data analyst, said the policies represent “a comprehensive approach to balancing growth, stability, and long-term resilience across the EU”. However, president of German digital industry group Bitkom Ralf Wintergerst told Reuters it is “crucial that these efforts do not stop at mere announcements”, while Keegan McBride, director of science and technology at non-profit think tank Tony Blair Institute argued Europe “can’t regulate its way to competitiveness, it must build”. He added, “there’s still much more to do if Europe wants to close the gap with the US and China”.
What happened: The FCC opened Auction 113, its first spectrum auction in four years, covering spectrum in the 1695MHz to 1710MHz, 1755MHz to 1780MHz and 2155MHz to 2180MHz bands.
Why it matters: AT&T, T-Mobile US, Verizon and potentially SpaceX are among likely bidders. The licences cover territory home to more than 100 million people across 48 states and two US territories. FCC chair Brendan Carr declared: “Finally! The FCC is back in the game,” adding spectrum auctions are “the lifeblood of licensed wireless service”. Carr argued “more spectrum means more building, lower prices and stronger competition”.
Proceeds from the auction will fund the FCC’s “rip and replace” programme targeting Huawei and ZTE equipment in US networks. Indeed, the auction also bolsters the regulator’s broader Build America Agenda, which targets 800MHz of spectrum by 2034.
This is the second part of our coverage of the P5 report and its implications for particle physics. To read the first part, click here
One of the thorniest questions in particle physics is ‘What comes after the LHC?’. This was one of the areas people were most uncertain what the P5 report would say. Globally, the field is trying to decide what to do once the LHC winds down in ~2040 While the LHC is scheduled to get an upgrade in the latter half of the decade and run until the end of the 2030’s, the field must start planning now for what comes next. For better or worse, big smash-y things seem to capture a lot of public interest, so the debate over what large collider project to build has gotten heated. Even Elon Musk is tweeting (X-ing?) memes about it.
Famously, the US’s last large accelerator project, the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), was cancelled in the ’90s partway through its construction. The LHC’s construction itself often faced perilous funding situations, and required a CERN to make the unprecedented move of taking a loan to pay for its construction. So no one takes for granted that future large collider projects will ultimately come to fruition.
Desert or Discovery?
When debating what comes next, dashed hopes of LHC discoveries are top of mind. The LHC experiments were primarily designed to search for the Higgs boson, which they successfully found in 2012. However, many had predicted (perhaps over-confidently) it would also discover a slew of other particles, like those from supersymmetry or those heralding extra-dimensions of spacetime. These predictions stemmed from a favored principle of nature called ‘naturalness’ which argued additional particles nearby in energy to the Higgs were needed to keep its mass at a reasonable value. While there is still much LHC data to analyze, many searches for these particles have been performed so far and no signs of these particles have been seen.
These null results led to some soul-searching within particle physics. The motivations behind the ‘naturalness’ principle that said the Higgs had to be accompanied by other particles has been questioned within the field, and in New York Times op-eds.
No one questions that deep mysteries like the origins of dark matter, matter anti-matter asymmetry, and neutrino masses, remain. But with the Higgs filling in the last piece of the Standard Model, some worry that answers to these questions in the form of new particles may only exist at energy scales entirely out of the reach of human technology. If true, future colliders would have no hope of
A diagram of the particles of the Standard Model laid out as a function of energy. The LHC and other experiments have probed up to around 10^3 GeV, and found all the particles of the Standard Model. Some worry new particles may only exist at the extremely high energies of the Planck or GUT energy scales. This would imply a large large ‘desert’ in energy, many orders of magnitude in which no new particles exist. Figure adapted from here
The situation being faced now is qualitatively different than the pre-LHC era. Prior to the LHC turning on, ‘no lose theorems’, based on the mathematical consistency of the Standard Model, meant that it had to discover the Higgs or some other new particle like it. This made the justification for its construction as bullet-proof as one can get in science; a guaranteed Nobel prize discovery. But now with the last piece of the Standard Model filled in, there are no more free wins; guarantees of the Standard Model’s breakdown don’t occur until energy scales we would need solar-system sized colliders to probe. Now, like all other fields of science, we cannot predict what discoveries we may find with future collider experiments.
Still, optimists hope, and have their reasons to believe, that nature may not be so unkind as to hide its secrets behind walls so far outside our ability to climb. There are compelling models of dark matter that live just outside the energy reach of the LHC, and predict rates too low for direct detection experiments, but would be definitely discovered or ruled out by high energy colliders. The nature of the ‘phase transition’ that occurred in the very early universe, which may explain the prevalence of matter over anti-matter, can also be answered. There are also a slew ofexperimental ‘hints‘, all of which have significant question marks, but could point to new particles within the reach of a future collider.
Many also just advocate for building a future machine to study nature itself, with less emphasis on discovering new particles. They argue that even if we only further confirm the Standard Model, it is a worthwhile endeavor. Though we calculate Standard Model predictions for high energies, unless they are tested in a future collider we will not ‘know’ how if nature actually works like this until we test it in those regimes. They argue this is a fundamental part of the scientific process, and should not be abandoned so easily. Chief among the untested predictions are those surrounding the Higgs boson. The Higgs is a central somewhat mysterious piece of the Standard Model but is difficult to measure precisely in the noisy environment of the LHC. Future colliders would allow us to study it with much better precision, and verify whether it behaves as the Standard Model predicts or not.
Projects
These theoretical debates directly inform what colliders are being proposed and what their scientific case is.
Many are advocating for a “Higgs factory”, a collider of based on clean electron-positron collisions that could be used to study the Higgs in much more detail than the messy proton collisions of the LHC. Such a machine would be sensitive to subtle deviations of Higgs behavior from Standard Model predictions. Such deviations could come from the quantum effects of heavy, yet-undiscovered particles interacting with the Higgs. However, to determine what particles are causing those deviations, its likely one would need a new ‘discovery’ machine which has high enough energy to produce them.
Among the Higgs factory options are the International Linear Collider, a proposed 20km linear machine which would be hosted in Japan. ILC designs have been ‘ready to go’ for the last 10 years but the Japanese government has repeated waffled on whether to approve the project. Sitting in limbo for this long has led to many being pessimistic about the projects future, but certainly many in the global community would be ecstatic to work on such a machine if it was approved.
Designs for the ILC have been ready for nearly a decade, but its unclear if it will receive the greenlight from the Japanese government. Image source
Alternatively, some in the US have proposed building a linear collider based on a ‘cool copper’ cavities (C3) rather than the standard super conducting ones. These copper cavities can achieve more acceleration per meter than the standard super conducting ones, meaning a linear Higgs factory could be constructed with a reduced 8km footprint. A more compact design can significantly cut down on infrastructure costs that governments usually don’t like to use their science funding on. Advocates had proposed it as a cost-effective Higgs factory option, whose small footprint means it could potentially hosted in the US.
The Future-Circular-Collider (FCC), CERN’s successor to the LHC, would kill both birds with one extremely long stone. Similar to the progression from LEP to the LHC, this new proposed 90km collider would run as Higgs factory using electron-positron collisions starting in 2045 before eventually switching to a ~90 TeV proton-proton collider starting in ~2075.
Designs for the massive 90km FCC ring surrounding Geneva
Such a machine would undoubtably answer many of the important questions in particle physics, however many have concerns about the huge infrastructure costs needed to dig such a massive tunnel and the extremely long timescale before direct discoveries could be made. Most of the current field would not be around 50 years from now to see what such a machine finds. The Future-Circular-Collider (FCC), CERN’s successor to the LHC, would kill both birds with one extremely long stone. Similar to the progression from LEP to the LHC, this new proposed 90km collider would run as Higgs factory using electron-positron collisions starting in 2045 before eventually switching to a ~90 TeV proton-proton collider starting in ~2075. Such a machine would undoubtably answer many of the important questions in particle physics, however many have concerns about the extremely long timescale before direct discoveries could be made. Most of the current field would not be around 50 years from now to see what such a machine finds. The FCC is also facing competition as Chinese physicists have proposed a very similar design (CEPC) which could potentially start construction much earlier.
During the snowmass process many in the US starting pushing for an ambitious alternative. They advocated a new type of machine that collides muons, the heavier cousin of electrons. A muon collider could reach the high energies of a discovery machine while also maintaining a clean environment that Higgs measurements can be performed in. However, muons are unstable, and collecting enough of them into formation to form a beam before they decay is a difficult task which has not been done before. The group of dedicated enthusiasts designed t-shirts and Twitter memes to capture the excitement of the community. While everyone agrees such a machine would be amazing, the key technologies necessary for such a collider are less developed than those of electron-positron and proton colliders. However, if the necessary technological hurdles could be overcome, such a machine could turn on decades before the planned proton-proton run of the FCC. It can also presents a much more compact design, at only 10km circumfrence, roughly three times smaller than the LHC. Advocates are particularly excited that this would allow it to be built within the site of Fermilab, the US’s flagship particle physics lab, which would represent a return to collider prominence for the US.
A proposed design for a muon collider. It relies on ambitious new technologies, but could potentially deliver similar physics to the FCC decades sooner and with a ten times smaller footprint. Source
Deliberation & Decision
This plethora of collider options, each coming with a very different vision of the field in 25 years time led to many contentious debates in the community. The extremely long timescales of these projects led to discussions of human lifespans, mortality and legacy being much more being much more prominent than usual scientific discourse.
Ultimately the P5 recommendation walked a fine line through these issues. Their most definitive decision was to recommend against a Higgs factor being hosted in the US, a significant blow to C3 advocates. The panel did recommend US support for any international Higgs factories which come to fruition, at a level ‘commensurate’ with US support for the LHC. What exactly ‘comensurate’ means in this context I’m sure will be debated in the coming years.
However, the big story to many was the panel’s endorsement of the muon collider’s vision. While recognizing the scientific hurdles that would need to be overcome, they called the possibility of muon collider hosted in the US a scientific ‘muon shot‘, that would reap huge gains. They therefore recommended funding for R&D towards they key technological hurdles that need to be addressed.
Because the situation is unclear on both the muon front and international Higgs factory plans, they recommended a follow up panel to convene later this decade when key aspects have clarified. While nothing was decided, many in the muon collider community took the report as a huge positive sign. While just a few years ago many dismissed talk of such a collider as fantastical, now a real path towards its construction has been laid down.
Hitoshi Murayama, chair of the P5 committee, cuts into a ‘Shoot for the Muon’ cake next to a smiling Lia Merminga, the director of Fermilab. Source
While the P5 report is only one step along the path to a future collider, it was an important one. Eyes will now turn towards reports from the different collider advocates. CERN’s FCC ‘feasibility study’, updates around the CEPC and, the International Muon Collider Collaboration detailed design report are all expected in the next few years. These reports will set up the showdown later this decade where concrete funding decisions will be made.
For those interested the full report as well as executive summaries of different areas can be found on the P5 website. Members of the US particle physics community are also encouraged to sign the petition endorsing the recommendations here.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened its first spectrum auction in four years, putting 200 licences on the block for bidding by AT&T, T-Mobile US, Verizon and possibly SpaceX.
Auction 113, formally known as the AWS-3 auction, includes licences covering frequencies in the 1695–1710 MHz, 1755–1780 MHz and 2155–2180 MHz bands.
Those frequencies were originally auctioned to Dish Network, which is now part of EchoStar, in 2014 but never made it into service after a series of defaults and bid withdrawals left them sitting unused in the FCC’s inventory for over a decade.
In 2015, Dish Network affiliates Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless surrendered a number of spectrum licences worth $3.5 billion after a dispute with the FCC over discounts.
Last week the FCC and EchoStar reached an agreement which included the latter dropping a lawsuit it filed in a US Court of Appeals over the defaults by Northstar and SNR.
Proceeds from the auction which started yesterday (2 June) will fund the FCC’s secure and trusted communications networks reimbursement program, commonly known as “rip and replace”. It seeks to remove equipment by Huawei and ZTE from US communications networks.
The licences cover territory home to more than 100 million people across 48 states, and two US territories. The auction makes over 1.4 billion MHz-POPs available.
FCC chair Brendan Carr did not hold back in marking the occasion.
“Finally! The FCC is back in the game,” he stated while calling spectrum auctions “the lifeblood of licensed wireless service”.
Carr noted getting this auction moving was the first item the FCC voted on at his first meeting as chair.
“More spectrum means more building, lower prices and stronger competition,” he added.
The auction fits into the FCC’s broader Build America Agenda, which is targeting the delivery of 800 megahertz of spectrum by 2034 under the framework set out in President Donald Trump’s Working Families Tax Cut Act, the legislation which also restored the FCC’s auction authority.
Observational data and a novel climate sensitivity model, based on well-established physics, show that the recent observed global warming trend is totally attributable to a decrease in reflectivity of sunlight from global cloud cover, and, to a much lesser extent, a recent increase in total solar irradiance. Not from human carbon dioxide emissions.
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