How would Texas handle the functions the FCC used to cover?

The same way every other country on Earth already handles them: with its own national regulator, operating inside the international framework that coordinates spectrum across borders. The FCC is not unique. Every country has one of its own, and an independent Texas would too.

Every country runs its own spectrum regulator

There is nothing exotic about regulating the airwaves. The radio spectrum is coordinated worldwide by the International Telecommunication Union, whose Radio Regulations are a treaty updated every few years at the World Radiocommunication Conference. Within that framework, each country licenses its own spectrum through its own national regulator. The United States uses the FCC. The United Kingdom uses Ofcom. China uses its Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Each one builds its national frequency plan from the same international template. An independent Texas would establish its own regulator and join the ITU, the same as everyone else.

The international layer is what makes phones and satellites work, and Texas would simply join it

Spectrum has to be coordinated across borders so signals do not collide and satellites can reach the ground. That coordination is exactly what the ITU exists to provide. Membership is open to nations, and a new nation joins as a party in its own right. Once Texas is a member, Texas spectrum is coordinated with its neighbors and with the world through the same treaty machinery every other country uses. Your phone keeps working. Your satellite TV keeps working. The cross-border plumbing was never American property. It is an international system Texas would be part of.

The hard part is already built in Texas

Spectrum regulation is not just rule-writing. It is engineering, monitoring, licensing, and enforcement, and Texas already has the universities, the telecom industry, and the engineering talent to staff all of it. The state is home to major carriers, equipment makers, and one of the deepest technology workforces in the world. Standing up a Texas regulator is a matter of organizing expertise that already lives here, not importing it.

A regulator that answers to Texas

There is a real upside to running your own. Today, decisions about Texas spectrum, broadband buildout, and telecom rules are made in Washington for fifty states at once. A Texas regulator would set Texas priorities: rural broadband on a Texas timeline, licensing rules built for the Texas economy, and accountability to Texans rather than to a federal commission. The exact shape of that agency is a decision for the future Texas government, and we will not pretend to pre-write it. The principle is settled: Texas would regulate its own airwaves, inside the same international system that coordinates everyone's.

The bottom line

Every country runs its own spectrum regulator inside the ITU framework, and Texas would be no different. The international coordination that keeps phones and satellites working is a treaty system Texas would join, and the engineering talent to run a Texas regulator is already here.