Despite the controversy over the potentially negative impact "zero rating" Has on net neutrality, T-Mobile continues to exempt a growing number of services from the company's usage caps. In a video and announcement posted by the "uncarrier," the company announced that it has now added 100 services to its cap exempt program for music (Music Freedom) and for video (Binge On).

"Un-carrier Data is not only faster, it lasts a lot longer than the other guys," says T-Mobile of the updated offerings. "As of today, you stream unlimited music and video from over 100 providers - without ever touching your Un-carrier Data or worrying about overages—and you can stash what you don’t use for later. Try that with Carrier Data. It’s gone in a flash, and you’re getting hit with penalties—or they repossess it after a month or two. Ridiculous!”

Granted not everybody has been happy with T-Mobile's zero rating plans.

Net neutrality advocates continue to argue that the practice of making some video and music services cap exempt, automatically puts other services at a distinct disadvantage.

For years we've complained about the now-standard broadband industry practice of socking consumers with below-the-line fees. It's a handy way for an ISP to keep its advertised price the same, while covertly jacking up prices post-sale.

In another sign that Google Fiber's getting ready to formally announce Portland, Oregon as a launch market, the company has filed its first land-use application to build so-called "fiber huts" to feed the ultra-fast service. Google Fiber has also been quietly signing utility pole access deals throughout the city with Portland General Electric and Pacific Power.

A new report by Convergence Consulting won't comfort cable industry executives that are losing sleep over cord cutting. According to the firm's latest The Battle for the North American (US/Canada) Couch Potato reports, the traditional pay TV sector lost 1.131 million subscribers last year, after losing just 283,000 in 2014.

Windstream today announced that the company is launching gigabit broadband service in select areas of four markets. According to the company announcement, approximately 35,000 residential and small business customers in Lincoln, Nebraska; Lexington, Kentucky; Sugar Land, Texas and seven North Carolina communities (China Grove, Concord, Davidson, Harrisburg, Kannapolis, Lewisville and Matthews).

Like many telco gigabit deployments (CenturyLink, AT&T), Windstream appears to be primarily targeting high-end housing developments, so users in listed target markets may want to wait to see if they qualify for service before getting their hopes up.

The company's press release fails to offer service pricing, but users in our forums say the updated communities will have the following pricing options:

• 1 Gbps: $90/month for first year, $118/month standard pricing

• 300 Mbps: $80/month for first year, $108/month standard

• 100 Mbps: $70/month for first year, $98/month standard

• 50 Mbps: $50/month for the first year, $78/month standard

“Launching 1-Gig Internet service is a testament to our ongoing commitment to make investments in innovative technologies that address our customers’ current and future needs," the company says of the launch.

When Verizon spent $4.4 billion to buy AOL last year, the company made it relatively clear that the goal was to build a giant, new ad empire that bridges the traditional gap between telecom and advertising. That's why it wasn't particularly surprising to see Verizon expand the use of its controversial stealth cookies (wireless packets that Verizon modifies to embed with user tracking identifiers) with AOL late last year.

Last Friday Frontier Communications began the process of migrating millions of California, Texas, and Florida Verizon customers to its network after acquiring Verizon's fixed-line assets in those states for $10.5 billion. As you might expect the process didn't go all that smoothly, with numerous users in our Frontier forums complaining about service outages, support inadequacies, and consumer portal systems that simply didn't work.

• Frontier customers still have problems three days after Verizon changeover [arstechnica.com]

• Cord Cutting Grew Four-Fold in 2015 [multichannel.com]

• Is Office-Grade In-Flight Wi-Fi Ready For Take Off? [techweekeurope.co.uk]

• Comcast Thinks Having Basic Broadband Privacy Protections 'Irrational' [techdirt.com]

• AT&T Cricket expands to Best Buy and Aaron's, now available at 11,000 retail outlets nationwide [fiercewireless.com]

• More than half of smartphone users worldwide unhappy with their service providers [fiercewireless.com]

• Suddenlink officially announces way to get around its caps: buy the fastest available speeds [fiercecable.com]

• CenturyLink, Frontier and TDS mull public, private fiber network partnerships [fiercetelecom.com]

• Nest is disabling the Revolv home-automation service on May 15, effectively bricking Revolv home hub hardware, after acquiring the startup in 2014 [businessinsider.com]

The Yankees were supposed to hold their first game of the season today, though it was delayed until Tuesday thanks to the weather. But when the season does formally start tomorrow, Comcast customers in New York won't be able to watch the new season because Comcast and the Yankees' YES Network still can't agree on a new carriage deal.

G.fast, which began certification testing in 2014 spearheaded by the University of New Hampshire InterOperablity Laboratory (UNH-IOL) is being hyped as the latest and greatest way to speed up DSL, though it would be restricted to shorter loop lengths of between 300 and 820 feet, something that, alongside ISP resistance to spend money on upgrades, has historically limited the usefulness of vectoring and crosstalk-reduction DSL advancements of this type.

AT&T now says it's exploring use of the technology to deliver 300 Mbps to apartment building residents without the need for additional fiber runs throughout a building.