Verizon has made no secret of their interest in expanding beyond broadband and eventually becoming a company that offers you, well, everything -- including home automation and security services. To that end, Verizon this week has invested in home automation outfit 4Home, and in January at CES, Verizon and 4Home will be showing off home automation services that will work over Verizon's upcoming LTE wireless broadband network. Of course maybe before Verizon gets into smart refrigerators they can offer FiOS users that 802.11N-capable router they told us was supposed to arrive last month? We've asked for an update on that, but in the mean time you can check out some of what 4Home offers here.

Minneapolis and St. Paul local paper The Star Tribune this week was shocked to learn that the two cities are the eighth and first fastest U.S.

Comcast today announced that the company is deploying support via SMS, allowing users to get account help by sending a text to COMCAST4U (short code 266278). Users can send a variety of messages (listed in the link above) like CALLME, which prompts a call from Comcast support, NOAPPT, which cancels scheduled service calls, or BAL, which provides users with their account balance. Users can sign up for or deactivate the service via the COMCAST4U portal. The service is launching today in Philadelphia, the Philly suburbs, New Jersey and Northern Delaware. According to Comcast, it will be available to all Comcast users "by the first half of 2011."

Frontier Communications, fresh off their $8.5 billion acquisition of millions of Verizon DSL and landline customers, has been downplaying the fact the company isn't offering speeds that can successfully compete with cable in most markets. While Frontier CEO Maggie Wilderotter has been promising these customers a "fast future," the company really isn't in a financial or technical position to actually offer it.

We've explored how Australia is planning to build a nationwide fiber to the home network providing 100 Mbps speeds to 93% of the population, with the other 7% getting 12 Mbps service via satellite or wireless (it even required paying $11 billion for an incumbent opponent). Ars Technica explores how this network was a key debate topic during the recent Australian elections, and helped the Labor Party to a 76-74 win.

Updated with FCC response. The New York Times laments the fact that nearly a decade after emergency personnel were unable to communicate during the World Trade Center attacks, there's still no national public safety network in place.

For several years AT&T and Microsoft have hinted at the ability to use an Xbox 360 as your IPTV set top, but the offering never seems to materialize. That may be changing soon, according to a tipster writing to Engadget, who notes that Xbox 360 support references have popped up in AT&T's U-Verse support database. According to the tipster, 360 IPTV functionality is being tested internally with friends and family of AT&T employees, and is "likely only a couple of months away at this point." Last month Canadian telco Telus announced 360 support for their IPTV service, though it required a personal tech visit, and that users already own an HD-DVR.

• US live online streaming video sees 600% growth [rapidtvnews.com]
• MediaFLO gets useful: data-casting next step says Qualcomm[slashgear.com]
• 1.5 Billion Mobile Broadband Subscribers Predicted By 2015 [informationweek.com]
• Police in File-Sharing Raids Across Europe, WikiLeaks Host Targeted [torrentfreak.com]
• Music Industry Rejoicing For Google vs. Apple Music War [getconnectedmedia.com]
• Can Google Be a TV Star? [multichannel.com]
• EU Parliament Rejects ACTA: Will It Matter? [techdirt.com]
• USDA rescinds broadband stimulus award to Texas firm charged with securities violations [fiercebroadbandwireless.com]
• Bing, Yahoo combine for 25% of market in first week [seattlepi.com]
• Google Changes Coming Tomorrow: AJAX Results, 30 Results Per Page, Streaming Results & More? [seroundtable.com]
• Safari and Firefox updates plug critical holes [theregister.co.uk]

• Las Vegas – Mobile Broadband Capital of the US [lightreading.com]
• Pirate Bay Sunk At Last After Europe-Wide Raids? [techi.com]
• FCC Opens Door On Broadband Speed Tests, License Status [multichannel.com]
• CableLabs Certifies Six More DOCSIS 3.0 Devices [multichannel.com]
• Videotron to launch wireless service Thursday [torontosun.com]
• Aussie NBN back online but future unclear [theage.com.au]
• Breaking News on EFF Location Privacy Win: Courts May Require Search Warrants for Cell Phone Location Records [eff.org]
• Apple leaks Wednesday release for iOS 4.1[networkworld.com]
• LG announces smartphones with dual-core processor [networkworld.com]
• PS3 firmware update could kill jailbreak [theinquirer.net]

One consistent criticism of the FCC (including by the GAO) is that the agency makes policy decisions based on inaccurate data, something that's slowly changing. Another major criticism is that the FCC's web site is stuck somewhere around 1996 in terms of both ease of use and data accessibility. To that end, the FCC today announced that they're revamping the website through a suite of online tools and APIs the FCC says will make it easier to access and peruse agency data. The agency also launched a new developer website for those eager to help craft new tools for sifting through agency data, including data gleaned from the FCC's recently launched FCC Consumer Broadband Speed Test. A full FCC.gov redesign is expected before the end of the year.

A new report from Analysys Mason argues that telcos considering fiber to the home should instead take a conservative approach and explore technologies allowing them to nurse last-mile copper (aka VDSL2) instead. According to the firm, the business case to move beyond fiber to the home trials "just isn't there" (something that should surprise Verizon, who invested $24 billion in the technology).

Back in May Google unveiled Google TV, their Android-based platform they hope to embed in set tops, TVs, and dedicated boxes the world over so they can A, finally mainstream Internet use in the living room and B suck up the billions in potential ad dollars this market could represent. Google CEO Eric Schmidt took a break from making creepy Orwellian statements this week to note that Google TV will be launching this fall in the United States, with worldwide deployment next year. Based on existing agreements and trials, it should first show up embedded in Sony TVs, a dedicated Logitech OTT video box, and possibly integrated into Dish Network set tops.

The entertainment industry's efforts to impose U.S.-style DMCA copyright law on the globe (and push ISPs toward being network content nannies) is dubbed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. As we've previously discussed, the ACTA was constructed largely in secret in negotiations between the entertainment industry and world governments -- and early versions aimed to drastically strip safe harbor protections for ISPs, making them liable for user copyright infringement.

As we recently noted, a new company by the name of the US Copyright group is promising movie studios a new revenue stream. Using IP addresses collected by entertainment industry intelligence-gathering groups -- the company sends automated threat letters to subscribers in the hopes users will settle without a fight.

Techdirt directs our attention to the fact that the Indonesian government has ordered all ISPs in the country to block absolutely all porn on the Internet from Internet surfers. The government is threatening ISPs with closure if they don't get this done in a month, but isn't offering any real suggestions on how such a task should be accomplished, or even a list of pornography websites the government would like to see blocked. ISPs tell the New York Times the effort would be expensive, could impair Internet performance and block legitimate websites (in fact a more recent article suggests this has already happened), and likely would only result in only a fraction of porn being blocked anyway.

Light Reading notes how cable operators this year will seriously begin ramping up the replacement of the traditional cable modem with more sophisticated DOCSIS 3.0-capable home gateways. The gateways of course allow for faster in-home networking speeds thanks to 802.11N and Gigabit Ethernet support, but they can sometimes make technical troubleshooting easier -- and allow for the upsell to more expensive services, like a cable company's premium home network management service most of our readers don't need. The move of course is playing catch up with Verizon, who installs a wireless gateway with each FiOS install.

• Wireless wars about to escalate [financialpost.com]
• Yes, the carriers are robber barons, but unlimited data usage is equally unrealistic [infoworld.com]
• Broadband 'Last Thing To Go' If Cash Is Tight [sky.com]
• Net Neutrality: The Salient Questions [egovmonitor.com]
• Is The Rise of Mobile Money Aiding Terrorism? [lightreading.com]
• Watchdog slams Deutsche Telekom over T-Mobile USA labor practices [fiercewireless.com]
• Android isn't surging just because Apple is letting it [zdnet.com]
• Aussie coppers blame Apple for road deaths [theinquirer.net]

Enjoy your holiday! Speak your peace in our comment section below.

• Fixed-line broadband not threatened by mobile internet growth, says expert [cable.co.uk/]
• We're trudging down the long road to universal 4Mbps broadband [arstechnica.com]
• The reality of deploying 4G [fiercewireless.com]
• FCC and Title II: All Options Said To Be Still On Table [multichannel.com]
• Huge Push In Brazil To Legalize File Sharing [techdirt.com]
• French ISPs Pushing Back Against Hadopi; Threaten To Ignore Requests [techdirt.com]
• Novatel Wireless Inks Master Purchase Agreement with Comcast [tmcnet.com]
• O2 claims broadband users waste millions on fast connections [cable.co.uk]
• Apple TV: Internet TV is Still a Hobby [pcmag.com]
• Edmonton International Airport offers free Wi-Fi [ottawacitizen.com]
• Could Connectivity And Smartphones Open Your Car Up To Hackers? [thecarconnection.com]
• AT&T speeds up Alltel market switches [fiercewireless.com]

As some tipsters had suggested earlier this week, the FCC will be addressing white space broadband at their upcoming September 23 meeting. According to a meeting agenda (pdf) posted to the FCC website, the FCC's September meeting will focus on the E-Rate program (specifically, letting universities and schools purchase dark fiber directly), some E911 issues, and White Space broadband. The FCC announcement says that by creating rules that will allow "unlicensed wireless devices to operate in unused parts of TV spectrum," they'll "create opportunities for investment and innovation in advanced Wi-Fi technologies and a variety of broadband services." Somewhere, Wally the interference demon and Dolly Parton (aka the National Association of Broadcasters) are really pissed off.