The weekend has arrived, so empty your head into the comment section below.

• Facebook Suit Over Subscriber Tracking Seeks $15 Billion [bloomberg.com]
• Dish won't launch its LTE Advanced network until 2016 - or later [fiercewireless.com]
• 150 communities are doing broadband on their own terms [smartplanet.com]
• North America Set To Lose LTE Sub Leadership By 2014 [cable360.net]
• 4G Report Card: Which Carriers Make the Grade? [lightreading.com]
• LTE Will Suck as Long as Backhaul Does [lightreading.com]
• Verizon, MetroPCS Spar on LTE Roaming Claims [wirelessweek.com]
• Airline Wi-Fi provider GoGo to partner with AeroSat to bring satellite services to commercial flights beyond US [dailyherald.com]
• Is white space the next frontier for mobile operators? [fiercewireless.com]
• T-Mobile isn't jumping on the shared-data plan bandwagon [fiercewireless.com]
• Why Verizon Phasing Out Unlimited Data Is a Step Backwards [mashable.com]
• T-Mobile, MetroPCS Lobby FCC to Limit Dish to 20 MHz [wirelessweek.com]
• ITC orders import ban against Motorola Android devices that infringe a Microsoft patent [fosspatents.com]
• ZTE confirms security hole in U.S. phone [reuters.com]

Verizon Wireless CFO Fran Shammo earlier this week stated that the company would be killing off unlimited data plans for users who were grandfathered after the company stopped selling unlimited data back in 2010. According to Shammo, the company is going to force many of those users on 3G to move to upcoming shared data plans if they want to migrate to LTE.

We've been nudged by a reliable source with supporting evidence who tells us Verizon will be raising the speed of several of their FiOS broadband tiers very soon. According to the source, Verizon's symmetrical 25 Mbps tier will soon be changed to 50 Mbps downstream and 25 Mbps upstream.

As we noted yesterday, Comcast has announced the company is raising their universal 250GB usage cap to 300 GB -- while announcing that they'll be experimenting with a variety of usage-based surcharges over the coming months. Not too surprisingly, competitors and consumer advocates aren't too impressed with the changes -- Free Press arguing that the company's usage caps are not necessary and should be eliminated entirely.

As we noted yesterday, Verizon says they're cuing up a number of new price hikes for their FiOS service -- because they can. Users in our forums note that one of the increases is already here: a $2 set top hike that is set to go into effect starting July 15. Some users are complaining that the prices are even steeper and they never got a notice about the hike, while others were informed about it as early as March. A user over at the Consumerist complains that the hikes come while they're still under contract (though the user likely didn't read the contract specifics).

Early tests have suggested that AT&T's network actually outperforms Verizon's LTE network, though with neither network supporting much of a subscriber load at the moment that might not mean all that much. While we were recently somewhat...indisposed, PC World offered up a new wireless speedtest rundown showing that AT&T's implementation of LTE is currently offering the fastest speeds -- topping Verizon in every market they both offer LTE in except New Orleans.

Bad news for folks who think flying is already annoying and also hate loudmouths -- Virgin Atlantic says that the company will soon be offering users the ability to make phone calls on the company's London to New York City routes. About twenty of the company's planes will be outfitted to offer the phone service by the end of the year.

• Former FCC Chairman: Cable is on cusp of innovation that will revolutionize the industry [fiercecable.com]
• Should angry Verizon subscribers drop Big Red over ditched unlimited caps? [cnet.com]
• 'Adaptive Radio': The Next Big Thing in Wireless? [businessweek.com]
• Clash in US on mobile privacy protection: Civil liberties welcomes proposed location privacy law, law enforcement disagrees [totaltele.com]
• 4G Americas calls for collaboration to deal with dearth of U.S. spectrum [fiercebroadbandwireless.com]
• AT&T's de la Vega: We want to minimize phone subsidies [fiercewireless.com]
• Verizon-Cable Deal Poses Big Threat to Internet Access, Competition [eweek.com]
• DoD, U.S. Navy to Deploy First 4G Wireless System [Mobile Enterprise]
• Jawa settles lawsuit with Verizon [bizjournals.com]
• NY City 911 system being flooded by butt dialing due to proliferation of cellphones [devicemag.com]

• Verizon: You can have unlimited data... just no device subsidies [cnet.com]
• Netflix to Comcast: Raising the cap is not enough [gigaom.com]
• Verizon ends standalone DSL service, requires landline bundle [CNN Money]
• T-Mobile’s no-contract data plans get lower per GB pricing [gigaom.com]
• Clearwire CTO: We'll offer VoLTE when we launch TD-LTE network [fiercewireless.com]
• Dish says FCC timeline for wireless network unrealistic [yahoo.com]
• AT&T lights up 4G LTE in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Chicago; Network now available in 38 cities, AT&T promises more LTE implementations by summer [networkworld.com]
• Verizon Clarifies: Unlimited Data Plans to Die Slow Death [nytimes.com]
• MetroPCS Mulls Unlocked LTE iPhone [wirelessweek.com]
• Should You Upgrade to an 802.11ac Router? [maclife.com]
• Seeing ads on Wikipedia? Then you're infected [theregister.co.uk]

You might recall that Netflix went through a stretch last summer when a lot of analysts proclaimed the company was imploding. The dire prognostications were caused by the company's bumbled and scrapped attempt to split off their DVD business (remember Qwickster?), compounded by a number of rather significant price hikes. You'll recall a lot of customers screamed about the hikes proclaiming they were leaving the service -- and while some did -- Netflix says they're now coming back. While there's no doubt the PR hit was massive, the company says about a third of added subscribers last quarter were customers who are returning to the service. Netflix added 3 million streaming subscribers in the first quarter for a total of 26 million global streaming accounts.

After years of complaints from users who claimed they were being booted from the Comcast network for excessive use (without Comcast saying what they deemed "excessive") Comcast in 2008 implemented a 250 gigabyte usage cap for all of the company's residential service tiers. Comcast today posted a statement to the company's Comcast Voices blog stating that the company will be eliminating their universal 250 GB usage cap, instead replacing it with "improved data management approaches." What are those changes going to be? Overage fees.

Speaking to Congress this week, FCC Boss Julius Genachowski stated that the agency hasn't received a single net neutrality complaint since the FCC's neutrality rules went into effect late last year. Part of that is because the rules don't do very much, failing to cover wireless in any meaningful way, while allowing pretty much any network behavior so long as it can be defended as an action that's necessary to protect network integrity.

In addition to announcing new shared data plans and the death of unlimited wireless, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo this week also announced that FiOS customers can expect a new slate of price hikes soon. Speaking at the JP Morgan investor conference this week, Shammo stated that the service's high rankings of late (FiOS recently came out tops in both Consumer Reports and ACSI rankings) means that the company feels it can charge a premium for the service, and start doing away with some of the more aggressive pricing promotions:

Researchers in Japan have smashed the record for wireless data transmission in the terahertz band, showing the ability to transmit speeds up to 3Gb at frequencies up to 542GHz. The researchers used the terahertz, or "T-ray," region of the electromagnetic spectrum between 300 GHz and 3 THz. Previously, this spectrum was used primarily in medical imaging due to its ability to cause less damage, and wireless transmission hadn't been utilized because the equipment to do so would have been too large, too expensive, and too power hungry. Early distance constraints are significant (about 10 meters) and there's no word on when this could evolve into a viable commercial product. The full research results are here, for those who would like to dig into the nitty gritty details of the record-breaking effort.

Hughes says that the company's new EchoStar XVII satellite has arrived at the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, where it will be launched aboard an Ariane 5 launch vehicle by Arianespace. If the current schedule holds, the satellite should be launched on June 19 -- and made available for consumer use later this year.

Back in February ViaSat announced they were phasing out the WildBlue brand to focus on their Exede satellite broadband service, and DirecTV announced they'd no longer be selling WildBlue. A few months later and it's not too surprising to see DirecTV announce that they'll be offering broadband service bundles through both Hughes and ViaSat. "“With greatly improved capacity and speeds, satellite broadband services provided by ViaSat and Hughes will fully support our customers’ connected home experience, enabling them to access a host of features like YouTube, Pandora, social TV apps, and more than 7,000 VOD titles," insists the company in a press release that's woefully absent of pricing or launch window details. Both ViaSat and HughesNet are offering (or will soon offer) faster speeds made possible by the launches of new Ka-band satellites.

• WiMAX vs. LTE: Should You Switch? [ecoustics.com]
• The Rise of Europe's Private Internet Police [foreignpolicy.com]
• Verizon plans price hikes for Fios, wireless users [cnet.com]
• FCC Wants Clarity From Verizon on Proposed Spectrum Deals [nytimes.com]
• Dear Executives, Technological Ignorance Is No Longer Acceptable [nyciso.com]
• Say hello to the real real-time Web [arstechnica.com]
• DNS Changer ‘blackouts’ inevitable? [theregister.co.uk]
• UK police use 'quick' mobile data extraction system against suspects [computerworlduk.com]
• Startup says there are no problems with recording locations of millions of smartphones (unless their owners opt out) [cnet.com]
• Near Field Communications: More Than Mobile Payments [forbes.com]
• Why Deep Packet Inspection Falls Short [cable360.net]
• Apple gets green light to seek Samsung tablet ban in U.S. [cnet.com]
• Self-adapting computer network to defend itself against hackers [computerworld.com]

• FCC Chairman to Senate: No Network Neutrality Complaints [multichannel.com]
• Netflix: Disgruntled customers rejoining service [cnet.com]
• House Republicans Continue to Question Broadband Grants [nationaljournal.com]
• Japanese scientists develop 20x faster WiFi [techspot.com]
• Sprint: Mergers on Back Burner, Not Off the Table [wirelessweek.com]
• EchoStar XVII will be used to provide HughesNet Gen4 high-speed Internet service in North America [spacemart.com]
• Comcast Flips On Skype TV [lightreading.com]
• Mobile Data could place operators under extreme financial pressure unless they implement ways to provide bandwidth more cost-efficiently [fiercewireless.com]
• Smartphone security is heading for 'apocalypse' [networkworld.com]
• Google to Sell Nexus Smartphones and Tablets Direct [pcworld.com]
• Apple Fires Back in Lawsuit over Siri’s Performance [wsj.com]
• NTIA Defends Stand-Down of Public Safety Net Projects;Doesn't Want to Spend $380 Million on Efforts That Might Be Superseded [multichannel.com]

Since last year Comcast has been testing an implementation of Skype to be embedded in the company's Xfinity set top boxes using a high-definition camera. Comcast today announced that the company has finally started the nationwide deployment of the service beginning today in Boston and Seattle, with Atlanta, Augusta, Ga., Chicago, Detroit, Harrisburg, Pa., Indianapolis, Miami and Pittsburgh slated for launch before the end of the week.

According to Comcast's new website for the service, Skype for Xfinity will cost users $10 extra a month -- but only if you subscribe to the Comcast triple play of Digital Starter TV (or above) with HD service, Performance Internet (or above) and Unlimited Voice service. The service comes as a self-installation kit, pictured below: