All four of the major carriers have been in a race to see who can hype the upcoming fifth generation wireless (5G) standard the highest. All four have insisted that their in the lead in terms of embracing the new technology, which should deliver significantly faster wireless speeds, and very low latencies. Granted the 5G standard doesn't even technically exist yet, and serious deployment won't actually take place until next year, but that's not stopping carrier marketing departments from hyping the rise of gigabit wireless connections.

But Verizon's three major competitors in recent weeks have matched Verizon's level of 5G hype, despite criticizing it just a few months ago.

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We’ll also continue to expand our toolbox with other solutions to keep pace with growing traffic and build a strong foundation for 5G. Lastly, in 2017 we expect to unveil some innovative work with 256 QAM and Massive MIMO pushing 1 Gbps class speed boundaries, all on our licensed spectrum. This will be an important demonstration with speed as a proxy for capacity showcasing the incredible potential of our deep 2.5 GHz spectrum position.”

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“We’re advancing our network further every day.

For many years the knock on T-Mobile was that while its service might be a bit cheaper, its coverage and signal quality and speed left something to be desired when compared to Verizon. While Verizon continues to cling to this narrative to justify higher prices, T-Mobile continues to argue that things have changed -- and the company's network is now on par with Verizon on speed, and only slightly behind big red in terms of overall coverage.

How behind exactly? In a year end blog post, T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray indicated the company currently reaches just 1 million fewer subscribers that Verizon nationwide.

Verizon Wireless says the company has deployed pre-standard fifth generation wireless gear in ten different cities as the company prepares to deploy significantly faster wireless service sometime this year. The company has consistently hyped the fact that it intends to launch some flavor of 5G technology this year, despite there being no formal 5G standard, and serious deployment not expected until 2020 or later.

Verizon has confirmed leaked plans to crack down (again) on the company's grandfathered unlimited data users. As we noted last week, Verizon employees have been anonymously posting over at Reddit about the crackdown, which involves telling customers that eat more than 200 GB in any given month that they may lose their connections if they don't slow down their consumption.

A new white house report heavily criticizes the practice of hidden fees, and specifically singles out the telecom industry for its expanded and often creative behavior on this front. The report by the National Economic Council laments the fees in the hotel, airline, concert and telecom industries, correctly noting that such fees allow companies to advertise one price, but charge something entirely different.

At the tail end of the company's presentation last week, T-Mobile CEO John Legere made a number of predictions for 2017. Among them was the claim that the cable industry's attempts to enter the wireless industry (in Charter and Comcast's case by striking new MVNOs with Verizon Wireless) will fail utterly, and that by this time next year these companies will be in "full retreat" from their wireless experiments.

• Online video service Vimeo enters crowded TV streaming fray, will soon introduce an on-demand video service akin to Netfix and Hulu, and is lining up TV shows [thestar.com]

• City of London launches 'world-class' wireless network; expects the service to surpass recently rolled out in New York [computerworlduk.com]

• Verizon once again to oust high-end users on unlimited plans - Told its employees last week that customers who surpass the 200 GB-per-month threshold risk losing their unlimited data plans [droid-life.com]

• Comcast Customers in Connecticut Hit with a Monday Outage [cedmagazine.com]

• Sling Media reportedly halts production of once-revolutionary Slingbox [multichannel.com]

• Disney launching branded streaming media box [tomsguide.com]

• ILSR Creates Useful Map and List of Municipal Broadband Networks [telecompetitor.com]

• U.S. Supreme Court will not examine tech industry legal shield; industry could have faced far-reaching consequences had the Court decided to limit the scope of the statute [reuters.com]

AT&T continues to quickly hike the cost of unlimited data in order to drive its dwindling grandfathered unlimited data users to metered plans. Users in our forums say they're being notified of a $5 bump in the cost of unlimited data starting in March of 2017.

Representative Marsha Blackburn (R, TN), one of the Senate's biggest critics of net neutrality and local community broadband rights, has been appointed the new chairperson of a key Congressional telecommunications subcommittee. Blackburn will chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, according to a committee announcement.

AT&T is looking to avoid any FCC scrutiny of its planned $100 billion acquisition of Time Warner. We had already noted how the FCC might not even be involved in reviewing the transaction due to its heavy media focus.