Enjoy your holiday, and talk amongst yourselves in the comment section below.

• A win for Sprint: FCC approves 3G and 4G on iDEN spectrum [extremetech.
com]
• Verizon likely to divest wireless spectrum to get cable deal OK [cnet.com]
• Has Google changed its mind about sharing its fiber network? [gigaom.com]
• Senators duel over concerns on Verizon's cable deals [fiercewireless.com]
• LTE doesn't disrupt TV broadcasts, according to Swedish regulator [fiercewireless.com]
• Mobile Video: Bad News And Good News [cable360.net]
• VoIP Call Centers Adapt to a BYOD World [heavyreading.com]
• Minority Groups Ask FCC for USF Lifeline Extension [wirelessweek.com]
• Street Light of the Future Would Provide Wi-Fi, Cell Coverage and More [time.com]
• Facebook to acquire browser maker Opera? [thenextweb.com]
• Absinthe 2.0 Brings Untethered Jailbreak to iOS 5.1.1 Devices Including New iPad [macrumors.com]
• Blackberry 7.1 delivers WiFi calls as well as mobile hotspot capability [ubergizmo.com]
• Is NFC killing Google Wallet? [cnet.com]
• First video sample from Google's Project Glass [theverge.com]

Hoping not to be forgotten with all the moving and shaking and LTE deployments going on with Sprint, AT&T and Verizon, Clearwire took to the CTIA trade show earlier this month to proclaim that they're building an LTE network they hope will put all of them to shame. According to Clearwire, the company says that by 2014, they'll have a network capable of handling peak downstream speeds of up to 168 Mbps downstream. Clearwire says that while they're spectrum holdings for a nationwide LTE launch aren't ideal, they'll be using an LTE-Advanced technique know as carrier aggregation to deploy wider pipes capable of the faster speeds. You'll of course never actually see anything close to those maximum theoretical speeds, but hopefully the effort keeps Clearwire relevant in a market that desperately needs the added competition.

Apple's latest iPad supports HSPA+, DC-HSDPA and LTE -- while here in the States even coming in different flavors for AT&T and Verizon's different LTE implementations (with a third likely looming eventually for Sprint LTE). Worldwide however, where the iPad can only operate via 3G GSM, consumers and regulators have been getting annoyed at Apple's generous use of the term "4G" to describe a product that in no way supports anything close. Buckling to growing pressure from regulators in Australia and the UK, Apple has ditched the 4G branding from the iPad in international marketing, calling the devices "iPad WiFi + Cellular" capable in marketing instead of "iPad WiFi + 4G" capable.

The The Rural Cellular Association (RCA) has long fought to end to exclusive handset agreements, arguing that the steep prices smaller carriers have to pay for handsets like the iPhone put them on an uneven playing field. Companies like C Spire have paid a steep price in the form of delayed LTE deployments, and most smaller companies can't afford the price of entry at all.

As we noted the other day, numerous broadcast executives have been whining about Dish's new DVR technology that will skip ads automatically -- a system that simply streamlines something most DVR users do anyway. It also has a few caveats -- the biggest being that users can only use this technology one day after the recorded programs originally air.

If you live in a rural area, your only real options for Internet service besides dialup are satellite and if you’re lucky, 3G mobile Internet. Both of these have a multitude of negatives associated with them whether it be low data caps, terrible latency, or cost.

Comcast is busy working on technology that will deliver ads to DVR ad skippers. According to a new Comcast patent, users who fast forward or pause an existing ad would see another ad displayed in the center of their television screen. Those ads would also have a behavioral intelligence component, changing depending on the "historical choices made by the recipient whether to skip or watch previous alternate content." Comcast hopes they could start a bit of a bidding war by charging a company an extra fee if they wanted a popup ad to show during their skipped ad, and if not sell that pop up space to another advertiser. There's no confirmation from Comcast as to when they hope to have such technology deployed.

The European Commission has announced a cap on roaming charges for those using EU networks. From July, 3G providers will only be allowed to charge up to €0.70 ($0.90) for every megabyte of data their customers use away from their home networks.

Bell Canada has been slapped with a $100 million lawsuit over the expiration dates for prepaid wireless service cards. According to the suit, Bell is violating Ontario's Consumer Protection Act -- which banned expiration dates from gift cards -- and the company's contracts with its pre-paid wireless customers by seizing credit balances. Bell offers prepaid users a $15 card with a 30 day expiration date, a $25 card with a 60 day expiration date, or for $100 users can avoid losing their balances for a year. Accounts with a zero balance for 120 days are closed. Celia Sankar and DiversityCanada Foundation, who are behind the suit, claim the expiration dates are particularly unfair for "new immigrants, workers on minimum wage, the unemployed, people on disability and seniors on fixed incomes."

• How to Destroy the Internet [gizmodo.com]
• Senator Demands Access to Text of Secret International Agreements Regulating the Internet [eff.org]
• Senator admits: SOPA "really did pose some risk to the Internet" [arstechnica.com]
• ISPs Refuse to Block New Pirate Bay IP-Address [torrentfreak.com]
• Google takes down 1.2 million search links a month over piracy issues [gigaom.com]
• No, The RIAA Is Not Asking For $72 Trillion From Limewire [techdirt.com]
• Boston Battles Back for Basic Rate Control [multichannel.com]
• China rules the mobile world with 1 billion users [cnet.com]
• Bluetooth "replacement" is 1,000 times faster [hexus.net]
• London picked as test bed for Skynet-like Intel tech [theregister.co.uk]

• Fox, CBS, NBC sue Dish over AutoHop ad-skipper; Dish also files suit against all four broadcast networks [hollywoodreporter.com]
• Broadband Stimulus Grants Seen as Political Flashpoint [cio.com]
• Three ways to organize the broadband market [forbes.com]
• Broadband Wars: The Battle for New Jersey Has Begun [huffingtonpost.com]
• Broadband In Crisis: Does The US Need Regulation To Force Meaningful Competition? [techdirt.com]
• Android, iOS nab 82 percent of smartphone market in Q1 [cnet.com]
• White House cracks whip on move to mobile [cnet.com]
• Verizon CFO: LTE enables new kinds of data plans [fiercewireless.com]
• Wireless carriers seek to 'offload' customers [newsfactor.com]
• FCC Urged To Avoid Harming Poorest Americans With "Unrealistic And Unworkable Deadline" For Wireless Lifeline Reforms [thestreet.com]
• It's High Time For The Wireless Industry's Smaller Players To Consolidate [forbes.com]
• Lawmakers call on DOJ to reopen investigation into Google Wi-Fi spying [computerworld.com]
• Malware intelligence system enables organizations to share threat information [phys.org]

In late 2010 AT&T announced that users could use the Xbox 360 as an IPTV set top, though originally the telco required that users pay $99 for an "Xbox kit" -- and needed to schedule a technician visit for a software installation, during when existing users would also pay a $50 installation fee. Interestingly, AT&T recently stopped selling these kits to new subscribers, a notice on the AT&T website stating "we apologize, but the AT&T U-verse TV for Xbox 360 Hardware Kit is not currently available for ordering as we work to improve and enhance this functionality." AT&T isn't saying when these enhancements will be finished, or when the service will be offered again.

Sprint was the first wireless carrier to embrace femtocell technology, their Airave service debuting back in 2007 and allowing unlimited mobile calls over a user's home broadband connection for an added fee. Most carriers shot femtocell technology in the foot, charging too much for the hardware, then implementing voice pricing that would up eating user voice minutes -- despite the fact the technology saves carriers money by offloading voice traffic to landline broadband networks.

An Ohio startup named Gigabit Squared, in conjunction with Gig U (a consortium of 30 research universities across the country) this week announced that they've launched a new program dedicated to bringing gigabit broadband speeds to six communities across the country. Through a new initiative dubbed The Gigabit Neighborhood Gateway Program, the groups have secured $200 Million in funding to help improve the connected fortunes of six U.S.

Senator Herb Kohl is the latest politician to express concerns about the anti-competitive impact of Verizon's massive new bundling and marketing arrangement with the cable industry. In a letter (pdf) from Kohl sent to the Justice Department and the FCC, the Senator expresses concern about confining too much spectrum in the pens of the nation's largest phone companies, while also arguing that having Verizon and the cable industry as BFFs will likely result in less motivation to compete on the landline broadband front.

We've talked several times over the years about how cellular tower climbing is one of the most dangerous professions in the country, something that received renewed attention back in 2008 when there was a flood of fatalities in the profession. PBS Frontline is running a new documentary on the profession this week which is viewable online here for those interested.

It's important not to forget that we are just a month beyond what was the worst week for security in the Macintosh platform's history. It is estimated that at one point over 600,000 Macs were infected.

One of the things T-Mobile fans like the company is that the carrier has been traditionally rather lax on enforcing tethering restrictions. While companies like AT&T and Verizon busily charge users a $15 "because we can" fee, T-Mobile "officially" charged users $14.95 to tether, but often wouldn't even talk about the fact they didn't enforce the charge. Unfortunately this appears to be ending for some users. PC Magazine notes that HTC Sensation owners on T-Mobile are getting the phone's Android 4.0 update, but a notice in the "HTC Sensation 4G will be required to add Wi-Fi Mobile Hotspot feature in order to use the service after completing this update." If you're a T-Mobile user, let us know in the comments if anything has changed for you post Android 4.0 update on your device.

Microsoft is funding a new Russian startup named "Pirate Pay" that is being built to help track and shut down the distribution of copyrighted works on BitTorrent. According to Torrent Freak, they've developed a technology which allows them to attack existing BitTorrent swarms by flooding clients with fake information, masquerading as legitimate peers. "We used a number of servers to make a connection to each and every P2P client that distributed this film," says Pirate Pay's Andrei Klimenko of a successful test. "Then Pirate Pay sent specific traffic to confuse these clients about the real IP-addresses of other clients and to make them disconnect from each other." MediaDefender offered similar services that did little to dent the overall trend of increase content piracy.