Verizon today announced that the telco will be offering two new home gateways for FiOS customers starting in the third quarter of this year. According to the telco, the new broadband routers, built to custom Verizon specifications by Actiontec and Westell, will boost in-home networking speeds over coaxial from 75 Mbps to 175Mbps (using the MOCA 1.1 standard).

Verizon uses MOCA for in-home networking because it's cheaper than running Cat-5 through subscriber homes. The support of this latest MOCA 1.1 standard not only boosts the maximum throughput of the technology to 175Mbps, but it increases the maximum number of devices that can be supported in the household from seven to fifteen.

The devices will allow the creation of multiple (up to four) simultaneous Wi-Fi networks, feature hardware-based QoS, remote Verizon technician management, 64-bit dual core processors and enhanced in-home media sharing functionality. The respective press releases from Actiontec and Westell have slightly more detail. The new gear drops in August.

A new study (pdf) from a telecom consulting firm named Costquest finds that while thirty-nine U.S. States have something vaguely resembling a broadband plan, only ten of the nation's fifty states have undertaken a definitive broadband mapping effort. Keep in mind that several of those states have embraced the "Connected Nation model," whose real benefits remain dubious. Even fewer states have actually reached the point where they've started getting service into unserved areas, according to the report:With the FCC themselves generally agreeing that their own broadband statistics aren't particularly useful, the agency only just started to reform their data collection methodology after a decade of debate (and they still plan on keeping most of the data they get from carriers out of public hands). In other words, with no effective federal or state level penetration mapping, the vast majority of the country has absolutely no idea how wired for broadband it is -- and obviously you can't fix a problem you have no data on.

Judging from the way they've sent their paid attack dogs after Google, the baby bells don't like the search giant very much. They despise Google's positions on network neutrality, don't like their push into white space spectrum broadband, and generally think Google owes them for building a business model on the back of their networks.

AT&T this morning posted their second quarter earnings, which reveal the company's profit jumped 30%, mostly thanks to the addition of 1.3 million new wireless customers. However, landline bloodshed actually accelerated: the total number of AT&T phone lines (including wholesale and business) in service continued to drop, down 8.1% to 58.9 million total lines from 64.8 million.

While the Nintendo Wii remains in short supply, new Comcast customers may have an easy way to obtain the game console. An employee tells The Consumerist that from July 28-August 17th in select markets (Miami, San Francisco, Houston, Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit,), the company will be giving away a free Wii to new double-play (TV/broadband) subscribers. Keep in mind some default Comcast routers don't play nice with the game console. Stuck in a duopoly market and not thrilled by either option? Comcast may have just made your decision easier.

• Worldwide DNS downed [theinquirer.net]
• Rogue SF sysadmin coughs up passwords [theregister.co.uk]
• 40% Believe Broadband Has Had a Major Impact on Our Lives [ispreview.co.uk]
• European Fixed Line Broadband Providers in Fight to Protect Future Revenue [cellular-news.com]
• HSUPA testing accelerates to 5.7Mbit/s [electronicstalk.com]
• Step away from the hype: 5 ways where iPhone 3G still lags enterprise-wise [computerworld.com]
• Electronics giants to create wireless HD standard [Yahoo News]
• Apple’s Uncharacteristically Sloppy Execution [seekingalpha.com]

• New Edge Wins ‘Service of the Year Award’ for MPLS over DSL [dbusinessnews.com]
• ACLU Asks FCC to Scrutinize ISP Surveillance of Customers’ Internet Habits [commondreams.org]
• iMAT Antennas from SkyCross Enable the First USB Device Certified by the WiMAX Forum [marketwatch.com]
• Wireless Won’t Necessarily Square with the Triple Play [xchangemag.com]
• T-Mobile Facing $1.25 Billion Legal Action For Blocking GSM Gateways [cellular-news.com]
• Holy grail of mobile web found [theinquirer.net]
• Once Again: Court Says That COPA Anti-Porn Law Is Unconstitutional [techdirt.com]
• BlackBerry maker fixes PDF flaw that could crash server [cellular-news.com]

Estimates suggest that AT&T, Verizon, Qwest and Embarq collectively lose around 2.6 million landline customers per quarter. One technician that has worked with Embarq tells me that internal estimates peg their landline customer losses at around 2,000 per day.

"No matter who you are, or where you live, or how much money you make ... you will need, and you are entitled to have these tools (broadband) available to you, I think, as a civil right," said FCC commissioner Michael Copps during yesterday's broadband hearing in Pittsburgh.

The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet is investigating whether the use of NebuAD user-tracking technology violates wiretap and privacy laws, and at least one law is being crafted that would force carriers to make such systems opt in. As part of that investigation, last week Embarq received a letter from Congress, asking pointed questions about the ISP's trial of NebuAD technology.

Last week Verizon finally got full franchise authority to deploy FiOS to NYC, something they've promised to complete by 2014. That's not particularly good news for Time Warner Cable.

While the iPhone finally supports third generation wireless broadband (assuming your neighborhood is upgraded), it still can't officially be tethered and used as a wireless modem for your laptop. It looks like some innovative folks have crafted a workaround. But it's not exactly a breezy process, requiring you jailbreak the phone, then use 3proxy and MobileTerminal. A tethered iPhone is also apparently quite the battery hog, and AT&T will probably come down hard should they find you're really gobbling up the data (your agreement gives them the right to sock you for consumption exceeding 5GB/month).

At the FCC's hearing on broadband yesterday in Pittsburgh, AT&T Senior Federal Regulatory Vice President Robert Quinn said the company would be changing the way they advertise their broadband tiers. According to Quinn, the new system will change AT&T's practice of marketing their DSL tiers as "up to" the maximum potential speed.

• Groups Urge FCC to Keep the Internet Open [pcworld.com]
• Europe leads global Wi-Fi hotspot growth; free Wi-Fi model gaining ground [muniwireless.com]
• A Detailed Explanation Of How The BSA Misleads With Piracy Stats [techdirt.com]
• Researcher's hypothesis may expose uber-secret DNS flaw [theregister.co.uk]
• iPhone Dev Team Releases Jailbreak Software Dubbed 'PwnageTool 2.0' [informationweek.com]
• Universal Says It Can Ignore Fair Use In DMCA Takedowns [techdirt.com]
• Broadband called a 'civil right' by FCC commissioner [pittsburghlive.com]
• WiMax at Sea, the Journey Begins [pcworld.com]

• BT’s £1.5million fiber project will fail to upgrade the UK beyond a ‘second rate’ broadband provider [contractoruk.com]
• Comcast pitches IPv6 strategy to standards body [computerworld.com]
• Business-class WiMAX will test fixed and mobile broadband operators [computerweekly.com]
• Asia-Pacific Broadband Market to Reach 171-Million Subscribers by Year’s End [teleclick.ca]
• Tiscali threatens lawsuit over BT dirty tricks [pocket-lint.co.uk]
• CableLabs Clears Motorola's DOCSIS 3.0 Security [multichannel.com]
• IPv6 insecurity is a clear and present danger [theinquirer.net]

New York AG Andrew Cuomo recently conducted a "sting" on broadband ISPs that consisted of discovering that Usenet is home to some horrible things (no, not TV show fan fiction). Under penalty of suit, the AG then got ISPs to agree to highly publicized deals that ISPs themselves admit don't have them doing anything differently.

A security patch is only good if someone actually downloads and installs it. A post to the Google blog points to a new study that finds only 59.1% percent of Internet users worldwide use the latest major version of their preferred web browser with all the latest patches.

When I originally broke the story that Time Warner Cable was planning to trial very low caps (5-40GB) and overage fees ($1 per additional gigabyte) in their Beaumont, Texas market, the leaked memo indicated only new users would be automatically capped. But an additional goal for the trial, according to the memo, was to test "marketing and messaging to customers." In other words: how do you convince existing users that getting less product for more money ($1/GB is a 1,000-1,500% markup over cost) is actually a good thing?

Well, in the trial market, Time Warner Cable begins with a regional website that insists caps and overage fees "make your Internet experience better." But since there's a few smart people out there, they're also engaged in another, rather underhanded way of getting consumers to embrace caps and overages.

A growing number of cable operators are deploying switched digital video (SDV) technology, which frees up bandwidth on cable systems by delivering fewer channels to the cable-box, keeping the rest waiting at the edge router. In current cable systems, all channels are consistently made available to the set-top box, using up valuable bandwidth even if your TV is off.

AT&T this morning has announced that they're finally launching U-Verse VDSL and IPTV service in portions of South Florida. As of this morning, the company is offering the service in portions of Miami-Dade and Broward counties, with a launch planned for portions of Palm Beach County starting July 28. Florida is quickly becoming an interesting market to watch this year, as Comcast is offering 16Mbps "Blast!" service wherever U-Verse springs up, and plans to offer pre-cert DOCSIS 3.0 in FiOS locations (an insider tells me they're testing 50Mbps service in Sarasota starting this week).