According to a statement by the USDA's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Uncle Sam will be consolidating the two remaining broadband stimulus funding rounds into one. According to the government, they're merging the funding rounds "to increase efficiency and better accommodate applicants." The government also issued a fifteen-day RFI requesting feedback from bidders aimed at improving the application process. So far, about 2,200 different companies and organizations have put in bids for the $7.2 billion in available funding, making two additional funding rounds a little silly for the volume of demand, versus the limited funding available.

As we mentioned last week, starting November 15 Verizon will be doubling the early termination fee for smartphones from $175 to $350. The move is aimed largely at preventing people from turning around and making a profit on devices like the new Motorola Droid on eBay, but also to well, make money.

Consumer Group Free Press takes a few shots at Verizon's inconsistent positions on rural broadband, noting that while the baby bell continually claims to support getting broadband into the nation's rural nooks and crannies, their actions of late say the complete opposite. Forget FiOS -- the new Verizon is uninterested in delivering even DSL or phone service to most rural markets, which is why they're continually selling off these markets in tricky tax loophole leaping deals that usually wind up badly for the consumer and the sold markets:Verizon's justification of course is that rural America is costly to wire.

A Federal Judge has demanded, three times now, that the Obama Administration hand over documents that highlight how major phone companies AT&T and Verizon lobbied for legal immunity for their involvement in the government's warrantless wiretap program. The government, with no real legal footing to stand on, has now tried to delay that release three times in order to keep those documents out of the ongoing Congressional discussion about domestic wiretapping. According to the EFF they're finally making headway, and some documents should be released this week:In a very clear act of non-transparency, there's still a significant number of baby bell lobbying documents the government is protecting. The Obama administration also still plans to redact the identities of any specific companies from any documents they do release -- and are not disclosing communications within the Executive Branch concerning telco lobbying.

Verizon's "iPhone killer," the Motorola Droid, went on sale last Friday, and Motorola says they sold about 100,000 of the devices according to Bloomberg. Verizon meanwhile had about 200,000 in stock and burned through most of that, according to the company. Those numbers don't come close to iPhone sales, "but anybody that was expecting that had their expectations too high,” says one analyst, who recommends buying Motorola stock. Another analyst, who advises selling Moto shares, tells Bloomberg they have a "nagging suspicion that Android is being overestimated by technology enthusiasts."

Did you buy a Droid?

Their recent fourth quarter earnings report indicates that despite some clear customer service improvements, Sprint continues to bleed both subscribers and cash as the company recovers from their merger with Nextel. To help make ends meet, the company yesterday announced they'll be laying off between 2,000 and 2,500 employees during the fourth quarter. According to Sprint, the layoffs should save the company about $350 million annually. "The company is taking this action in a careful manner to ensure that there is no impact on the improved customer experience that has been reflected in much higher levels of satisfaction in customer surveys and in independent performance tests," proclaims Sprint.

Google already announced they're offering free Wi-Fi over the holidays, and now it appears they've upped the ante -- announcing they'll be offering free Wi-Fi at 47 airports nationwide for the holiday season. "This is one of our holiday gifts to our users, and when you connect, we also hope you'll take the opportunity to try some of the latest Google products," says the self-proclaimed "not evil" search giant. You can find a full list of participating airports here. Unfortunately, some of the nation's busiest airports are nowhere to be found -- like all three New York City airports or Chicago O'Hare.

• EU agreement puts a dampener on UK piracy plans [broadbandgenie.co.uk]
• ISP Karoo Launchs Bizarre Weekday Only Broadband Package []
• UK ISP O2 does oppsite of Orange; offers free tethering, cheap broadband with iPhone [mobilenewscwp.co.uk]
• UK.gov denies innocent will be hit by filesharing regime [theregister.co.uk]
• Google to Offer Free Wi-Fi in Airports During Holiday Season [eweek.com]
• Botnet responsible for estimated third of world's spam< knocked out by security firm/a> [theregister.co.uk]
• Firefox five years old today [theinquirer.net]
• Microsoft will release six updates next Patch Tuesday [theinquirer.net]

• Dish Files To Trademark 'TV Everywhere' [multichannel.com]
• Free Press, Hispanic Media Coaltion: We Can Make Own Net-Neutrality Decisions [multichannel.com]
• IFPI: If Lawsuits Aren't Working In Denmark, We'll Seize Computers To Get Evidence [techdirt.com]
• Mobile broadband not so shiny on new Mac operating system [broadbandgenie.co.uk]
• UK Conservatives announce fiber broadband tax review plans [cable.co.uk]
• AT&T now offering “with Canda” wireless calling plans [gadgetell.com]
• Sprint may slash up to 2,500 jobs [fiercewireless.com]
• World's first iPhone worm Rickrolls angry fanbois [theregister.co.uk]

AT&T is of course starting to deploy faster HSPA 7.2 upgrades, which nudge AT&T's downstream 3G network speed closer to 7.2 Mbps . Not that you'll actually see those kinds of speeds in the real world, but it's a decent improvement.

With last Friday's Motorola Droid launch and a new series of ads that take aim at AT&T's incomplete and sometimes sub-par wireless broadband coverage, Verizon's upped the ante in their fight against AT&T. Why? Verizon clearly wants to do a better job at sopping up wireless subscribers during the traditionally very busy fourth quarter.

Late on Friday, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced seven new state recipients of broadband mapping and improvement funds. As with the last round of funding, the awards were most notable for who wasn't among them: Connected Nation. Criticized by some as essentially a bell-funded lobbying vehicle dressed up as a broadband mapping organization, Connected Nation again missed out on broadband mapping funds in Alabama, Washington, Wyoming, Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin. Those interested can track the funding by state via this map and grant database.

Mediacom just got done bumping their standard speeds for most users pushing their 8 Mbps tier to 12 Mbps, and their 10 Mbps tier to 15 Mbps. Things should get faster shortly: the company told those who tuned in to their third quarter earnings conference call that they'd be launching DOCSIS 3.0 service in eleven new markets starting in December. Mediacom isn't saying which markets those will be, but they did say that nine of the markets would see 50 Mbps speeds, while two of them would be seeing 100 Mbps speeds (no word on prices or upstream speeds). Mediacom hopes to have about 25% of their network upgraded to the faster speeds by the end of the year, and has an additional 25% of their network "DOCSIS 3.0 headend-capable" for expanded launches in 2010.

Last month AT&T announced that they'd no longer be blocking VoIP programs like Skype from working over 3G. AT&T said they were taking a "fresh look" at VoIP capabilities on iPhone for use on AT&T's 3G network, and the move was soundly heralded by both the press and the FCC as a step in the right direction.

According to a report by CNET's official "examine strange early drafts of laws and terrify people by how badly they're written" guy Declan McCullagh, a new bill winding its way through Congress would force ISPs to block consumer access to online financial scams.

The bill, which passed in the House Financial Services Committee last week by a 41 to 28 vote, places liability squarely in the lap of the ISP should they fail to block access to scams invoking the name of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). The precise language of the bill:That wording is so broad it could be extended to include illegitimate scam references contained in e-mail or other transmissions like VoIP, something that obviously worries carriers. It looks like that language is already in the process of being removed or modified. It seems unlikely that this bill makes it very far given the muscle most of the major broadband providers have on K Street.

Sprint is preparing to pump at least another billion into Clearwire, and Sprint partners Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Intel are collectively ponying up another $500 million. There have also been rumblings that Clearwire has looked to T-Mobile as a new funding partner. Judging from some of the analyst estimates we've seen, this may only be the beginning of new funding rounds. While most of that money is going to go toward building out the network, as we examined last week, some indoor coverage issues suggest they may want to save some money for outdoor mountable antenna and femtocell deployment.

• AT&T's Donovan defends network, touts connected devices [fiercewireless.com]
• NTIA awards another approximately $13.5 million to seven more states [multichannel.com]
• Lessons From the War Over Skype [nytimes.com]
• Voice Is Cable’s Secret Weapon for Growth [gigaom.com]
• UK provider takes cue from AT&T debacle, throttles iPhone users [theinquirer.net]
• Court Says Telenor Doesn't Need To Block The Pirate Bay [techdirt.com]
• Verizon's Buzz for Motorola's Droid Fizzles at Day's End [cio-today.com]
• Venezuelan Government Blames Video Games For Violence, Implements Widespread Ban [techdirt.com]

The weekend has finally arrived. Chat among yourselves in the comment section below.

Part of the problem with the FCC's current rules governing network neutrality is that they're so incredibly vague, they're useless when trying to crack down on anti-competitive behavior by ISPs. Were you the dubious sort, you might argue they were intentionally made that way to give the illusion that the FCC was engaged in a pro-consumer action when really just pandering to major carriers.

Somewhat lost in the news coverage of Clearwire's accelerating launch of Mobile WiMax markets is a simple question: does the service actually work well? As we noted a few weeks ago, there's a significant number of new Clearwire customers in our forums who haven't been exactly thrilled with the new Mobile WiMax service's speed, range or availability. Those complaints continue, with one user e-mailing us to note his experience as a new Clearwire customer has been, for lack of a more scientific term, sucky.