Enjoy your holiday, and empty your head into the comment section below.

• FCC Solicits Applications for White Space Database Administrators [gigaom.com]
• Ruckus Wireless intros wireless broadband alternative to 3G [thestandard.com]
• LTE Vendor Showdown: Nokia Siemens, Huawei Battle it Out [xchangemag.com]
• Palm & Sprint on the hunt for users' missing webOS backups [fiercewireless.com]
• Rumor: MiFi coming to Bell Canada on November 30 for $99.95 on contract [gadgetell.com]
• Time Warner Cable Asks Customers: Should It Roll Over Or Get Tough On Programmer Price Hikes [multichannel.com]
• Kindle gets PDF reader, 85% more battery life [theinquirer.net]
• NY Emergency Management Office to use Xbox 360 as test bed for console-transmitted emergency warnings [reghardware.co.uk]

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Comcast has settled a nearly four year customer class action lawsuit. The suit alleged that Comcast, even as far back as when it was AT&T Broadband, overcharged franchise fees -- in some instances for periods of time when customers weren't even active subscribers. The amusing part is that even though the amounts were fairly small to begin with, subscribers won't see a dime. However, the lawyers for the class action suit get a tidy payday of $462,962.50, nine times the actual settlement. On the plus side, Comcast has agreed to donate $50,000 to one or more local charities.

Users in our Rogers forum note that the Canadian cable provider will be beta launching an open beta of their On Demand Online service beginning November 30. The service, which is Rogers' version of "TV Everywhere," promises to offer users streaming access to several dozen channels of Internet video content, provided you already have Rogers TV service. According to users, the service will come with high quality (500kbps) or higher def (1Mbps) streaming options, all of which will eat away at your Rogers usage cap, incurring overage penalties. In house ad-driven content fueled by high per-GB overages is essentially most cable operators' dream business model -- though we'll see how well Rogers' product fares in the open market when it launches next year.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) on Tuesday condemned the practice of redirecting Internet users to a third-party portal when they mistype, or enter a nonexistent URL. You'll recall that the practice gained international attention when Verisign implemented their heavily-loathed Sitefinder initiative in 2003.

The National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureau has recommended that Sprint stop running ads saying that the carrier has "America's most dependable 3G network." The recommendation comes after Verizon, fresh off of their lover's quarrel with AT&T, filed a complaint with the agency claiming that Sprint was using old data to support their claim. According to a NAD statement, Nielsen "drive test" data does confirm that Verizon's network has been more reliable of late: story continues..

It's fairly common practice for cable carriers to blame their often bi-annual TV rate increases on the high costs their incur from broadcasters. Time Warner Cable appears poised to take this traditional tactic to a new level.

Back in June, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) launched their terms of service tracker, which keeps an eye on company TOS for any changes that might be of interest to consumers. At launch the tracker didn't track any broadband ISPs, something the EFF told us they'd correct. They have, and now track 56 companies, including Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Earthlink, T-Mobile and Sprint. The company has now announced that they've launched a new blog specifically dedicated to tracking company abuse of their customers through mouse print. The new resource tracks ongoing litigation and developments regarding AUP and TOS changes, and will provide white papers aimed at giving the average Internet user "a general background on many of the legal issues that surround Terms of Service agreements."

Since the project was announced, analysts have raised questions over whether Sprint and Clearwire's Mobile WiMax joint venture would have enough money to successfully fund a full deployment. Estimates to bring the service to 140 million POPs in fifty US markets ranged as high as $12 billion in some quarters, though Clearwire itself has always said they'd get the job done for considerably less.

TiVo's deals with cable operators and their recent DVR patent wins haven't done much to keep TiVo customers around. The company just suffered their worst quarter ever, losing 314,000 customers in three months. TiVo's market share (2.76 million) is now less than 8% of the estimated total 38 million US DVR households. TiVo would probably be helped greatly if Comcast would ever get around to their national TiVo deployment, but three years after the deal's announcement, TiVo for most Comcast customers is a nowhere to be found.

• UK Average mobile broadband speed only 0.87Mbits/sec [pcpro.co.uk]
• 3G wireless still holds promise [cnet.com]
• Iphone users sucking up half of the world's mobile networks' bandwidth [theinquirer.net]
• Clearwire Raises an Additional $920 Million for WiMAX Rollout [cellular-news.com]
• Infineon, Nokia agree to push LTE radios towards 1-Gbit/s [eetimes.com]
• Comcast sees more videos on-demand in NBC Universal [totaltele.com]
• San Fran Board Slated To Vote On Resolution Backing Network Neutrality [multichannel.com]
• Fring brings Skype video calls to mobile [theregister.co.uk]
• Apple wants life ban for clone maker Psystar [theregister.co.uk]

• FCC Wants More Input On Measuring Fixed Residential, Small Business Broadband [multichannel.com]
• Fox Studios calls for US to follow French anti-piracy law model [theinquirer.net]
• Sprint completes Virgin Mobile acquisition [fiercewireless.com]
• National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus asks Sprint to drop "Most Dependable" claim after Verizon objects [orlandosentinel.com]
• Expanding broadband Internet access subject of FCC chairman's talk in Arkansas [orlandosentinel.com]
• Mobile broadband may have problems identifying pirates [thinkbroadband.com]
• Rogers loses 'most reliable' title in B.C. court, says rival Telus [vancouversun.com]
• Hulu Telling Sites To Stop Embedding So Much [techdirt.com]
• Spam King Alan Ralsky Gets Four Years In Jail [techdirt.com]
• eBay offers compo for search failure [theregister.co.uk]

40% of the money consumers pay into the Universal Service Fund goes to fund the FCC's E-Rate program, which was designed to help deliver telecom services to unserved areas, and deliver broadband service to libraries. The program has doled out more than $25 billion since its inception in 1998, but as the government itself often acknowledges, the FCC has never really bothered to track how this money is spent.

Founded by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom of Skype and Kazaa fame, broadband video service Joost hoped to revolutionize the broadband video industry, but struggled with slow broadband speeds, internal turmoil and a contractually-limited catalog. Last winter, Joost ditched their P2P approach for a more Hulu-esque flash-based website approach, though it didn't help. The company has since shuttered their consumer service entirely -- hoping to develop video services for existing ISPs. The company had been shopping itself to ISPs but nobody was interested -- and today announced they'd be selling what's left of the company to online advertising outfit Adconion Media Group for an undisclosed amount.

After several weeks of bickering in the public eye between AT&T and Verizon, Apple this week jumped into the debate feet first with two new ads. The ads, like AT&T's new ads featuring actor Luke Wilson, try to brush aside Verizon's criticisms of AT&T 3G network coverage and performance by highlighting that AT&T iPhone users can browse the Internet and talk on the phone at the same time.

Glenn Fleishman directs our attention to the fact that despite the constant calls for in-flight broadband service, Portfolio notes that people just aren't interested in paying for it. Or at least that's the conclusion author Joe Brancatelli comes to, despite admitting in the piece that hard user numbers "are nearly impossible to come by." Neither the airlines or the major in-flight Wi-Fi players (Aircell and Row44) are willing to talk real numbers, though insiders are apparently willing to talk anonymously about a few things: story continues..

Earlier this month, the FCC, who's in the middle of designing a national broadband plan, issued a report (pdf) identifying seven major factors that are considered "critical gaps" preventing broader broadband deployment. Among the gaps identified are some correct and rather obvious ones, including the fact the USF doesn't fund broadband expansion, broadband may be unavailable or too expensive, spectrum is limited, or broadband is expensive to deploy.

Earlier this year we noted how companies like Verizon are very clearly turning away from rural America, creating a new niche for smaller "rural super telcos" to thrive. The merger of CenturyTel and Embarq creates one such company, but Windstream Communications is also picking up speed in this sector as well. Windstream recently acquired NuVox Communications, and was also rumored to be sniffing around the assets of bankrupt Fairpoint Communications. Windstream continues the trend today by announcing they're acquiring Iowa Telecom (and its 256,000 access lines, 95,000 broadband and 26,000 digital TV customers) for about $1.1 billion. Interestingly, the company has had money for acquisitions, but not for employees: the erosion of landline revenues recently resulted in a 3% workforce reduction.

Like Comcast, Time Warner Cable is reselling Clearwire Mobile WiMax service and bundling it with the company's existing broadband, TV and VoIP services. Back in October, the company indicated that they'd be launching their incarnation of the service starting December 1 in Raleigh, Durham, Cary, Chapel Hill, Charlotte and Greensboro.

Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VI) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) have written a letter to US Trade Rep Ron Kirk asking for Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) documents to be made public. The secret negotiations with no outside input have been troublesome, given that leaked glimpses of the proposal indicate it involves everything from significant shift in copyright law to potential erosion of ISP safe harbor provisions and mandatory implementation of "three strikes" ISP requirements. Senators Sanders and Brown aren't buying the "state secret" excuse given by Uncle Sam: