For years, ISP lobbyists and their hired mouthpieces have pushed the bogus concept of the "Exaflood", or the idea that bandwidth demand is growing so quickly, ISPs can't possibly keep up unless they get X. Usually X in this equation is fewer consumer protections, no price caps, the right to charge incredibly high overage fees, not having to pay taxes -- etc. You get the point. Real science from outside lobbyist land, however, repeatedly shows that bandwidth demands can be met in both the core and the last mile with only reasonable network upgrades.

While network congestion certainly is real, it is also frequently used to justify anti-competitive behavior -- be it Bell Canada's decision to throttle wholesale competitors so they can't offer superior service to consumers, or AT&T and Time Warner Cable's desire to impose high overages on their users despite already making an incredible profit under the flat-rate pricing model. During these arguments, consumers who dare actually use the company's product (as it's advertised to them) are demonized as "bandwidth hogs."

Techdirt directs our attention to two posts over at Fiber Evolution and DadaMotive, exploring how even the concept of a bandwidth hog is somewhat disingenuous. Herman Wagter, who has worked on Amsterdam's FTTH efforts (covered here by us, but also see this interesting interview with him) goes so far as to argue the bandwidth hog doesn't really even exist. Wagter's fundamental argument is that bandwidth hogs aren't real; what's real are chokepoints and network designs that companies are hiding from sight.

Last summer, Teresa Dixon Murray at the Cleveland Plain Dealer did a great job highlighting a phantom $1.99 fee Verizon Wireless was hitting consumers with -- even when phones were off, phone batteries were dead, Internet access was blocked, or the phones couldn't go online. Many of you at the time complained about the fee as well.

For years now, the battle against piracy has gone a little something like this: based on sometimes accurate evidence, intelligence firms working for the entertainment industry send the IP address information of users who've shared a copyrighted file to ISPs, who then forward a DMCA warning letter to the end user without identifying that user to the entertainment industry. The end user then completely ignores the letter and -- absolutely nothing else happens.

Most consumers have made it pretty clear that they don't like the idea of having their online browsing activity tracked, stored and used to sell them additional crap -- particularly without their consent. That hasn't stopped ISPs from quietly selling your clickstream data (then denying it), and while consumer fears have temporarily shelved behavioral advertising efforts like Phorm or NebuAD, the billions in untapped revenues there mean that total Internet usage surveillance and monetization is arriving whether you like it or not.

Given they're in bankruptcy because of their botched deal with Verizon, it's not particularly surprising that Fairpoint Communications is working with a bit of a tight purse. Still, while they've not been able to pay their bills, they've still been able to recently hire two new top tier PR firms to shore up their sagging brand image.

A few weeks ago, you might recall that Verizon decided they were going to raise their early termination fees for smartphone users from $175 to $350. You might also recall how this annoyed Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, who wrote to both the FCC and Verizon to complain that the ETF hike was "anti-consumer and anti-competitive." As had been rumored, Klobuchar yesterday unveiled a bill taking aim at early termination fees.

Whether it breaks the core functionality of the Internet or not, there's very few ISPs left who aren't using DNS redirection advertising. The "service" essentially creates an entirely new revenue stream for ISPs, by presenting users with an ad-laden search portal instead of the traditional page not found error when they mistype a URL or enter a non-existent one.

Earlier this week Sprint found itself at the center of a privacy firestorm, after a blogger posted an audio recording of a Sprint executive discussing a new Sprint portal designed to easily hand off GPS-tracking data to authorities. Whereas some companies simply would have clammed up and cited national security, Sprint decided to address the claims head on and has been talking with all media outlets (and us) about what happened.

Comcast and General Electric sent out announcements to the press this morning saying that the long-expected Comcast and NBC Universal deal is official. According to the companies, Comcast and NBC Universal are creating a new joint venture 51% owned by Comcast and operated by Comcast. In exchange for their 51% stake, Comcast is paying $6.5 billion in cash up front, as well as an additional $7.25 billion in cable assets.

We've discussed how a significant number of states passed new state level video franchise laws at the behest of phone company lobbyists, but didn't really realize what they were signing up for. Bills that consumers were told would result in lower TV prices by making it easier for phone companies to jump into the TV business, in many cases were little more than phone company wish lists -- aimed at legalizing the cherry picking of next-gen broadband deployment, eliminating local authority (even eminent domain rights) and in some cases eliminating tough consumer protection laws.

Last month we noted how Verizon has increasingly been under fire from regulators in West Virginia, Florida and New York for slacking when it comes to maintenance and customer service for their aging DSL networks. With so much money to be made on getting into the TV business via FiOS TV, workers, customers and regulators say the telco is cutting corners in markets it's less interested in (when they're not busy just selling these markets outright).

As expected, Time Warner Cable has launched their Clear-powered mobile WiMAX service in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, as well as in several North Carolina markets, including Raleigh, Durham, Cary, Chapel Hill, Charlotte and Greensboro. Dubbed "Roadrunner Mobile," the service offers speeds up to 6 Mbps for prices ranging from $39.95 a month to $79.95 a month, depending on you bundling options (you have to purchase at least one other service).

A few weeks ago you'll recall that AT&T sued Verizon Wireless for a new series of advertisements poking fun at AT&T's 3G network performance and coverage. Specifically, AT&T told us they believed the ads "mislead customers into believing that AT&T does not offer any wireless service in the vast majority of the country," despite the fact that the ads simply compared 3G coverage only (see example ad).

The cable industry this week is busy patting itself on the back for a new initiative they've dubbed "Adoption Plus." According to the cable industry's chief lobbying and PR arm, the National Cable And Telecommunications Association, Adoption Plus has been created to "promote sustainable broadband adoption for a vitally important-but-vulnerable population" -- namely middle school-aged children in low income households without broadband. As such, the industry says they're offering discounted broadband to low income homes.

If you're outside the range of terrestrial options, your only choice for broadband is a satellite broadband provider. Unfortunately, as our user reviews for Wild Blue and HughesNet will tell you -- satellite broadband barely earns the broadband title as it suffers from high latency, slow speeds, and very high prices.

For years we've discussed how the Universal Service Fund (USF) is perhaps one of the worst examples of government dysfunction and corporate abuse, even by the government's own admission. The fund, which customers have poured billions in fees into over the least decade -- is designed to help bring phone service (not broadband) to rural areas and broadband to the nation's libraries (which, well, hasn't gone so well).

Blogger Christopher Soghoian is raising eyebrows this week with a recording of a Sprint executive at a conference exploring how Sprint has been using a new portal to give user GPS data to law enforcement agents "8 million times" over a thirteen month span. The disclosure of course immediately raised questions over what kind of legal process is being followed, and who's being tracked.

Straight off of AT&T and Verizon's multi-week network quality snark fest, Consumer Reports has issued their latest survey of wireless carriers and phones, and it probably won't make AT&T particularly happy. The survey itself is available to subscribers only, but we can tell you that the findings generally mirror other recent surveys of the wireless sector -- namely putting Verizon at the top in terms of customer satisfaction, while placing AT&T at the bottom.

You'll of course recall that back 2008 we were the first to report that Comcast was implementing a clear 250 GB usage cap for all users. Despite some grumbling, this was actually a good thing, given many Comcast users spent the better part of the decade complaining that Comcast was kicking people off of the network for "excessive consumption," without actually defining what "excessive" was.

Canadian cable operator Rogers has constructed what's essentially the dream business model for broadband executives. They're launching a new broadband video portal that's only available if you sign up for Rogers wireless, TV or broadband service -- avoiding a stand-alone service in order to keep users from canceling regular cable.