A new report from research firm OpenSignal found that T-Mobile LTE is currently live in nine United States cities ahead of the company's official network launch expected tomorrow. Only Kansas City and Las Vegas were specifically mentioned as launch markets, though the firm notes they've also seen significant LTE presence in Seattle, Denver, New Orleans, New York, San Diego, and the Bay Area.

"We've observed a respectable 25 Mbps average download speed, an 8 Mbps average upload speed and an average latency of 40ms," notes OpenSignal. The firm acknowledges that these speeds are being seen over an un-launched network and using a very small sample size.

T-Mobile's LTE network is expected to be officially launched tomorrow, alongside the company's new pricing plans, which formally signal the death of long-term contracts at the company. T-Mobile's also expected to give more details on other aspects of their "uncarrier" strategy, which include the death of handset subsidies. The company is also expected to finally offer the iPhone later this year.

T-Mobile has plenty of catching up to do with AT&T, Verizon and Sprint having healthy leads on their own LTE deployments. T-Mobile has stated they want to reach 100 million potential customers by the middle of the year.

The FCC this week stated that Softbank's $20 billion acquisition of Sprint is on track for a late May ruling, with all signs pointing to approval. The FCC's 180 day "shot clock" for approval ends on May 29.

Making Dish network's already unlikely Clearwire takeover bid even less likely, Clearwire this week announced that they will be taking more Sprint money after all. According to a company press release, Clearwire will be getting an $80 million payment from Sprint on top of the $2.97-per-share existing offer by Sprint to acquire the rest of Clearwire. Dish had previously stated they'd withdraw their own $3.30-per-share counter-offer if Clearwire accepted that funding. Despite the fact the Sprint financing means the Dish deal is likely dead, Clearwire continues to insist they're engaged in ongoing negotiations with Dish.

Sprint is slowly bringing up LTE in very limited portions of New York City, DC, San Francisco and parts of Florida as those markets get closer to an official launch. Sprint users with LTE-capable devices noticed LTE pop up over the weekend in San Francisco, where the company says deployment is just beginning.

Clearwire's fourth quarter earnings indicate company revenue in the fourth quarter fell 14 percent to $311 million, though its net loss declined to $187.2 million from $236.8 million one year ago. Customers continue to defect -- Clearwire ending the year with 9.6 million total subscribers, down 8% from the 10.4 million subscribers they laid claim to at the end of 2011. Executives essentially just pantomimed their way through the earnings call, refusing to answer questions on why previous projections had been so wrong, or any questions on the Sprint deal.

Sprint has confirmed last week's leaks that the company will be taking complete control of Clearwire in a move many have assumed was inevitable for years. According to a Sprint announcement, Sprint says they'll acquire the remaining almost 50% share they don't own for $2.97 per share, or about $2.2 billion in total.

From the "well that's incredibly unsurprising" department comes news that Sprint is in talks with Clearwire to acquire the 49% of the company it currently doesn't already own. Anonymous sources tell CNBC that while deal "is not imminent," talks are ongoing and a deal could be announced by the end of the year (which sounds somewhat imminent to me).

We've noted repeatedly how privacy technology discussions often have a bizarre and amusing lack of context, the press getting borderline hysterical about every NebuAD or CarrierIQ scandal, while ignoring that carriers and the government buy, sell and trade all user information daily with only a fleeting regard for law.

Time and time again we've seen folks come forward with evidence of carriers like AT&T, Sprint and Verizon simply dumping all live traffic in the government's lap in violation of law (which they simply change when they get caught).

Guggenheim Securities analyst Shing Yin single handedly made MetroPCS shares rise today by insisting that Sprint could make a bid of $12 to $13 per share for MetroPCS sometime within the next four weeks. According to Yin, such an offer could be too steep for T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom to match while still pleasing shareholders, scrapping T-Mobile's planned merger with MetroPCS.

"To counter a $13 per share bid from Sprint, if that were to occur, we estimate DT would have to give 43 percent to 47 percent of the combined company to PCS shareholders -- likely a tough proposition for DT shareholders to accept," Yin said in an e-mail.

Sprint was believed to be close to a counter offer back in October, and of course was a breath away from acquiring MetroPCS last February before the deal was scrapped by the Sprint board at the last second.

Sprint is poised to turn on service in nine new markets, while many people wait for the company to seriously deploy LTE in some larger cities. According to a Sprint press release, Sprint has started working on LTE upgrades in markets like Minneapolis and Oakland, with a full service launch expected sometime before January. Sprint is turning markets on almost as soon as they're even remotely deployed, resulting in many users with LTE devices seeing network connectivity before commercial launch.

While the pre-launch availability is nice, Sprint has recently resorted to announcing a lot of upcoming LTE markets, as opposed to actually available LTE markets. The carrier realizes that they're getting a lot of new iPhone users who may find themselves disappointed with LTE coverage compared to Verizon (417 markets) and AT&T (80 markets).

Even though it has taken a majority stake in Clearwire, moved quickly to take over the company's board, made financial maneuvers to prevent anyone else from buying Clearwire, and will likely acquire the company with the help of new owner SoftBank once their current deal is approved -- Sprint would like everybody to know that they don't control Clearwire. "While we have a majority stake, we do not have control of the company, and their finances are not consolidated with Sprint's," Sprint insisted to news outlets this week. "They are an independent company with independent management and board. This is (the) same as when we previously owned more than 50 percent." The same, except now Sprint has a rich sugar daddy in SoftBank that makes everything completely, totally different.

Anonymous sources tell Bloomberg News that Sprint has no plans (yet) to fully acquire Clearwire after Sprint itself was recently acquired by Japanese carrier SoftBank. Sprint currently owns a 49% stake in Clearwire and faces no pressure for full ownership given they've already paid Clearwire $900 million to lease needed spectrum.

Sprint has confirmed this morning's rumors that they're in talks with Japanese wireless carrier SoftBank regarding some form of acquisition. Reports this morning suggested SoftBank would be acquiring a majority stake in Sprint in a deal estimated to be worth between $12-$19 billion -- depending on the news outlet.

"Although there can be no assurances that these discussions will result in any transaction or on what terms any transaction may occur, such a transaction could involve a change of control of Sprint," Sprint said in a statement. "Sprint does not intend to comment further unless and until an agreement is reached."

Meanwhile, Clearwire stock is up 30% today on the news, investors seeing the deal as a boon to Clearwire, given that both Clearwire and SoftBank use (or will use) TDD-LTE technology and a Sprint/SoftBank partnership could result in improved network hardware prices for Clearwire.

The morning's wireless rumor du jour is that Sprint is looking to sell a majority stake to Japanese carrier SoftBank. An anonymous source tells Reuters (as well as Japan's Nikkei business daily) that SoftBank, Japan's third-largest mobile carrier, is in talks to acquire a majority stake in Sprint in a deal valued at $12.8 billion. SoftBank has been on an acquisition spree for several years, acquiring Vodafone Japan in 2006, and most recently PHS operator Willcom back in January. SoftBank was the first carrier in Japan to sell the iPhone, and is hoping the acquisition gives them greater leverage in negotiating for handsets and network hardware, sources suggest.

Sprint today announced that the company has launched their new LTE network in five additional locations. According to this Sprint press statement, the company's new LTE network is now available in Lawrence, Kansas; Topeka, Kansas; Wichita, Kansas; Waukegan-Lake County, Illinois; and Barnstable-Hyannis/Mid-Cape, Massachusetts. "In addition to the 19 cities we have already launched, we recently announced that Sprint 4G LTE will be available in more than 100 cities in the coming months,” said Bob Azzi, senior vice president-Network, Sprint. "To counter some of the iPhone 5 coverage focusing on their small LTE footprint, Sprint recent stated they'd be launching 100 or so markets in the next few months, including New York, Miami Los Angeles and Chicago.

A developer says he's discovered a vulnerability in the Virgin Mobile website that allows a third party to access private user information, and that the company has yet to do anything about it after being alerted. Blogger and developer Kevin Burke says that in August he noticed something alarming about the Virgin Mobile website: plugging in anyone else's Virgin Mobile number into the website can allow a hacker to gain access to confidential customer call and texting reports, change user passwords and addresses, or purchase an unauthorized handset.

With Sprint's recent earnings less awful than usual, Sprint is apparently feeling rather chatty and this week invited a select group of bloggers and reporters to tour their Kansas City headquarters (I apparently forgot to send Dan Hesse a Christmas card). During the tour, CEO Dan Hesse doled out numerous sound bytes on everything from their LTE build to the AT&T, Verizon duopoly.

One of the biggest benefits of the shift to LTE will be the introduction of high definition voice, a long overdue and potentially significant ramp up in current phone call audio quality. Even Verizon, who leads in the deployment of LTE, has delayed introducing LTE voice (or HD voice) because of the problems with handing calls off between LTE and older network technologies.

Several users have written in to note that Amazon has started imposing a cap on the amount of data users can consume while browsing using some Kindle models. If you recall, the Kindle initially launched with an experimental browser and unlimited 3G connectivity provided by Sprint.

Sprint's LTE network should finally launch this weekend (Sunday, July 15) in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City and San Antonio -- and we're eager to hear user impressions of the new service. As we've seen with so many LTE launches, many of these markets are already discoverable by users who already have LTE-capable Sprint smartphones. It appears that users in Kansas City say the new LTE network is indeed already up and working. While Verizon has the LTE market lead with more than 300 -- it will be interesting to see if Sprint can catch up to AT&T, who only just recently launched LTE market 47. Sprint says they should have all current Mobile WiMax and EVDO markets upgraded with LTE by the end of 2013 -- which is the same goal AT&T has set despite the earlier start.