Last week we told you how some sloppy AT&T lobbying resulted in an Arkansas senior citizen group writing a form letter against net neutrality to the FCC, but forgetting some important details -- like replacing the form field "XYZ Organization" with an actual company name. Telecom companies frequently use a slew of existing or artificial groups to parrot company positions, giving the illusion of broad public support. Several users have subsequently written in to note that the letter signatory, and head of the "Arkansas Retired Seniors Coalition," unsurprisingly worked for Southwestern Bell for nearly thirty years. Mike Masnick at Techdirt has also been digging into the story, and notes that the man still claims he wrote the letter himself, for whatever that's worth.

As we've been exploring, both AT&T and Verizon absolutely despise Google. Why? Because the company represents an Internet future where phone companies are relegated to "dumb pipe" network operators, and more innovative and adaptable companies wind up making a killing in the content and service business.

In the summer of 2008 we noted that AT&T was no longer taking new orders for their Callvantage VoIP service. The company of course wanted to begin pushing their U-Verse Voice VoIP product a little harder, but employees also hinted to us that AT&T was cooking up a new bring your own broadband (BYOB) VoIP offering as well. That BYOB service still hasn't arrived, but AT&T this week gave a concrete date for the CallVantange shutdown, which previously was vaguely scheduled for sometime this year. According to an e-mail being sent to customers this week, CallVantage will officially be shuttered on Novermber 17. Hopefully, the seven of you still using AT&T's CallVantage service find this information useful.

Back in March a company by the name of OnLive unveiled their new broadband gaming service, which aims to replace the traditional game console with what's essentially a broadband-connected dumb terminal. Under the system, which has been proposed in various forums for years now, major title games are completely streamed over your broadband connection -- for a monthly subscription fee.

As noted earlier this week, this a big day for AT&T, and everybody involved in finally bringing MMS functionality to the iPhone is worried about the strain today's launch will have on the network. Insiders involved in the launch tell Broadband Reports AT&T expects usage to surge on their network today to the tune of 40%, as users tinker with the new functionality.

If you've paid attention, you know the modern "network neutrality" debate took off in 2005, when then AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre proudly, though dumbly, proclaimed that Google got a "free ride" on his network. According to Ed, this unfairness could only be rectified by charging companies who already pay for bandwidth money to ensure their traffic reaches AT&T consumers quickly.

iSuppli, the firm that causes a stir every time they deconstruct the actual build cost of the latest iPhone, believes that AT&T and Apple will renew their exclusive iPhone distribution agreement, despite AT&T's long list of recent problems. According to a new report, the firm believes Apple will stick with AT&T because of the "relatively wide usage and growth expected for the HSPA air standard used by the carrier for 3G data." AT&T serves 28.6 million HSPA customers, which which is about 21% of all HSPA subscriptions worldwide.

AT&T has spent much of this week doing damage control on all the negative press their wireless network has been getting, pointing to 850 MHz network upgrades in New York, New Jersey and Houston. The New York Times apparently wasn't playing along, running a lengthy piece yesterday again lambasting the carrier for capacity issues. All AT&T can do is remind the press than they're adding 2,100 cell towers and 100,000 new backhaul links, but by the time the upgrades are complete, their exclusive contract may be dead and users could be moving on to other carriers. Meanwhile, Techcrunch reminds everyone that AT&T technically has three weeks to enable MMS functionality in order to stick to their promise of delivering it by the end of summer.

On Tuesday it was revealed that Apple had banned Google Voice from the iPhone app store. The new service has the potential to be a game changer, allowing users, among other things, to send free SMS messages and make international calls at reduced rates.

Cypress, California is one of only a few neighborhoods where AT&T U-Verse and Verizon FiOS even get close to directly competing, but according to the Orange County Register, deployment of both services is on hold for very different reasons. Verizon has been slowing down FiOS builds in the state because they say the economy's slow (and because they want to increase uptake in already deployed areas). But U-Verse is seeing a slowdown because once again, city officials are annoyed by the VRAD cabinets AT&T needs to plunk down in neighborhoods in order to offer VDSL and IPTV. The cabinets have been an ongoing point of contention between AT&T and cities, who in some cases are getting AT&T to foot the bill for landscaping to hide the cabinets.

Prompted by Time Warner Cable's botched attempt to force low caps and metered billing on its customers, Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) today unveiled the "Broadband Internet Fairness Act" (HR 2902), legislation aimed at protecting consumers from unreasonable broadband overage charges.

Last week, we noted how one crisis management expert gave AT&T 24-48 hours to manage the bad PR they were getting from a series of iPhone 3GS launch missteps. In addition to being unprepared to handle new iPhone 3.0 functions such as tethering and MMS, the carrier took a lot of heat for the less egregious offense of not offering the new 3GS at the subsidized price point to older iPhone users still under contact.

You'd expect that whoever was tasked with running the new government-aided General Motors would be gifted in adapting to new business models and innovation, given the lack of which was a major reason for the automaker's implosion. So it comes as a surreal shock to many to see that GM's new boss will be former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre.

Since 2005, AT&T has been giving customers rebate cards instead of checks during rebate promotions for wireless services. While portrayed as debit cards, the cards were not redeemable for cash, couldn't be used for cash withdrawals, and expired 120 days from the day they were issued -- with little of this actually made clear during promotions. This apparently annoyed New York's Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who this week announced that as part of an agreement with the AG's office, AT&T will be paying out $2.63 million to consumers (you'll be alerted if you're impacted) and must be more transparent in rebate offers in the future.

The latest scuff up between AT&T and the Communications Workers of America left many union employees working without a contract since early February. The dispute appears to be close to being resolved, with the two sides reaching a tentative agreement that would cover more than 20,000 AT&T Mobility workers. The new deal offers workers a 8.8% wage increase and $500 bonus, as well as improved commissions for sales agents, and "monitoring and quota relief" for some employees.

As part of AT&T's merger conditions (pdf) when they acquired Bellsouth, they were forced to offer 768kbps DSL for $10. To (kind of) keep their promise, AT&T now offers the tier, but they don't tell anyone it's available. For a long time, the same could be said of dry loop (naked) DSL, also required as a merger condition, and equally hard to find (though that's improving). According to the Consumerist, AT&T naked DSL can sometimes be just as hard to cancel as it was to subscribe to.

AT&T has previously hinted that they'd be offering femtocells before the end of the year, and that they'd potentially be offering unified billing for the service. AT&T has supposedly already signed a contract with London-based ip.access for $500 million in femtocells, which the company will eventually sell for $100 each. Femtocells essentially create a micro cell tower in your home that improves coverage and allows you to make calls over your broadband connection (easing strain on local towers is the primary perk for AT&T).

If you recall, the network neutrality debate truly took off in the States back in 2005, when former SBC (now AT&T) CEO Ed Whitacre told Business Week in an article that Google wanted to use Ed's "pipes", for free. "I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it," insisted Ed at the time.

Apple has been taking heat over global advertisements that show the iPhone 3G performing at speeds vastly faster than real world 3G (or 2G) networks operate. Two such ads were recently banned in the UK, to which Apple responded that the ads were "relative rather than absolute in nature." Here in the States, one 70-year-old San Diego resident filed suit against Apple for misleading advertising. Techdirt directs our attention to the fact that Apple this week responded to the suit, denying that the ads lie, but then adding this comment:In other words, we're not lying, but you're an idiot if you believed what we were saying. Of course there's a fairly obvious chasm (see video comparison) between the ads and real-world performance. Apple faces five lawsuits related to the performance (or lack thereof) of the iPhone when connected to networks in the real world, but the attorney for this false advertising case thinks their case "has the most teeth and the most legs to it."

AT&T has announced that they're giving away a copy of the Guitar Hero: World Tour game to new customers who sign up for AT&T broadband, or who add a higher tier AT&T U-Verse package to their existing VDSL service. The giveaway includes the game and a controller, which is about a $100 value. As part of AT&T's partnership with Activision, they're also advertising the AT&T brand within the game, and holding a sweepstakes to give away real instruments. We're fairly convinced we could whip AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson at Crazy Train on expert.