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.

Porn copyright troll Prenda Law has apparently run afoul of one very tough Judge. We've previously noted how Prenda has been trying to scare broadband users into settling with the company en masse after they've been tracked downloading copyrighted porn films.

If you live in the United States, you may be familiar with the common sentiment that you generally cannot take your favorite cellular enabled device (tablet, smartphone, Sony PlayStation Vita, etc.) and use it on any carrier you like. With GSM carriers, this is referred to as a SIM lock.

The Baltimore Sun (via Ars Technica) notes that Verizon contacted police after they noticed a Baltimore Deacon was quite happily storing his significant child pornography collection in the cloud. The Deacon apparently thought it was a great idea to store this content in his Verizon Online Backup and Sharing account; Verizon noticed the content and contacted the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who in turn contacted law enforcement. 67-year-old William Steven Albaugh was released on $75,000 bond while the investigation continues. Aside from the obvious discussion on disgusting child porn, priests, and stupidity -- the incident raises some obvious questions about just how extensively Verizon monitors cloud content.

AT&T and Verizon have expended their share of the video on demand market, stealing that market share from companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Todd Spangler at Multichannel News notes that cable operators saw their VOD total market share drop to 56% in 2012 from 60% in 2013. For some context however, keep in mind that video on demand comprises about 1% of all video viewing according to a study released last year. That study blamed "inadequate advertising support and awkward program guides" for cable's recent stumbles in the VOD market, something telcos -- who are hungrier upstarts in the pay TV sector -- are clearly doing a better job with. What's your primary reason for not renting VOD titles? Quality? Selection? Price?

For years the music and film industries have been pushing to have broadband users disconnected from the Internet as the final penalty after repeated warnings for copyright violations. Those efforts have run into repeated problems not only thanks to heavy resistance from ISPs unwilling to lose paying customers but in the courts, where the lifetime or year-long loss of broadband is seen as excessive punishment.

Last year Verizon completed a mammoth deal with the cable industry that involved Verizon buying $3.6 billion in spectrum, and included cable operators co-marketing Verizon LTE services. An unwritten wink-wink portion of the deal involved Verizon letting unwanted DSL customers flee to cable, a plan that creates all manner of competitive issues for millions of customers, since it strengthens the cable industry's monopoly over broadband further across a huge swath of the country.

Last month DirecTV became the first TV operator to start charging customers an extra fee for subscribing to more than one sports network. DirecTV started charging users a $3 "Regional Sports Fee" if they live in markets where there's more than one regional sports network.

Given Verizon's FiOS expansion has stopped in most places (unless you're somewhere with franchise obligations), the only way DSL users will be getting FiOS is if your regional core infrastructure is upgraded and your line is perennially problematic. During yesterday's earnings call Verizon stated they migrated some 223,000 "troublesome" lines from copper to fiber, most of those in regions impacted by Sandy.

Speaking at CES this week, Verizon stated they began this new year with 473 LTE markets, covering 273.5 million potential customers. Verizon's LTE network currently covers close to 89% of their United States wireless footprint, and by the middle of the year LTE will be available in every market currently seeing 3G (EVDO) service. "Using LTE...we'd love to broadcast the Super Bowl in the 2014 time frame," CEO Lowell McAdam said at CES. Verizon has previously stated their goal is to sunset their current 2G/3G networks by 2021. The company's next big noticeable step will be to deploy voice over LTE (VoLTE) in 2014.

West Virginia is one of the worst connected states in the nation, something that was supposed to be helped by a $126.3-million federal stimulus grant intended to improve state broadband. Instead, as a series of excellent reports in the Charleston Gazette have illustrated over the past year, state leaders doled out most of that money to Verizon, who convinced the (either corrupt or totally incompetent) state officials to spend it on ridiculously overpriced, overpowered and unused routers, and ridiculously overpaid consultants who haven't actually accomplished anything.

Confirming rumors we explored back in September, Verizon has announced a lineup of new FiOS media servers created by Motorola. According to the company press release, the Motorola Medios+ VMS1100 media server can connect up to five Medios+ IPC1100 IP-based set-tops in a home, allowing FiOS users to record up to six shows at once on its terabyte hard drive, then view them on any of the connected set tops -- or tablets, Xbox 360s or other devices in the home. The device is expected to be available in early 2013. The video below offers interested users more detail:

Verizon has promised to wire all of New York City with FiOS by 2014, but now says they're running into resistance from landlords, some of whom tell the telco their tenants don't want FiOS. Stop the Cap directs our attention to the fact that the company has filed a complaint (pdf) with the New York Public Service Commission.

A prodigious patent troll is now taking aim at ISPs large and small, hoping to extract cash from ISPs for simply using DSL gear. According to numerous court filings, a company by the name of Brandywine Communications Technologies is on a suing spree, claiming that numerous ISPs have violated seven different DSL-related patent Brandywine claims to own.

The FCC has hired a new chief economist with a history of cheerleading broadband usage caps for the cable industry. According to the FCC, they've hired Steven Wildman, an economist and professor at Michigan State University, as the agency's new chief economist.

As we noted last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee had been working on an update to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 that would have strengthened consumer e-mail privacy protections, requiring that the government obtain a warrant before snooping user e-mail or remotely stored data (like cloud storage). It was a surprising direction for a government that has relentless pushed to eliminate all citizen privacy protections, so not too surprisingly the Amendment has been killed without explanation:Current law allows the government to sift through emails and other cloud data without a warrant provided the data has been stored for 180 days or more. However, with wiretaps installed at most large carriers providing the government user communications in real time, it's believed that those laws are generally laughed at by intelligence services.

As expected, Verizon and RedBox have launched the closed beta for their upcoming streaming video service. Those interested can sign up for the beta by entering their e-mail over at the service's website, ultimately gaining access to a freshly launched Redbox Instant by Verizon app that has arrived in the Apple store.

Verizon has been trying to justify their blocking of Google Wallet on Verizon phones, insisting the app is blocked because Google Wallet uses the "secure element" on devices to store a user's Google ID. In response to complaints filed with the FCC, Verizon insists the unending blockade has nothing to do with the fact Verizon (in conjunction with AT&T and T-Mobile) is working on their own competing mobile payment platform named Isis.

The NFL has fallen well behind other leagues in adapting to the broadband age (MLB's $25 a month streaming option for all games being exhibit A), though last year the league finally streamed the SuperBowl live for the first time ever. Reviews weren't particularly hot, with many users complaining of lag or delay, and Chrome users being unable to watch the stream whatsoever. This week the NFL announced they'll be giving it another shot with CBS (instead of NBC) this time handling the streaming duties on February 3. The stream should be viewable on NFL.com, CBSSportsline.com, and Verizon's NFL Mobile app for wireless devices.

We've noted several times how Verizon's sale of their DSL and landline assets to Fairpoint and Frontier was strategically brilliant (unless you're one of the impacted customers). Not only did Verizon sell both companies millions of neglected customers and lines they didn't want to maintain or upgrade, the deals offloaded huge amounts of Verizon debt onto these companies (driving Fairpoint into bankruptcy) while netting Verizon a huge tax write off.