Verizon has agreed to pay the state of New Jersey $795,000 and about $50 to each of roughly 1,100 customers in the state. Why? According to the office of New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram, Verizon failed to deliver promotional items promised to FiOS consumers in flyers (you might recall one promotion where Verizon promised free televisions, then failed to deliver them). According to Milgram, Verizon also frequently wound up charging FiOS customers more money than the prices promised in door-to-door promotional materials, violating the Consumer Fraud Act and other state consumer protections.

A statement demands a number of things from Verizon going forward, most of which are just basic customer satisfaction concepts. According to the AG's office, Verizon must provide greater transparency in promotions, more accurate billing, an up-front estimate of a customer's first FiOS bill (including all sneaky fees), and must have a "reasonable" amount of the free promotional item they're giving away actually in stock.

"Consumers want crystal clear television when they sign up for FiOS and they deserve a crystal clear explanation of service terms and conditions," said David Szuchman, Consumer Affairs Director. "This settlement ensures that consumers will get what they are promised when signing up for FiOS service."

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.

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).

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).

According to the Washington Post, AT&T's chief lobbyist Jim Cicconi is upset with some comments made by White House deputy chief technology officer Andrew McLaughlin. In a recent blog post, McLaughlin noted that "if it bothers you that the China government does it, it should bother you when your cable company does it." McLaughlin is pretty obviously speaking generally about any restriction of data, be it by carrier or government.

According to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, the telco isn't worried about the threat Hulu poses to their freshly created TV empire, because Hulu will probably be dead in a year or two from now. "This is in for the next eight to twelve months and in two years it won't matter because the world will have moved on," the CEO was recently quoted as saying. He might not be wrong -- Hulu very well could be headed for also-ran status once Comcast acquires NBC Universal, and does its best to ensure that Hulu doesn't rock the TV revenue boat or bump up against the cable industry's TV Everywhere initiative. That said, "cable guys" tend to have a degree of hubris in thinking that Internet video will never really harm them, despite the fact that when/if Hulu dies, there will be a stream of competitors (including piracy) waiting in the wings.

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..

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.

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.

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.

Charter Communications continues to battle with the company's lenders, who are trying to prevent the bankrupt cable company from exiting bankruptcy so they can appeal a court ruling approving the reorganization. Creditors have been fighting against Charter's reorganization plan all summer and fall, primarily because they don't like the pre-bankruptcy interest rates agreed to in the deal. "Hundreds of millions of dollars of additional interest and would put at peril the entire plan," Charter attorneys claim in court filings. Last week Charter executives indicated that a post-bankruptcy Charter would explore price hikes and metered billing for the company's customers.

There's been a flurry of rumors lately surrounding T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom, and their desire to improve T-Mobile's fourth-place fortunes in the U.S. wireless market.

Apparently taking a page out of this month's advertising debate between AT&T and Verizon, Canadian carrier Telus has sued Rogers Communications for ads claiming that the Rogers wireless network is "the fastest and most reliable in the country." Telus and Bell Canada have of course just launched their new, $1 billion HSPA network, which offers speeds up to 21 Mbps to Canadian customers. As such, Telus demanded earlier this month that Rogers stop making advertising claims that they held the 3G speed edge -- a request Rogers ignored, since they too offer 21 Mbps HSPA+ service. "Telus has not submitted any data on their network performance and we look forward to vigorously defending our position in court," says Rogers.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the FCC is seriously considering re-establishing some kind of open access rules, which would give new entrants access to incumbent infrastructure at reduced price. Open access was the central idea behind the 1996 telecom act, which required incumbent operators to share network access with smaller competitors in order to bolster competition as those upstarts grew into legitimate carriers.

Yesterday we issued a report exploring how Verizon was again hinting at how they believed metered billing is inevitable. We also discussed how yet again, you had an ISP suggesting that a shift to metered billing was financially necessary (not true) and that the ISP desire to shift to metered billing was dictated by some kind of altruism (also not true). Apparently, this position upset Todd Spangler over at Multichannel News, who somewhere in between taking pot shots at "edgy bloggers" and "clueless" flat-rate pricing proponents arrives at his central thesis: that consumption-based billing is inevitable: story continues..

The FCC has long been an agency that has played fast and loose when it comes to using science and data to fuel its policy decisions. The agency for most of broadband's life cycle has been using outdated data, or inadequate data provided by industry lobbyists designed to make things look pretty and keep government out of their hair. With a new FCC and new boss Julius Genachowski, the agency has promised to be data driven. Yet Bruce Kushnick over at Harvard's Neiman Watchdog claims that in policy discussions, the agency's still using inadequate or old data -- sometimes more than a decade old -- to shape broadband and wireless policy.

Last week AT&T tried their best to get Verizon's new ad campaign shuttered. The series of ads poke fun at AT&T's lackluster 3G coverage and network performance, something AT&T didn't find amusing. Verizon has now filed their 53 page legal retort (pdf) to AT&T's complaint, which as you'd expect argues that illustrating AT&T's network limitations is a perfectly fair form of advertising. On page seven sits this gem: "AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon’s 'There’s A Map For That' advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon’s ads are true and the truth hurts." As for AT&T's claim that the maps used to highlight AT&T's 3G coverage are unfair? "AT&T does not like the truthful picture painted by that comparison," says Verizon.

AT&T and Verizon's fight over 3G coverage maps just keeps rolling along, with Verizon recently running new ads that mock AT&T's wireless network, and AT&T lawyers working very hard yesterday to get those advertisements pulled by the courts. The decision to fight the ads doesn't seem to be all that wise, given the debate has simply managed to push the ads (and AT&T's recent network issues) further into the spotlight.

Comcast's acquisition of and/or merger with NBC Universal appears to be all but a done deal, but the regulatory approval of such a giant merger appears to be anything but certain. If approved, Reuters proudly proclaims that "FCC conditions on Comcast-NBC could hurt synergy" (apparently the possibility that conditions could help consumers didn't make it past editors.) Consumer advocates are asking a lot of questions about a company as large as Comcast controlling both the delivery pipe for broadband, voice and TV -- as well as a giant slice of the content being delivered over those pipes. They're questions you can be sure it will take Congress and the FCC a long time to ask -- meaning that once closed, the deal could take another year or more for approval.