• Broadband Stimulus Could Require OSS Standardization [xchangemag.com]
• Operators must change data pricing structure at some point [fiercewireless.com]
• Verizon dismissess DirecTV acquisition chatter [fierceiptv.com]
• Report: AT&T Reputation Tarnished by iPhone Flaws [pcworld.com]
• Artists: Don't Expect To Get Paid For What Imeem & Snocap Owe You [techdirt.com]
• 400,000 low-income Parisians to get FTTH [muniwireless.com]
• AT&T Has Agreements Covering 97% Of Wireline Union Workers [multichannel.com]
• Google's reCAPTCHA busted by new attack [theregister.co.uk]

Last week AT&T suffered through yet another week of bad press. Comments by CEO Randall Stephenson were interpreted to mean AT&T was not only complaining about people actually using the AT&T 3G network -- but blaming consumers for AT&T's inability to prepare for iPhone bandwidth demand.

We were starting to wonder why we'd gone a whole month without someone having to take out a second mortgage to pay their wireless broadband bill. Not to disappoint, the UPI notes how a 13-year-old boy racked up a $21,917 Verizon Wireless bill.

Customers in the United States won't get their first commercial taste of Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology until next year, when Verizon deploys the technology in thirty markets. But Sweden's TeliaSonera became the planet's first carrier to commercially deploy the technology this week. According to the Wall Street Journal, the carrier is charging customers eager to test the 20-80Mbps service 4 Swedish Kronar (just fifty cents a month) with a free modem. That price tag quickly jumps to 500 Kronar ($70 a month) once the users are finished being paying open beta testers.

AT&T has spent much of 2009 rightfully taking heat for their inconsistent 3G network performance, limited coverage, belated functionality releases (MMS, tethering), crippled applications and last place showing in nearly every major consumer satisfaction survey. Last week they found their way into the media spotlight again by seemingly blaming their users for an inability to address network capacity demand.

When you call any company for broadband customer support, there's a fairly solid chance you're entering the twilight zone. If you get a new or poorly trained support representative, the information you get is not only quite often wrong, but sometimes it's just bizarre.

For a while there, it looked like TiVo was going to change the world with a cute interface and a few beeps and boops. But as cable, phone and satellite operators started doing a better job building their own DVRs (and now networked DVRs), things started getting less certain.

If there has been one constant in the ever changing broadband landscape over the last decade, it has been that rural broadband users get the short end of the stick. When you're not busy getting sold by massive incumbent ISPs who don't think you're worth serving, you're getting gobbled up by smaller ISPs who think 5 gigabytes of monthly consumption is some kind of cardinal sin.

Google has opened the information flood gates for their new phone, AKA the "Nexus One." Engadget has photos of the new device. While Google will partner with T-Mobile to sell the phone, they'll primarily be trying to sell it directly to consumers. Google obviously sees a more lucrative future in the European style of cell phone sales, where users purchase unsubsidized handsets first -- then take them to the carrier of their choice. Here in the states consumers are used to buying subsidized handsets from carriers, which allows the carriers to lock customers into long-term contracts -- but it also allows the carriers to have more strict control over the device and the specific kind of content offered. The new Google phone is on tap for early 2010.

• Cable’s USF Plan: Cut Telco Payments [multichannel.com]
• Spain: prepay mobiles, filesharing websites threatened with closure [samknows.com]
• Google close to selling own phone; hands out Android device to its employees for testing [sun-sentinel.com]
• Can TiVo Reinvent Itself? [multichannel.com]
• First 4G LTE commercial mobile broadband service launched [samknows.com]
• AT&T expects Verizon Wireless assets purchase to close in Q1 [totaltele.com]
• Hackers Decaf Microsoft's COFEE []

• Senate Commerce Chairman Introduces Bill To Apply Universal Service Fund To Back Broadband [multichannel.com]
• Lala Could Help Apple Redefine 'Ownership' of Content [mobile-tech-today.com]
• Study Sees Little Hope For Rural Internet Users [consumeraffairs.com]
• Surprise! US still lags in broadband penetration [networkworld.com]
• Verizon CSR: Faster DSL Will Burn Your House Down [consumerist.com]
• AT&T All Over the Map in Addressing Challenges [networkworld.com]
• NAB: Use Airwaves To Fight Potential Spectrum Grab [multichannel.com]
• More than 50 Android phones to ship in 2010? [networkworld.com]

It's the weekend, so talk it out in the comment section below.

For years now, every few months the rumor surfaces that AT&T or Verizon are considering buying DirecTV, frequently with no evidence to support the rumor. Last month, Reuters indicated that both AT&T and Verizon have recently met with DirecTV owners Liberty Media Corp, once again reheating the rumor. But Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg says that "there's nothing to that," and that "we don't have any strategic need." Last month, DirecTV's appointment of Pepsi International CEO Michael White fueled rumors that White was simply a place holder executive until the company could be sold.

The cable industry's chief lobbying organization, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), believes that violating network neutrality is their First Amendment right. Or at least that's the gist from a recent speech by NCTA CEO Kyle McSlarrow, whose organization's fighting the FCC's decision to more strictly codify network neutrality protections for consumers.

Yesterday Cox announced that they were launching 50 Mbps broadband service in Las Vegas. In the announcement, local Las Vegas Cox executive Marilyn Burrows did something strange: she explained the Cox network in reasonable, realistic terms -- addressing its "non fiber" aspects and plainly exploring how DOCSIS 3.0 allows coaxial based infrastructure to achieve new heights.

Earlier this year Canadian regulators the CRTC, who frequently fail to protect smaller Canadian ISPs from mega-carrier anti-competitive behavior, protected those same mega-carriers by blocking a new competitor named Globalive from entering the Canadian Wireless market. According to the CRTC, Globalive simply wasn't Canadian enough to do business in Canada and an old and sometimes enforced law, lobbied for by Canada's incumbent companies, that prevents any company from doing business in Canada that wasn't majority-owned by Canadians.

You might recall that before snoopvertising agency NebuAD flamed out spectacularly, cable operator Wide Open West (WOW) tested the user-tracking technology on their customers -- without telling anybody about it. When asked by the press about the tests, WOW of course denied to comment.

After doing the same thing last year and earlier this year, Sprint appears poised to tinker with their wireless user fees early next year. According to a memo obtained by Phonenews, Sprint's "regulatory line charge" will double to forty cents per line. The fee, like most such fees, isn't an official government fee -- but is dressed up to look like one so you get mad at Uncle Sam, not the carrier. It's simply a cost of doing business added below the line, and such fees allow carriers to effectively slowly raise prices on consumers without changing their advertised rates. According to the memo, Sprint will also be adding a new $4.99 fee for Account Spending Limit (ACL) customers. As is usually the case, such changes constitute a significant enough change to your contract that you should be able to cancel service without paying an early termination fee.

• Cable Lobbyist Says Net Neutrality Violates The First Amendment [techdirt.com]
• Battle over voice on LTE heats up [networkworld.com]
• Obama Alludes To Broadband Spending Increase, More Oversight [broadbandbreakfast.com]
• Tasmania will become the most connected place on the planet [thestandard.com]
• WideOpen West funneled all user activity to NebuAd, charges class action lawsuit [courthousenews.com]
• London Internet Exchange Failure Slows UK ISP Internet Traffic [ispreview.co.uk]
• Droid jailbroken; paves way for wireless tethering, customized UIs, multitouch support [networkworld.com]
• Near Doubling of LTE Network Commitments in Past 8 Months [cellular-news.com]

• Independent test: Comcast usage meter is accurate within plus-or-minus 0.5%/month [networkworld.com]
• Stimulus Spending Won't Help 49% Of US Rural And Urban Households Currently Without Broadband [thestreet.com]
• Average American Consumes 34 Gigs Of Data Per Day; Good Thing ISPs Want To Limit You To 5 Gigs/Month [techdirt.com]
• Broadband And People with Disabilities [examiner.com]
• Verizon Debuts Caller ID On FiOS TV In Three Markets [multichannel.com]
• Sprint's Hesse commits to Clearwire, hints at new 4G pricing scenarios [fiercewireless.com]
• Virgin Mobile unveils free service for low-income customers [fiercewireless.com]
• Potent malware link infects almost 300,000 webpages [theregister.co.uk]