Earlier this month we noted that Verizon had started offering a trio of new prepaid wireless broadband options for those of you who couldn't find an open Wi-Fi hotspot, simply hate contracts, and don't mind paying a steep premium for bandwidth. Verizon now offers a $15, 75MB "day pass" plan, a $30, 250MB "week pass" plan, or a $50, 500MB "month pass" plan.

Not to be outdone, AT&T today alerted us to the fact that they too are now going to be offering prepaid wireless broadband plans. Dubbed the AT&T DataConnect Pass, the pricing and daily usage limits mirror Verizon's plans exactly:One difference in the plans is that Verizon's prepaid passes charge you overages should you cross the cap (20. 12, 10 cents per MB, respectively). AT&T's system doesn't involve overages. According to AT&T, users will get an automated alert once they reach either 30 minutes or 20 percent of allotted data usage remaining in their session, at which time you'll have to buy more time/data. Keep in mind these plans expire, so if you but the 30 day plan -- you'd best use the available bandwidth within thirty days.

To use the service, AT&T customers need a new SIM card or their existing SIM card information (SIM ICCID serial number and IMEI equimnet serial number), and then need to log into AT&T's DataConnect pass "buy a session" website.

AT&T continues their efforts to counter Verizon's recent uppercut series of ads making fun of the AT&T 3G network's limited footprint and sub-par performance. AT&T's been running three new ads that feature actor Luke Wilson mocking Verizon for the inability of its customers to talk and surf the web at the same time, while using postcards and a giant map to reiterate that AT&T has EDGE and voice coverage across most of America.

Comcast's dream of acquiring NBC Universal can't come to fruition until Vivendi executives sell their 20% stake in the company, according to the Los Angeles Times. Obviously the value of that 20% differs greatly depending on how much the company is deemed to be worth -- and according to the Times, Vivendi wants that number to be at least $500-$900 million greater than what's currently on the table. GE has placed a value on NBC Universal of $27 billion to $30 billion. While Vivendi and GE hash out the numbers, consumer advocates continue to lambast the deal as only really being good for industry executives, giving the companies yet more market power, and the authority to restrict competition from Hulu (which Comcast would gain control over after the deal).

Users in our Earthlink forum have been complaining about an Earthlink e-mail outage that began last Friday, and persisted through the weekend. While some users say their e-mail service has since been resolved, others say they were left without e-mail for more than three days. In conversations with Earthlink, the company says the issues are server failure related, but the company wouldn't get more specific. The problems appear to be impacting all Earthlink users, including dial-up, DSL and cable customers. The Wall Street Journal also noted the outage but similarly got no comment from Earthlink.

Frontier users have been receiving notices that the company is bumping the cost of their monthly model rental fee for all DSL customers. According to a notice being sent to customers, the company has officially bumped the monthly modem rental fee from $3.99 to $6.99 per month. The new price point means users will now shell out $168 for a modem they won't own over the length of a two-year contract. Somebody has to pay for all the legal fees and ad campaigns focused on getting their Verizon deal approved, and it's apparently you. As our users note, some users can get Frontier to waive the rental fee if they get a modem elsewhere, but your mileage on this front may vary.

• Comcast, NBCU Negotiations Snag Over Valuation Of Vivendi's Stake [multichannel.com]
• Google Blocking Set Top Boxes From Showing YouTube Unless They Pay Up? [techdirt.com]
• How Video Is Changing the Internet [gigaom.com]
• Illegal filesharing plan 'may breach human rights' [top10-broadband.co.uk]
• China warns of a new virus [theinquirer.net]
• Ikee.B virus gives control of iPhones to cybercriminals [computerweekly.com]
• Nook sold out for the holidays [cnet.com]

The weekend has finally arrived. Empty your head into the comment section below.

• Is mobile broadband pricing finally starting to decline? [fiercewireless.com]
• Broadband stimulus grants delayed [networkworld.com]
• UK Digital Economy Bill As Bad As Expected; Digital Britain Minister Flat Out Lies About ISP Support [techdirt.com]
• Analysts: Nokia unlikely to snap up Palm [fiercewireless.com]
• NPR reporter blames - wait for it... the Internet for Ft. Hood rampage [npr.org]
• Air Canada Will Offer In-Flight Wi-Fi, Too [gigaom.com]
• Verizon Referral Program Offers Up To $600 In 'Reward Cards' [multichannel.com]
• Ebay closes Skype sale [theinquirer.net]

While Comcast lobbyists tried their best to slow the encroachment of Verizon FiOS into their hometown of Philadelphia, the Philly city council authorized a citywide franchise back in February (you can read the agreement here (pdf) if you're into that kind of thing). As per the deal, Verizon has around seven years to wire the whole city, though these agreements (as with NYC and DC) often have loopholes that let Verizon extend deadlines or wiggle out of obligations should certain adoption numbers not be met. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, service this week went live in Chestnut Hill, South Philadelphia and North Philadelphia, near Girard College. Additional neighborhoods should come online this year, but Verizon isn't saying which ones. Verizon does keep a PA construction notice (pdf) on their website, but it's quite often outdated.

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.

AOL continues an interesting trip that took them from one of the largest and most powerful ISPs on the Internet, to a fractured and financially-troubled company with dreams of becoming an advertising giant. Of course most of their problems were caused by their inability to adapt to (or really in some cases even recognize) the broadband market -- something that was at least in part caused by former executive Lisa Hook, who went on to do amazing things with VoIP carrier SunRocket as well. With its spin off from Time Warner, the company this fall has undergone its latest in an endless line of evolution efforts, but has announced those changes will come with pink slips for about one third of AOL's employees, or about 2,300 workers.

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.

For years the rumor has floated out there that either Verizon or AT&T would buy DirecTV in order to have direct control of the company's satellite TV operations. Sometimes these rumors are based in conjecture, but more often than not they're based on nothing whatsoever. With DirecTV prepared to get a new CEO (their last CEO just departed to be Rupert Murdoch's right-hand man at News Corp.), the rumors are apparently bubbling up once again. According to Reuters, representatives from both AT&T and Verizon have approached Liberty Media over the last few years about a sale, and the outlet cites sources who believe new CEO Michael White is little more than a "babysitter" until this endlessly-rumored deal can be accomplished.

• Broadband penetration continues to rise in EU [iptv-news.com]
• Continued Network And Service Optimization The Key To Continued IPTV Growth [IT Backbones]
• Maximum fine set at £50,000 for illegal file-sharing [broadbandgenie.co.uk]
• Law Firm Contemplates Class Action Suit To Recompense Xbox Live Modders [itproportal.com]
• MS denies Win 7 backdoor rumors [theregister.co.uk]
• AOL will shed a third of its staff [theinquirer.net]
• PS3 to go 3D in 2010, says Sony [reghardware.co.uk]

• Bigger U.S. Role in Broadband Is Likely [wsj.com]
• DTV Coupon Redemption Ends With Over $1 Billion Worth Unused [multichannel.com]
• Is Open Access Feasible in the U.S. Broadband Market? [4g-wirelessevolution.tmcnet.com]
• Kicking People Off The Internet Not Enough In South Korea, Copyright Lobbyists Demand More [techdirt.com]
• Telcos will be the new channel [theinquirer.net]
• T-Mobile offering prepaid BlackBerry [fiercewireless.com]
• American Airlines Launches WiFi Widget [examiner.com]
• Chrome OS Unveiled, Focused on Netbooks, the Cloud [gigaom.com]

If you recall, back in May of 2008 we told you how the Comcast web portal was hacked by a group calling itself "Kryogenics," posting the usually gramatically incoherent shout out to their own supposed awesomeness and fellow nerd homies. The hack disrupted user access to the portal and the official Comcast forums for several hours, before Comcast tracked down the problem and the fix was propagated across DNS servers. According to the Philadelphia Business Journal, the three young men responsible for the hack have been indicted for "conspiring to disrupt service." The indictment claims the hack cost Comcast "a little less than $129,000," though each defendant could receive a maximum sentence of five years in jail, three years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine and a $100 special assessment, on top of potential forced restitution to Comcast -- who certainly could use the money.

The country of Finland recently declared they were making broadband a legal right, requiring that all 5.3 million of the country's residents be served by 1 Mbps service by next summer, and 100 Mbps service by 2015. That's a little easier to do in a country like Finland, which has just 5.3 million residents to our 300+ million, and doesn't have to deal with things like, well, Montana.

Manassas, Virginia was the first US city to see a real, non-trial launch of broadband over powerline (BPL) technology. However, BPL has floundered the last few years because of its inherent potential for interference with amateur and emergency radio, its irrelevance in the face of next-generation speeds, and the unavoidable fact that many utilities simply didn't want to be broadband providers.

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..