KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh recently examined FiOS customer complaints (via Consumerist) about dying batteries in Verizon FiOS ONT units. The batteries generally give users about eight hours of talk time during a power outage, but let out a repeated, shrill beep when the battery is depleted (usually after a year or two). Despite the fact that you don't technically even own the ONT and are paying to lease it, Verizon makes maintaining the device and replacing the battery the end-user's responsibility. They also ensure that responsibility is an expensive one.

Through Verizon, the battery costs $35 plus $9 for shipping. Verizon also offers users the opportunity to get "free" battery replacement if they sign up for a Verizon Protection Pak plan, starting at $20 a month. But Phillip Dampier at Stop the Cap notes that Amazon offers a highly-rated replacement battery with the exact-same specifications for just $18.

Some users who only have FiOS broadband and don't need the power backup functionality for voice have simply tried to remove the battery, only to find that many ONTs simply continue beeping.

Over the years there have been no shortage of studies showing that pirates actually buy significantly more content from legit outlets than anybody else. That point was brought up repeatedly as the entertainment industry tried to pass rules requiring these users be kicked off the Internet.

For years Verizon has marketed their FiOS fiber to the home service as a superior alternative to cable. Part of that sales pitch has been the argument that the service doesn't require bandwidth caps -- though Verizon has historically always chosen their words very carefully to leave the possibility open sometime in the future.

DirecTV is contemplating embedding an antenna into their set top boxes in order to offer live over the air broadcasts, thereby circumventing retransmission fees. Speaking at the JP Morgan Technology, Media and Telecom conference in Boston, DirecTV chief financial officer Patrick Doyle stated they didn't have a timeline on the project, but that it makes financial sense due to the soaring price of retrans fees and the landscape shift that's occurring courtesy of Aereo. He also stated that whenever it does get deployed, it would only be initially made available to new customers. "We’ll probably test in some markets an over-the-air integrated tuner set-up and make sure the customer experience is there," insists Doyle.

According to a new report by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, gaps related to faster broadband availability continue to persist, especially in rural regions. According to NTIA data, while nearly 100% of urban residents can get speeds of at least 6 Mbps, 82% of rural communities can access those same speeds.

Microsoft this week introduced the company's long-awaited successor to the Xbox 360 video game console: the Xbox One. According to Microsoft, their new console will come with 8GB of RAM, USB 3.0 ports, built-in 802.11n, and support for Wi-Fi Direct -- but that's about as technically specific as Microsoft was willing to get. Like Sony, Microsoft held back most of the details ahead of their full reveal at E3, though unlike Sony -- Microsoft did actually show what the console looks like. The company also highlighted how the new Kinect sensor will be dramatically more sensitive and supposedly useful, as well as a new redesigned game pad. Microsoft's full announcement can be found here.

Verizon's attempt to hang up on their copper networks in Sandy-impacted areas has gotten more complicated after the NY Public Service Commission last week indicated hesitation at letting Verizon disconnect users state wide without first understanding the repercussions. According to regional Long Island news reports, the PSC has granted Verizon temporary approval to pull DSL on Fire Island, NY, replacing it with Verizon's Voice Link wireless service.

"We don't focus on megabits, we don't focus on gigabits, we focus on activities," Frontier CEO Maggie Wilderotter stated at an investor conference last week, clearly trying to counter some of the buzz around Google Fiber. "We go to the activity set to get a sense of what customers are actually doing and the majority of our customers fit into that 6 Mbps or less category."

Granted many Frontier customers in our forums will tell you they're lucky if their copper and loop length supports anything more than 3 Mbps, and those who can get faster speeds may not be able to justify paying Frontier's steep price premiums.

Porn copyright trolls like Prenda law already do plenty of sleazy things in their attempt to frighten BitTorrent porn downloaders into ponying up extortion settlement money. While Judges are just now starting to take aim at these firms, the trolls remain busy trying to frighten porn downloaders into ponying up cash.

As we've seen with both Sprint and T-Mobile, LTE launch locations pop up well ahead of official launch markets as the companies run pre-commercial launch tests. Users now say that they're seeing T-Mobile LTE signals pop up in Detroit, Minneapolis and New York City. Minneapolis is slated for a May launch, while both Detroit and New York City aren't officially expected to come online until June. T-Mobile previously stated they aim to cover 100 million potential customers with LTE by the middle of 2013, with 200 million potential customers covered by the end of this year.

Bloomberg reports that freshly-nominated FCC boss Tom Wheeler has dumped around $500,000 to $1 million in AT&T and Verizon stock ahead of his assignment at the FCC. The stock was dumped, according to the report, "to resolve possible conflicts of interest before taking office." Wheeler also dumped significantly smaller stock holdings in 78 other companies including Google, Apple and Comcast (the full disclosure form is here). Dumping the stock doesn't do much to quell concerns that Wheeler's thirty years of lobbying for both the wireless and cable industries will do far more to frame his in-office policies than a universe of stock holdings ever could.

Speaking at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference earlier this month, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo stated that the company's earliest FiOS markets are now reaching penetration targets and that most of their new customers are signing up for faster speeds.

Back in April we noted that AT&T was imposing a new $0.61 "Mobility Administrative Fee" on all postpaid wireless subscriber bills. According to AT&T's website, the sneaky fee "helps defray certain expenses AT&T incurs," though like AT&T's equally nonsensical "regulatory recovery fee," those expenses should be included in the cost of doing business, and not buried beneath the line.

Sprint raised its acquisition offer for Clearwire today, offering $3.40 per share for the 50% of Clearwire Sprint currently doesn't own. The new offer, which temporarily delayed a Clearwire shareholder offer on the deal, values Clearwire's total value at around $10.7 billion. The higher bid comes as Dish has been trying to acquire Sprint itself and thwart a rival offer from Japanese carrier SoftBank. Dish Corporation's Charlie Ergen has consistently offered that Dish's offer is a better value, while also trying to stir up some xenophobia -- arguing that Dish is better suited because the company "speaks English."

A new joint study by Aalborg University, Northeastern University, and the Copenhagen Business School has found that piracy of video games on BitTorrent networks has been unsurprisingly over-stated by industry. The study analyzed a the BitTorrent trading of some 173 different computer games across 14 different gaming platforms over a three-month period between 2010 and 2011. "First and foremost, P2P game piracy is extraordinarily prevalent and geographically distributed [at least it was during the period analyzed]," said the researchers. "However, the numbers in our investigation suggest that previously reported magnitudes in game piracy are too high." The full study is available here (pdf).

• Don’t expect Google Fiber to come to your town anytime soon [bgr.com]
• U.S. the leader on broadband [philly.com]
• Dish Versus the Wireless World [fool.com]
• AT&T adds 'administrative fee' to wireless bills, stands to rake in hundreds of millions from unwitting customers [theverge.com]
• Walmart: TracFone's Straight Talk is 'one of the best-kept secrets' in wireless [fiercewireless.com]
• Google Fiber ups the broadband ante in Raytown, Mo. [fiercetelecom.com]
• Sprint could pay $1B to rip out Huawei's kit from Clearwire's network [fiercewireless.com]
• WOW blames losses on disconnects of non-paying subscribers after converting to new billing platform [fiercecable.com]
• Microsoft’s revamped Kinect for Xbox One will also come to Windows next year [thenextweb.com]
• Google engineer bashes Microsoft's handling of security researchers, discloses Windows zero-day [computerworld.com]
• Comcast eyes Groupon approach to day-and-date VOD movie sales [fiercecable.com]

After taking heat from consumer groups last year for blocking Facetime video chat, AT&T made waves last week by deciding to block the new cross-platform and device video chat functionality in Google Hangouts from running over their speedy new LTE network. As they did during the Facetime debacle, AT&T made the obscure claim that they can block any application that comes pre-loaded on a device, even if technically Hangouts doesn't come pre-loaded (AT&T's just choosing language carefully to dodge wiggle through net neutrality rule loopholes).

A Florida woman has filed a $5 million class action lawsuit against Apple because the power button on her iPhone 4 broke. According to the lawsuit, Apple knew about a defect in a flex cable that controls the on-off button, but refused to acknowledge the flaw in order to sell more phones. The plaintiff's lawyers are claiming Apple colluded with AT&T to violate federal RICO racketeering laws -- while also claiming that Apple has violated California consumer protection laws. Apple just got done sending out $15 checks after settling a lawsuit over the faulty antenna design in the iPhone 4, which resulted in users in low signal areas losing connectivity if they held the phone in a certain way.

The latest report (pdf) from the American Consumer Satisfaction Index highlights that consumer satisfaction with cable TV services remains among the worst in any industry -- and broadband ISP service satisfaction is even worse. While some companies made small strides, they haven't been enough.

• Confronting The Reality Of US Broadband Performance [techcrunch.com]
• Dish Network to launch satellite Internet service aimed at rural areas [nbcnews.com]
• Looming Health Crisis: Wireless Technology and the Toxification of America [rinf.com]
• Leaked Memo Shows Barnes & Noble Bringing Web Browser And Email To Simple Touch eReaders In June [techcrunch.com]
• Microsoft's New Xbox Girds for a Smartphone Battle [wsj.com]
• Yahoo board has approved a massive $1.1 billion all-cash deal to buy Tumblr [allthingsd.com]
• Want To Destroy Any Hope Of Serious Cybersecurity? Give The DOJ Its Desired Backdoor Wiretaps On All Communications [techdirt.com]
• Samsung: We'll hit 10M Galaxy S4 sales in less than a month [fiercewireless.com]
• 44% of operators will offer home automation through gateways by 2014 [fiercecable.com]
• The "PayPal 14": What happens to the hackers after the government cracks down? [huffingtonpost.com]

Cablevision has spent the last few years deploying Wi-Fi to NYC metro region commuter areas, and now says they're getting close to offering service on the trains themselves. Speaking on their recent earnings conference call, Cablevision executive Tad Smith stated the company is "in active, productive, very positive conversations with the trains" but that deploying such technology has been "complicated." The company filed a proposal with the MTA back in 2010 and originally hoped the project would be up and running within twelve months. Still, Smith says the company is "optimistic for the future" of the project, which is making slow but steady progress. Whether commuters (most of whom now have an LTE connection in their pocket) will need or use it might be something else entirely.

• Americans hate their internet service providers like they hate airlines [examiner.com]
• US Still Suffers Broadband Divide [lightreading.com]
• Ericsson Integrates Wi-Fi With Cellular [lightreading.com]
• Wireless Charging Takes a Big Step Forward [pcworld.com]
• AT&T to roll out wireless home security in Kansas City [kansascity.com]
• Microsoft unveils its next game console, the Xbox One [engadget.com]
• Time Warner Cable, Charter, Cablevision capitalize on the broadband-only opportunity [fiercecable.com]
• FairPoint to build next-gen 911 system for state of Maine [fiercetelecom.com]
• Study: Wi-Fi more cost-effective than small cells [fiercebroadbandwireless.com]
• Carriers respond to service disruptions in wake of Oklahoma tornado [fiercewireless.com]
• Boost Mobile Wallet app and prepaid Visa service launches in LA, San Diego, parts of New Jersey today with rollout to all markets expected by end of year [engadget.com]
• Brow.si Aims to Fix the Broken Mobile Web and Might Very Well Succeed [huffingtonpost.com]
• Microsoft announces live action 'Halo' TV series on Xbox Live with Steven Spielberg as executive producer [theverge.com]

Last summer Verizon introduced their new shared data plans for contract customers, which provide users with unlimited text and voice, but imposed low caps and steep overages on data and per device connection fees to make up for it. A little less than a year later and Verizon now says that about one third of their postpaid customers now use the shared data plans -- or about 30% of the company's 93.2 million postpaid contract customers.

• Netflix's Traffic Problem Is Good for Big Cable [fool.com]
• Dish Said to Bid $2 Billion for LightSquared Wireless Spectrum [wallstreetpit.com]
• Outgoing FCC chairman Julius Genachowski looks back on his four years at the agency [newsfactor.com]
• Battle for the hearts, minds, time and wallets of broadband users shifts to the home [lightreading.com]
• Energy Efficiency Could Cut Wireless Data Power Demand 90% By 2020 [cleantechnica.com]
• AT&T says 'any' mobile video chat app will work on its network by the end of 2013 [theverge.com]
• Swedish Prosecutor Claims Registrar Of .se Domains An 'Accomplice' In Infringement Because Of Pirate Bay Domain [techdirt.com]
• Global smartphone shipments to outstrip feature phones in 2013 [fiercewireless.com]
• Google's free Wi-Fi network bogging down due to traffic [fiercebroadbandwireless.com]
• The iWatch is coming! The iWatch is coming! Reports: Apple's wrister to have 1.5-inch OLED, test units being built [theregister.co.uk]
• Roku CEO: Virtual cable MSOs 'inevitable' [fiercecable.com]

While there has been some twitching from the corpse of LightSquared in DC, it has been fairly clear to everyone that the company has been dead for quite some time. Now insiders tell Bloomberg that Charlie Ergen made a $2 billion "stalking horse" bid to acquire LightSquared's assets and spectrum. One problem with such a deal -- the FCC still hasn't given their approval for use of the interference-prone spectrum, the core reason that LightSquared died in the first place. LightSquared has until May 31 to accept the bid. Dish has slowly been engaged in a series of spectrum acquisition deals to aid the company's potential launch of their own LTE network.

Leap Wireless' Cricket brand this week launched what they're calling "Half is More" pricing, which the company claims offers users "unlimited plans for half the price of the competition." According to a Leap/Cricket press release, the company's new $45 Offering provides unlimited text, voice and data services. However, the company rather buries the fact that by "unlimited" they mean around 1 GB, after which you're throttled back to dial-up era speeds for the remainder of the month. "Cricket is challenging consumers and asking the question that if you can pay only half and get the same thing, why wouldn't you?" the company asks. Perhaps because you historically abuse the hell out of the word "unlimited"?

The Wall Street Journal this week seemed rather surprised to learn that wireless carriers are now happily selling user location data for additional profit. According to the Journal, "carriers are coming to see subscribers as sources of data that can be mined for profit, a practice more common among providers of free online services like Google Inc. and Facebook Inc." As we've noted for some time, this data is purchased by everyone from marketers to city planners, but is generally not as private as carriers claim. As the Journal notes, the data also provides governments with an additional treasure trove of data to hoover up (or for hackers to acquire), and there continues to be no real consumer privacy protections in place to protect users. Tune in tomorrow when the Journal learns that pay TV and broadband services in the Unites States are expensive.

Hulu has consistently flailed and suffered from incomplete show catalogs because the company's owners, with a vested interest in the status quo, really don't have much of an interest in Hulu truly disrupting or succeeding. Now Disney and News Corporation, after years of bickering about what to do with the property, are again pushing for a sale on the heels of departures of top company executives last January.

In early 2011 MetroPCS joined Verizon in suing the FCC to overturn the agency's already fairly-flimsy network neutrality rules. With MetroPCS and T-Mobile now merged, T-Mobile announced late last week that it would be withdrawing the lawsuit against the FCC they acquired as part of the deal.

• Clearwire: Shareholder Group Says Sprint $3.40 Bid Still Too Low [barrons.com]
• Report Unveils Mobile Data Pricing Trends [lightreading.com]
• Verizon Wireless and Jennifer Lopez join forces to launch Latino-targeted carrier Viva Movil [mobileburn.com]
• Wireless Consumers Aware of Cyberthreats and Know They Should Protect Themselves, Yet Many Don't [yahoo.com]
• New Wireless 'Family Plan' for U.S. Government Saves $300 Million: GSA secures AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon for first-of-its-kind wireless service and device consolidation plan [yahoo.com]
• Cricket Wireless guns for Verizon, AT&T customers [cnet.com]
• Xbox One confusion: Microsoft leaves used games and 'always-online' requirement unclear [theverge.com]
• More and more phone firms sell data on cash cows customers; Verizon has it's collection system down pat, AT&T still working on a better way [wsj.com]
• Ethernet inventor: Online education poised to transform the world, like iTunes did to music [theregister.co.uk]
• Verizon: Content providers see value in toll-free data model [fiercewireless.com]
• Leap suggests its LTE roaming deal is with Sprint, hints at more device financing options [fiercewireless.com]
• CenturyLink dips its feet into the 1 Gbps FTTP waters [fiercetelecom.com]
• Coming to Terms With a Global Digital Divide [huffingtonpost.com]
• Scripps Reporters Called 'Hackers' For Stumbling Upon Massive Security Flaw While Doing A Google Search [huffingtonpost.com]

• How fast are America's wireless networks? [techhive.com]
• Kim Dotcom accuses Google, Facebook, and Twitter of violating his two-step security patent [theverge.com]
• Hackers Find China Is Land of Opportunity [nytimes.com]
• Wary of China, U.S. Steps Into Sprint's Board [wsj.com]
• Tablet use soars among U.S. airline passengers [usatoday.com]
• Telecom’s Big Players Hold Back the Future [nytimes.com]
• Internet Service Providers Are Now The Most Hated Companies In U.S. [huffingtonpost.com]
• Upcoming Auctions Key to Wireless Internet Future [huffingtonpost.com]
• GM commits to in-car apps by the end of the year [theverge.com]
• How digital camera technology took out Kodak [huffingtonpost.com]
• Why won’t Bitcoin die? [theverge.com]

France was one of the first countries to impose laws that require ISPs terminate the service of users who repeatedly engage in copyright infringement. Under the rules, copyright offenders were tracked by a newly-created taxpayer-funded agency dubbed Hadopi and a hired company named Trident Media Guard (TMG).

• Verizon, Sprint report best customer service results in industry [kansascity.com]
• Think your Skype messages get end-to-end encryption? Think again [arstechnica.com]
• Wireless Home Phones: A Plan Strikes a Chord [nytimes.com]
• Why broadband is less popular in apartments [zdnet.com]
• The man who 'nearly broke the internet' [guardian.co.uk]
• You are your data: The scary future of the quantified self movement [pandodaily.com]
• Is 'No Fap' Movement Start of Tech Backlash? [huffingtonpost.com]
• The Spy and the Mobile Phone [huffingtonpost.com]
• SKAA: Displacing Apple AirPlay As The New Premium Wireless Music Standard? [forbes.com]
• Smart TV failing the connectivity test [broadbandtvnews.com]

Cash set aside for broadband development in urban areas is sitting idle thanks to EU bureaucracy, according to those overseeing the project. It’s likely that the £150 million, which was set aside for upgrading infrastructure to provide 80Mbps and up speeds, will instead be used to provide public wi-fi in city centres, for other projects that don’t require EU approval or, if the opposition Labour party get their way, redirected completely to provide access for rural areas.

• AT&T has fastest LTE service, T-Mobile off to strong start [techhive.com]
• Cablecos ponder Netflix challenge [broadbandtvnews.com]
• Redline Builds White Space Broadband [lightreading.com]
• The US now has 82.4 million broadband connections [gigaom.com]
• Google Fiber's Future Looks Limited [lightreading.com]
• Wait continues for wireless energy consumption remedy [zdnet.com]
• Smartwatch face off: Pebble, MetaWatch and new hi-tech timepieces [theregister.co.uk]
• Coming to Terms With a Global Digital Divide [huffingtonpost.com]
• The Great Bitcoin Debate [huffingtonpost.com]
• Apple Avoiding Billions and Billions of Dollars in Taxes [huffingtonpost.com]

• 4G LTE: Good for tweets and watching football, crap at saving lives - Why cops, medics must stick to walkie talkies [theregister.co.uk]
• FCC announces $300M in Connect America 2nd round funding [convergedigest.com]
• 1 Way AT&T Still Beats Verizon Wireless [fool.com]
• AT&T's GoPhone Prepaid Brand to Gain iPhone and LTE/HSPA+ Support Tomorrow [macrumors.com]
• Googorola loses bid to ban US Xbox sales after ITC slapdown [theregister.co.uk]
• Verizon goes on offensive in Voice Link deployment [fiercetelecom.com]
• Broadband only subscriptions gain steam at Time Warner Cable, Charter, Cablevision [fiercecable.com]
• Time Warner Cable to lose ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox stations in retrans spat? [fiercecable.com]
• Comcast running free Wi-Fi promo through July 4 [fiercecable.com]
• US Cellular getting ready to launch Home Phone service [engadget.com]

• Google wants to connect the developing world with wireless [gigaom.com]
• Dish, nTelos to Develop Fixed-Mobile Broadband Service [foxbusiness.com]
• Fight over TV streaming heats up as broadcasters file new lawsuit in Washington DC [paidcontent.org]
• AT&T has fastest LTE service, Sprint not so much... [techhive.com]
• The sale of (anonymous) wireless users' location and behavior is already big business [fiercewireless.com]
• Android’s Market Share Is Literally A Joke [techpinions.com]
• DirecTV, Time Warner, Yahoo all bidding for Hulu [allthingsd.com]
• Internet cafés declared 'illegal businesses' in Ohio [theregister.co.uk]
• New Xbox could doom second-hand games market [theregister.co.uk]
• Comcast hiking limited basic fees by 9% in Oregon [fiercecable.com]