• Comcast pays $16 million to settle class-action suit on traffic blocking [cnet.com]
• RIM Suffers Another Outage [unstrung.com]
• European Union adopts new telecom rules [hurriyetdailynews.com]
• Rumor mill: Nortel's carrier VoIP auction coming soon [fiercetelecom.com]
• Clearwire Shoots for Another $361M [unstrung.com]
• Google: We're open and closed at the same time [tgdaily.com]
• Hackers break Amazon's Kindle DRM [theregister.co.uk]
• Microsoft yanks Custom XML from Word, offers patch to OEMs [computerworld.com]

• AT&T: Femtocells not ready for deployment yet [fiercewireless.com]
• Comcast Expands DOCSIS 3.0 Reach In Northern California [multichannel.com]
• TV Everywhere: If everyone is running the 100 meter dash, who is running the marathon? [fierceonlinevideo.com]
• New European, North American Consumer Broadband Satellites to Launch in 2012 [tmcnet.com]
• CAFC Upholds Huge Fine; Injunction Against Selling Microsoft Word [techdirt.com]
• Verizon Setting Scary Precedent for Ex-Alltel Workers? [xchangemag.com]
• Stimulus Money: Much Approved, Little Deployed [pcworld.com]
• Serious web vuln found in 8 million Flash files [theregister.co.uk]

Yesterday we were the first to report that both AT&T U-Verse and Verizon FiOS customers can expect significant rate hikes as 2010 begins. Many U-Verse tiers will be bumped by about $5 starting February 1, while Verizon FiOS customers can look for bundled rate hikes and a new, very steep $360 early termination fee starting January 17. Meanwhile, Scott Greczkowski over at Multichannel News notes that DirecTV is looking at implementing some rate hikes starting in March. Greczkowski also notes that Dish network will be passing some hikes on to customers starting February 1. With rumors of Charter Communications exploring consumption based billing in 2010, the usual slate of TV price hikes, and Comcast's higher cable modem rental fee (which is winding its way from market to market), there's one thing you can be sure of for 2010: you're going to pay more money.

Back in November, rumors surfaced that Apple was gearing up to take on the traditional TV industry by offering a new, "over the top" $30 a month subscription broadband TV service. However, information on the plan remained murky, other than to note that Apple was in talks with most broadcasters. This week the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are reporting that Disney (ABC) and CBS are close to joining the new effort. Other companies, like News Corporation, are apparently still wary of Apple's new efforts -- though considering Fox's very ugly battle with Time Warner Cable over retransmission fees, you'd think they might want to broaden their horizons.

Last week we reported how Verizon finally got around to responding to the FCC's inquiry into higher early termination fees (ETFs) -- and a phantom $1.99 fee users have been complaining about for years. While the higher ETF got most of the press, Verizon's denial of their obnoxious $1.99 mystery fee (despite the claims of thousands of customers, their own customer refunds and even a Verizon whistle blower) is the bigger story.

A week ago we noted that a Mediacom e-mail upgrade promising to deliver "next generation" e-mail service wound up leaving some customers without e-mail for a week. We're now two weeks since the upgrade, and both residential and business users are still writing in to complain that they're either without e-mail service, or they're suffering through oddities like lost e-mail.

Users in our Bright House Networks forum note that the carrier has been pushing faster DOCSIS 3.0 speeds, including a new "Roadrunner Lightning" tier, which comes complete with 40 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps upstream speeds and a $50 installation fee. The tier costs Bright House users $15-30 more a month, depending on whatever broadband plan they're currently on (Bright House hides their current prices behind a pay wall, which is very 2004 of them). Users don't seem particularly impressed with the SMC wireless router Bright House swaps in for new customers. Slower users are getting a little something too: customers on the company's 7 Mbps/512 kbps tier say they're being bumped to 10 Mbps/ 1 Mbps at no cost.

As our users were the first to discover back in 2007, Comcast had been forging user packets to throttle upstream P2P traffic for all users 24/7, despite spending a lot of time claiming otherwise. The news resulted in an FCC investigation and a meaningless FCC sanction, though Comcast ultimately wound up shifting to a throttling solution that only targets high consumption users on heavily congested nodes. Comcast also faced a class action lawsuit, which they've now settled for $16 million according to a statement by the class action's law firm. According to the firm, users may be able to get a refund from Comcast if you tried (and failed) to use a major P2P program or Lotus Notes (which you'll recall was also impacted by the packet forgery practice) anytime between April 1 2006 to December 31 2008.

• National Religious Broadcasters: Don't Reallocate Broadband Spectrum To Wireless [multichannel.com]
• China Raises The Great Firewall Even Higher, Claims It's To Stop Piracy [techdirt.com]
• BT becomes the first UK provider to serve 5m broadband customers [broadbandgenie.co.uk]
• UK's Project Canvas takes off; Facebook, YouTube and Flickr coming through TVs soon [broadbandgenie.co.uk]
• iPhone worms can create mobile botnets [theregister.co.uk]
• Vodafone Loses Appeal Over $3.5 Billion Tax Liability [cellular-news.com]
• Firefox for mobile 'days away' from launch [bbc.co.uk]

• Patent Verdict Favors Verizon Wireless, Other Carriers and Novatel Wireless [redorbit.com]
• Device Sales Are Soaring [unstrung.com]
• Wi-Fi Access Accounts for a Quarter of Smartphone Internet Traffic [cellular-news.com]
• Verizon Updates 4G LTE Device Specs [informationweek.com]
• Psystar Wants To Make A Go Of Just Selling You The Tools To Install Mac OS On Your PC [techdirt.com]
• Palm Readies WebOS Update [informationweek.com]
• WinAmp update fades out critical media player flaws [theregister.co.uk]
• Hulu Adds Search, Analytics [mediapost.com]

Gizmodo has again conducted a twelve city test and found that AT&T consistently offered the fastest 3G connections of the four biggest carriers. That's not too surprising, given that AT&T's HSDPA service offers faster maximum theoretical speed than Verizon or Sprint's EVDO service.

Broadband Reports has obtained documents, accidentally posted by Verizon to a publicly accessible website, that highlight some of Verizon's 2010 FiOS bundle and pricing plans. The information indicates that customers can look forward to price hikes ranging from $10 to $20 depending on your bundle -- starting January 17 of next year.

Maine wants to be the first state to force carriers to post cancer warnings on their products, according to the Associated Press. A connection between cellphones and cancer is still still hotly debated.

As you know, Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is pioneering an Australian effort to filter all the naughty bits from the Internet, despite the cost, technical issues, complaints by Australian ISPs, and the likelihood that the effort won't work anyway. Last Friday, the Sydney Morning Herald explored a satirical site that had popped up protesting the plan, using Conroy's name as the domain (stephenconroy.com.au). Slashdot notes that just hours after that story was published, the Australian Domain Name Authority had the website pulled offline. According to the site owners (who've since transferred the site to U.S. hosting), they were given all of three hours to provide evidence of their eligibility, bypassing the normal due process system (also see the owner's letter to the AuDA).

While there's certainly questions surrounding whether you actually need it, Ford appears poised to turn many of their cars into rolling Wi-Fi hotspots. According to an anouncement by Ford, the automaker said that moving forward, SYNC-enabled vehicles will come with embedded Wi-Fi AP capabilities. The nice thing is that the service will simply take your existing USB modem and 3G wireless subscription and integrate it into the vehicle -- instead of requiring an entirely new subscription fee like other services of this type we've seen. With the proliferation of smartphones, 3G service, and small, inexpensive 3G to Wi-Fi routers -- the question will be whether it's even needed, but at least you'll have the option. Just keep a close eye on your 3G service's 5GB monthly cap.

Ed Gubbins at Telephony Online takes a look at last week's broadband stimulus award winners (full list here) and picks out the trends, highlighting what kind of outfits are likely to sop up the remaining $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funds moving forward. According to Gubbins, phone companies were far more likely to win funding than cable operators, as were private-public partnerships -- and network planners operating within one state. Middle-mile projects (interoffice transport, backhaul, Internet connectivity, or special access, as defined by the NOFA) took two thirds of the nearly $183 million in awards.

After unveiling a new 24 Mbps tier, AT&T appears to be raising prices for their U-Verse service in several markets. One user writes in to note he received a notice from AT&T saying that broadband Internet prices will be increasing five bucks from their current rates starting February 1.

• Verizon ETF Policies Validate Why We Need FCC [thestandard.com]
• UK Digital Economy Bill Section 124H Would Give Ability To Silently Censor Websites [techdirt.com]
• FCC Sets Its Sights On Fiber Exemption [multichannel.com]
• O2 to buy VoIP start-up Jajah [cnet.com]
• BT to spend £1.5 billion on new olympic broadband network [yahoo.com]
• Proof of the coming mobile revolution [infoworld.com]
• Ford Sync adds WiFi [cnet.com]
• Firefox is the world's most used browser - temporarily [theinquirer.net]

• China suggests internet traffic metering [broadbandgenie.co.uk]
• Recovery Act: Cable Shortchanged [lightreading.com]
• Fast broadband 'more important than universal coverage' [cable.co.uk]
• MPAA Chairman Defends Movie Industry's One-Sided Meeting With Biden [multichannel.com]
• Solving network capacity issues should be No. 1 priority for 2010 [fiercewireless.com]
• Operation Chokehold Chokes, But Puts Spotlight on AT&T [yahoo.com]
• Karaoke Night With 14 Songs Costs Tucson Restaurant $49,000 [techdirt.com]
• Looking back on broadband trends in 2009 [fiercebroadbandwireless.com]

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