• Femtocells doomed, but WiMAX a winner [totaltele.com]
• Fiber to the Home — For $10,000 [gigaom.com]
• IPTV Demands Innovation: PCCW [lightreading.com]
• Free Internet Access Plan Now Has Two Versions [mobile-tech-today.com]
• VoIP is coming to the iPod Touch [theregister.co.uk]
• Buffalo Technology Can Sell Again in U.S.—For Now [wi-fiplanet.com]
• Apple prepping $99 Wal-Mart iPhone? [theregister.co.uk]
• Congress crafting broadband investment [cedmagazine.com]
• ISPs to tell you true net speed [computershopper.co.uk]
• Microsoft preps IE 8 for the web-challenged [theregister.co.uk]

Windstream today announced that the carrier will be eliminating 170 jobs -- or 2.3% of the DSL provider's workforce because of declining revenue at the carrier's landline business. Windstream spokesman David Avery says the cuts include involuntary layoffs, but they hope some employees will volunteer for buyouts.

If you recall, the network neutrality debate truly took off in the States back in 2005, when former SBC (now AT&T) CEO Ed Whitacre told Business Week in an article that Google wanted to use Ed's "pipes", for free. "I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it," insisted Ed at the time.

Jason Levine writes in: "On Tuesday, ISP Planet released their quarterly ISP subscriber counts. Most ISPs saw little to no growth from last quarter. The major exception to this within the top 5 ISPs was AOL.

Last week, we noted that Comcast was trying to stall Verizon's deployment of FiOS into the cable giant's home town of Philadelphia, by feigning indignation before the city council over the fact that the telco's FTTH service probably wouldn't reach all parts of the city, and (correctly) noting that the addition of telcoTV to the market probably wouldn't lower TV prices. People used to care about redlining, which is why local franchises used to force cable operators to deploy into less profitable rural areas if they wanted to do business at all.

Confirming what many managers were privately worried about back in October, AT&T today announced that the telco will be eliminating 12,000 jobs, or about four percent of the telcom giant's work force. According to an AT&T statement, the layoffs are a result of economic pressures, a changing business mix, and a more streamlined organizational structure. That's code for the economy sucks, the credit market sucks, their landline business is dying, new DSL subscriber additions are dismal, and they continue to purge redundant positions created by the BellSouth merger.

In late October, Cogent had yet another in a long history of peering feuds, this time with Sprint, who accused the company of failing to pay and shirking contractual obligations. This was after Cogent issued a press release blaming Sprint.

• Open letter to President-elect Obama: please don’t send the stimulus money to the telecom incumbents [muniwireless.com]
• Latin America to Account for More Than 10% of Global WiMAX Subscribers by 2012 [techwhack.com]
• Level 3 CEO Jim Crowe bullish on future of U.S. economy and broadband industry [rockymountainnews.com]
• Aussie National Broaband Network (NBN) blows tender budget by $10 million [australianit.news.com.au]
• Vodafone will appeal against $2bn tax ruling [ft.com]
• The Handset of the Future Needs Wi-Fi [gigaom.com]
• Apple says others are behind Psystar's misdeeds [theinquirer.net]
• Firefox plug-in Trojan harvests logins [theregister.co.uk]

• EFF seeks shelter for iPhone mobile 'jailbreakers' [theregister.co.uk]
• Canon patent victory could change the future of TV [ft.com]
• DNS Problems Hit Yahoo [gigaom.com]
• Mobile Broadband On Course To Replace Fixed-Line Connections [itreviewed.co.uk]
• MobiTV Surpasses Five Million Subscribers [SOAWorld Magazine]
• Branded Content's Risks and Rewards [multichannel.com]
• T-Mobile G1 racks up the charges - even when you shut it off [news.com]
• RIM makes hostile takeover bid for wireless VPN security company Certicom [fiercewireless.com]

A new Firefox extension dubbed "Pirates Of The Amazon" (which was quickly knocked offline) grabbed headlines today for its fairly unique function: Amazon users who install the plugin view the Amazon website with a few additional links, directing them to free, pirated versions of the media they were looking for at The Pirate Bay. According to Torrent Freak, the original .xpi plugin (which they've mirrored here) worked for all media on Amazon that can be converted to digital format, including CDs, DVDs, games and books.

It's clear that Comcast has never liked FCC chairman Kevin Martin. The FCC boss rarely sees a baby bell position he doesn't like (in part thanks to more sophisticated lobbying by AT&T and Verizon), but has consistently been a thorn in Comcast's side about everything from P2P throttling, to most recently, high cable TV prices. While Comcast generally hides their disdain pretty well, Martin's likely departure next year has apparently loosened their tongue. In a week where Martin is once again probing high cable pricing, Comcast gave the FCC boss a verbal smack: story continues..

Apple has been taking heat over global advertisements that show the iPhone 3G performing at speeds vastly faster than real world 3G (or 2G) networks operate. Two such ads were recently banned in the UK, to which Apple responded that the ads were "relative rather than absolute in nature." Here in the States, one 70-year-old San Diego resident filed suit against Apple for misleading advertising. Techdirt directs our attention to the fact that Apple this week responded to the suit, denying that the ads lie, but then adding this comment:In other words, we're not lying, but you're an idiot if you believed what we were saying. Of course there's a fairly obvious chasm (see video comparison) between the ads and real-world performance. Apple faces five lawsuits related to the performance (or lack thereof) of the iPhone when connected to networks in the real world, but the attorney for this false advertising case thinks their case "has the most teeth and the most legs to it."

The New York Times Bits Blog reports that as of tomorrow, companies and organizations can register web addresses with the new top-level domain of ".tel." According to the Times, the new domain stores and encrypts contact information directly into the Domain Name System, creating a central repository for contact data. At the moment only businesses can register for $400/year; individuals need to wait until the "Landrush" on February 3 of next year (when they can pay $150/year), or the general sale ($20/year) on March 24. Telnic, the main registrar for these domains, has set up a .tel simulator to help give you a better idea of how this works.

User Tcomp directs our attention to the fact that Fairpoint, who recently acquired Verizon's DSL networks in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, will be testing IPTV service in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Fairpoint has been taking former Verizon FTTH infrastructure and rebranding it from FiOS to "FAST." But unlike Verizon, whose FiOSTV is a hybrid coaxial/fiber system, Fairpoint apparently seems interested in running pure IPTV.

Yesterday a Comcast insider informed us that Comcast, who implemented a 250GB monthly cap in October, will be offering users an online bandwidth usage tracking tool starting January 5. According to the source, the tool will retain up to three months of usage and track multiple MAC addresses, though not in real time (3 hour delay).

AT&T recently offered free Wi-Fi for iPhone users, though to use an AT&T hotspot, users had to find the hotspot, enter their ten digit phone number, approve the AT&T EULA, wait for an SMS with a password, then click on that link to browse. A few iPhone application developers have simplified that process with "Easy Wi-Fi for AT&T," an application that reduces the above process into simply launching the application (iTunes link). According to Ars Technica, the app is free until Friday, after which it will cost $1.99.

PC Magazine has unveiled the latest data on broadband ISPs collected by their surfspeed application, which, unlike most speed tests measures the browsing speed of an ISP connection. When the application first launched you'll recall many of you took issue with PC Mag's data and their methodology, which they've since expanded to include tests from 17,000 IP addresses.

• Survey on impact of municipal broadband networks on economic development [muniwireless.com/]
• The UK white space debate is only just beginning [theregister.co.uk]
• Virgin launches mobile internet service [mobiletoday.co.uk]
• Airvana's Femtocell Technology Selected by Pirelli Broadband Solutions [msn.com]
• Virgin considered pulling out of T-Mobile deal [mobiletoday.co.uk]
• Japan's Largest Cellular Operator KDDI Selects LTE Core as Next-Generation Mobile Broadband Solution from Hitachi and Nortel [msn.com]
• First Aple, now Tiscali blasted over broadband ad speed claims [brandrepublic.com]
• Microsoft opens Vista SP2 testing window [theregister.co.uk]
• Tiscali's Freedom2surf email down for four days and counting [theinquirer.net]

• Economic Gloom Could Be Boon For Cable [multichannel.com]
• French courts tighten iPod tax loophole [theregister.co.uk]
• The Fastest ISPs - Rankings Shame Nation’s Providers [pcmag.com]
• BT sees Wi-Fi usage double [theregister.co.uk]
• Boston Sets DTV Readiness Tests [multichannel.com]
• Will Wireless Providers' Data Growth Engine Sputter? [cellular-news.com]
• Palm Continues Downward Spiral [internetnews.com]
• Bill Gates' nightmare - Browser replaces OS [theinquirer.net]

When Comcast recently started capping all users at 250GB per month, they annoyed some by failing to provide a tool to track usage, though they did tell us they were working on it. An anonymous Comcast tipster informs us that Comcast will soon implement a viewable online usage meter starting January 5.