AT&T Begs FCC to Phase Out Landlines Completely

In a 32-page filing with the FCC last week, AT&T asked that the requirement that it support a landline network be repealed. It's an aggressive bid to get rid of the cumbersome wall jack and move entirely to VoIP. More »

Database Created by FCC for Devices Using White Space Spectrum

After the FCC approved the use of the free spectrum which exists between TV channels, known as white space, little's been done since, thanks to a whole heap of other ongoing issues. The FCC is now starting up a database for cataloging them, so devices can grab some of the spectrum that's going spare. More »

Internet Speeds and Costs Around the World, Shown Visually

This awesome infographic shows the internet costs and speeds around the world for the top 20 nations in the ITIF Broadband Rankings. Unsurprisingly, we don't compare too well. More »

And the Award for First Country to Establish Broadband as a Legal Right Goes To...

Finland! Not only they have great universal health care—including dental—great public daycare, and great public education at all levels, but now they also got broadband as a legal right provided to every citizen. And not any crappy broadband. More »

Bird Beats Broadband! Pigeon Flies 4GBs Faster than South African DSL

South Africa's broadband has got to be feeling pretty ill-equipped today considering a real, wing-flapping pigeon beat its transfer speeds. No really, a company found out that sending a bird with a 4GB USB drive was faster than uploading. More »

Comcast's New 100Mbps Cable Service Edges Us Closer to Japan-Level Broadband, Sort Of

Comcast just launched a new high-speed 100Mbps cable service in Minneapolis and St. Paul, making it the second provider to offer next-level speeds to a small market for a crazy price. More »

US Broadband Providers Seek Excuses to Continue Sucking

US broadband is slower than many other countries, and our broadband providers want it to stay that way. They're pushing for standards in the FCC's definition of "broadband" that are over 350 times slower than Japan's speeds. More »

Attention Portuguese People: You're About to Get the Fastest Broadband in the World

Portuguese ISP Zon Multimedia will devlier one gigabit of bandwidth to broadband customers come September. One gigabit! So, if you want a truly fast internet connection in 2009, you're better off moving to the Azores than, say, New York City. More »

Verizon FiOS Hikes Up Its Rates

Verizon nonchalantly upped FiOS's basic "triple play" broadband-phone-TV fee—$5 or $10 extra per month, depending where you live. The only drop was in the priciest bundle, which swapped out HBO for Showtime—finally, Dexter fans get a bone. [NYT]

Congress Readies Bill to Bring an End to ISP Data Caps6

Eric Massa, a Congressman in western New York, has readied a bill that would force ISPs to justify economic need for data caps and volume-based usage fees. This would effectively bringing those practices to an end (for the time being). More »

Broadband Is So Slow Amazon's Import/Export Service Sends Data Using the Post Office

How crappy is the current state of broadband? Amazon Web Services' new Import/Export data delivery moves files using the postal service because broadband is too slow. More »

Verizon: 'We Could Offer 400Mbps, We Just Don't Feel Like It'

Verizon decided to respond to Cablevision's new limited 101Mbps service, and, well, it's a bit contradictory. More »

Time Warner Cable Putting Superfast DOCSIS 3.0 Internet On Hold Because We Don't Like Bandwidth Caps

It looks like the folks at TWC are bad losers. They are now considering dropping the planned rollout of DOCSIS 3.0 high speed citing that it was part of their plan for consumption based billing. More »

Time Warner Delays Bandwidth Cap Pricing Tests in Texas After Customer Complaints

San Antonio and Austin residents apparently raised enough of a fuss to push Time Warner's tiered pricing test, which was scheduled to begin this summer, back to October. So sayeth a TWC PR rep to the San Antonio Express-News: More »

How Much Time Warner's Broadband Caps Will Screw You

Like the virus in 28 Days Later, Time Warner's internet-strangling broadband caps is spreading all over the country. They've got brand new pricing plans too and they yep, they suck. Let's look. More »

FCC Developing First Ever National Broadband Plan

Beginning this morning with a one-hour meeting, the FCC embarked on a mission to roll out a national broadband plan within a year's time. Where are they starting? With you. More »

Australia To Stimulate Itself With Government-Backed 100-Megabit Fiber Broadband For 90% of Oz

Ozzie prime minister Kevin Rudd has announced what will be one of the biggest government-sanctioned nationwide broadband initiatives in history: an A$43 billion plan to bring a fat 100mbps fiber pipe to 90% of Australians. More »

Verizon Confirms Netbook Plans, HP Mini Seems Most Likely

Verizon spokesperson Brenda Raney confirmed that Verizon will begin selling 3G-enabled netbooks by June, a statement no doubt encouraged by the leak of a possible Verizon sales sheet featuring an HP Mini netbook. More »

Sony Style Comcast Labs, a Joint Retail Store, Opens Tomorrow In Philly

Watch out Apple! Sony is clearly gunning for a chunk of your stylish retail business by partnering with a name known for its popularity amongst customers and its excellent support and services: Comcast. Updated. More »

How Broke Would You Have to Be to Revert Back to Dial-Up?

In an effort to cut costs wherever possible, some consumers are going back to the cheaper, crappier-in-every-way dial-up we all cast aside years ago. This recession has just gotten serious. More »

U.S. Broadband May Not Suck So Much After All

In fact, we may be #1! That's according to Professor Leonard Waverman's Connectivity Scorecard, which rates a country's wired-ness by looking at a wide range of different factors, not just speed and adoption rates. More »

Rural Broadband Expansion Might Actually Lose Jobs

A gathering of economists from Georgetown and Columbia Universities discussed the employment repercussions of the proposed expansion of rural broadband access, and turns out many think increased broadband access will actually reduce employment. What? More »

Broadband Cut Entirely From Stimulus Bill: Republicans Hate the Internets

Those jokers down in Washington finally compromised on the economic stimulus bill, with the Republican minority succeeding in cutting out huge swathes of spending. Among the casualties is the $2 billion for universal broadband. More »

Time Warner Cable Bringing Bandwidth Overage Fees To More Cities

Time Warner Cable's trial of charging people extra for exceeding a set download limit has been a success—they are taking it to four more cities soon, with a new tier that's higher than 40GB. More »

Time Warner Cable To Expand Its Bandwidth Caps To Additional Cities

Tests of a somewhat-more-draconian-than-normal 40GB monthly download cap in poor little Beaumont, Texas must have gone well for TWC, because they're bringing bandwidth caps to more cities this year. Could your town be next? More »

Korea to Get 1Gbps Downloading by 2012

While we're all celebrating Charter's 60Mbps broadband access here in the US, the Korea Communications Commission is spending $24 billion to secure 1Gbps access by 2012. More »

Charter Soon to Offer 60Mbps Cable (Not bad... for America)

Dave at US News tells us Charter Communications is the new home broadband to beat, offering 60Mbps downloads using Docsis 3.0 via coax cable. Is that the reigning champ? More »

Inside the Mind of the Dark Lord of Broadband, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts

If you didn't catch this month's delightfully ad-light issue of Wired, check out their profile of "the Dark Lord of broadbrand," Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. His calm demeanor reminds me of Palpatine, the Chancellor. [Wired]

New LG Broadband TVs, Blu-ray Decks All Get Netflix HD Streaming and More

LG is picking up where they left off with the Netflix-juiced BD300 in their Broadband HDTVs and plasmas, as well as the brand new BD370 and BD390 Blu-ray decks and a slew of HTIBs. More »

FCC Removes Porn-Blocking Restriction From Nationwide Free Wi-Fi Proposal

The cockamamie plan to devote a chunk of AWS-3 spectrum to free w-fi can eliminate one enemy from its massive cadre of detractors: people who would use the bandwidth for streaming MegaPorn videos at 10kbps.

FCC Approves Plan for White Space Broadband

FCC officials approved a plan for white space wireless broadband in a vote today. For those unfamiliar, white space broadband would take the unused parts of the television broadcast spectrum and make it available for internet data transfer. What we know so far is that the FCC will allow broadband usage of the white space following the February analog to digital TV changeover and the plans appear to be significant. Kevin Adelstein, a member of the voting committee said "White spaces are the blank pages on which we which we will write our broadband future." However, there are still obstacles to overcome. More »

France To Slap Convicted Pirates with Year-Long Internet Ban

France's Senate just passed a law proposed in mid-summer that would cut the families of illegal fileswappers off from broadband internet access for a year. This makes France the first country to pop anti-piracy legislation against users, and it's probably not going to be the last. More »

Xohm's WiMax Coverage Quietly Live and Working in Six More Cities

We saw Sprint/Clearwire/whoever's Xohm WiMax tested in B-more with speedy results. And now, news from a Xohm employee in Baltimore is that the service is also live and working (albeit in an "unsupported" test capacity) in Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and northern Virginia. So anyone with WiMax-enabled hardware in those cities, let us know if you're picking up any sweet 3 mbps pipe out there. [MP3Car]