We've mentioned the FCC's plan to speed up new cell tower rollouts to get more 4G goodness in the air, and now they may shift a portion of the spectrum set aside for digital TV to wireless companies to help create more bandwidth.

Of course, broadcasters don't like the idea, and if you're happy with free over-the-air digital TV, you may not either. But it's clear that something needs to be done.

This latest idea is being considered as part of the larger U.S. national broadband plan, which is set to be made public in February. It's not yet known if the TV spectrum proposal will make into the final plan. [Wall Street Journal]

The third quarter looks like mostly little cities and towns, with WiMax only coming to some more major cities (Philly, Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth) toward the end of 2009. Still absent from the list are NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix, and Washington, DC, among many others, but those are rumored to show up next year. It's good to see Sprint's plan for 4G coverage really moving forward, and here's hoping they can stick to this schedule (and maybe bump San Francisco up to this year? Please?). [Engadget]

Instead of metering access directly, Virgin's scheme asks you to buy prepaid, time-loaded chunks of access. Here are the tiers:

$10: 100MB used within 10 days
$20: 250MB used within 30 days
$40: 600MB used within 30 days
$60: 1GB used within 30 days

Given these prices, puny bandwidth allocations and the $150 cost of the required Novatel Wireless MC760 dongle, this'll really only be an option for occasional users and people who really, definitely can't dive into a long data contract. Really though, how many people with contract-precluding credit ratings have any interest in mobile broadband? I'd say this one's only going to be appealing for travelers, recent arrivals with no credit history, or people without a clear idea of where they're going to be living in the next few months.

But I suppose those are the target demographics anyway. For perspective, the most affordable on-contract plans from AT&T and Sprint aren't any cheaper than Broadband2Go's highest price tier, though they're generally much more generous with bandwidth and subject to bundling discounts for preexisting phone customers. Available from today Correction: later this month, at Best Buy and online. [BGR]

For all the miraculous things we're able to do with phones now—tell 600 Twitter followers unpleasantly intimate details of our lives, for instance—it's amazing what's still missing: Universally excellent reception. Without enough bars, your phone becomes a shiny, useless brick. We've already explained how cell towers basically work. Now, we're gonna talk about how the invisible fairies who carry your voice and data between the cell site and your Moto RAZR actually do their jobs.

Okay, there are no fairies. Everything is actually carried on radio waves—ultra high frequency (UHF, as in the Weird Al movie) radio waves, to be precise. UHF refers to any frequencies between 300MHz and 3GHz, so Wi-Fi, your mom's cordless phone, your lame Bluetooth headset and other stuff all run on the broad UHF band. The thing about radio waves is that they're pretty easy to screw with, and UHF is no exception, despite the fact it has "ultra" in the name. Maybe if we had like, Chuck Norris Frequency, things would be different.

The Interference
You're walking around with a glorified walkie talkie. It's emitting radio waves, and trying to catch others that come from a tower. So a huge reason that you sometimes get a signal weaker than bodega coffee is stuff getting in the way. And the farther away from the cell tower your are, the more likely it is that stuff is gonna get in your way, even if the radio waves are strong enough to reach you.

Since the frequencies for cell service essentially travel in a straight line, you're screwed if you roll behind a big hill or building. Big obstacles are obviously trouble, but little obstacles cause huge problems too. Different materials have different effects on the radio waves, since they are subject to things like reflection and absorption. A building with lots of reflective metal on the outside is gonna have a crummy signal inside. Conductive materials have a tendency to absorb and weaken, (or "attenuate") the signal. (This is why you can't forge a phone completely out of aluminum.) Plants, while friendly to the earth, are not friendly to cell signals since they absorb the signal.

The Frequency
It also depends on what frequency you're rolling on. Today, Verizon and AT&T use 850 and 1900MHz. T-Mobile uses the 1700, 1900 and 2100MHz bands, mostly 1900. Nextel's iDEN network uses 900MHz, while Sprint's main network runs on 1900MHz with roaming on 800MHz. The Sprint/Clearwire WiMax network is higher up, at 2500MHz, aka 2.5Ghz.

The reason the 700MHz is such hot property for AT&T and Verizon's upcoming high-speed 4G LTE deployment is that lower-frequency signals travel farther and allegedly penetrate some materials better using the same power as a signal on a higher frequency. This is why LTE is suitable for rural broadband deployments.

(Significantly higher frequencies actually do penetrate certain things better at close range and with more power, so this whole discussion can quickly turn into a headache factory if you let it.)

AT&T is currently shifting a lot of their 3G to 850MHz for better penetration after everyone with an iPhone cried about their crappy reception. So being on a lower frequency potentially poses a better chance to have a more solid signal.

Needless to say, the more noisy a particular frequency, the more trouble calls can encounter as well, so carriers have to manage their bandwidth like freeway designers, to avoid the congestion that also contributes to dropped calls.

The Handoff
Handoffs (aka handovers) are another reason your order for a pizza with extra cheese might turn into one for extra grease, especially if you're flying down the highway at 60mph and your phone is wirelessly bouncing from cell tower to cell tower. All kinds of wonky things, like ping-ponging between the two towers, can happen that'll result in a dropped call, especially if it's between two stations that aren't in line of sight.

The Backhaul
Okay, you say, but I have full bars goddammit. Explain that. Well, for one, full bars doesn't necessarily mean anything. There's no industry yardstick that translates the bars into actual information, but they all basically represent averages of signal strength over small chunks of time. But just because the signal strength is good, that doesn't mean the call's going through.

For starters, there are only a finite number of calls a cell tower can handle, which varies depending on the demands of the phone or wireless modem. As calls come in, they are juggled by the tower, then routed through a wired connection (or occasionally a powerful wireless connection) to the greater telecom infrastructure. This is called backhaul, and it can be a bottleneck.

Assuming you're all good, with a fantastic signal and a lock on the tower, but still, your Yelp reviews aren't flowing like they should. Don't forget, at some point, like any dial-up or cable modem, your cell data requests have to compete with everything else on the internet. Even calls are so digitalized these days, their "packets" of data can be interrupted by unknown internetty forces.

The final lesson there? The fatter the hard pipe, the more data it can handle—fiber is the best, obviously, but most towers still use an array of T1 lines. And that bottleneck, as Om pointed out last year, could be mobile broadband's biggest roadblock. Assuming you get past all those other roadblocks.

Still something you still wanna know? Send any questions about cellphones, hotlines, or Jason Chen's pants to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

For business customers that call, text, email and surf a lot, this could be a rather good plan to cover all your mobile usage. Sprint claims that you can save $600 a year over comparable AT&T or Verizon plans, but we'll have to do the numbers to see whether or not that's true. [Business Wire via Phonescoop]

Note: while data tethering is possible on each phone without any additional tethering plan, you'll want to be careful that you're not accidentally seeding a bunch of torrents or something when you're connected via your cellphone. While we're pretty sure you'll be OK doing standard surfing, we can't guarantee you won't get slapped with some charge, somehow.

So let's get started.

What You'll Need
• For G1: USB cable, Tetherbot App, Android SDK, Firefox
• For iPhone: iPhoneModem app, Jailbroken phone

G1 Tether
This guide is based on the instructions and Android app written by Graham Stewart. Many huzzahs to Graham for figuring out this easy tether setup. This one, however, is a SOCKS proxy instead of a true modem tether, so it's limited to Firefox browsing-you won't be able to use any other apps unless you can configure them to connect via a proxy yourself. We've tested with Firefox though, and it works great.

1. Go here on your G1's browser and install the Tetherbot app. If unknown sources are not enabled on your phone (under Settings -> Applications -> Unknown Sources) do that first.

2. Turn on USB Debugging under Settings -> Applications -> Development and connect your phone via USB.

3. Get your Android SDK set up. If you're on Windows, you'll need to download and install a driver.

4. On your phone, fire up the Tetherbot app and tap the "Start Socks" button.

5. Now, the SDK incantation. In a terminal window on Mac or a run window on Windows, navigate to the "tools" folder within your SDK directory and then type the following:

Mac:

./adb forward tcp:1080 tcp:1080

Windows:

adb forward tcp:1080 tcp:1080

6. Now, in Firefox, go to Options -> Advanced -> Network, and click to configure how Firefox connects to the Internet. In the window that pops up, choose "Manual proxy configuration" and clear out everything that might be there. Under SOCKS host, type "localhost" and change the port to 1080. Hit OK, and you should be in business. Easy right?

iPhone Tether
For this, you'll need to jailbreak your phone. All you need to know to do that can be found in this post on the iPhone Dev Blog. If you're running OS X, I STRONGLY recomment using Pwnage Tool instead of QuickPwn to manually create a jailbroken software image and install it via iTunes-I have yet to get QuickPwn to work with my phone, and I have no idea why.

One caveat: there are two iPhoneModem apps-one, found at iPhoneModem.de is free, and comes with a utility that makes tethering on a Mac easy. That's the tutorial we're following here. They claim it's possible to use on Windows, but there is no companion app and, unfortunately, no Windows instructions.

The other iPhoneModem is nagware ($10 to get rid of the nags), and does include a Windows config app, which we have not tested. If you're running windows, try that one, and let us know how it goes in the comments. There is also another method using an app called 3proxy that requires lots of manual configuration, but that one may also be worth a try. Update: Commenters are also recommending PDANet for Windows tethering, which is in Cydia as well.

1. Once you're jailbroken, open up Cydia and install the package called "iPhone Modem zsrelay" - you can find it by searching "modem." Also install OpenSSH - find it by searching "SSH." BossPrefs is also recommended, so you can make sure SSH is running.

2. Download the iPhoneModem.de helper app and run it, and go to "Settings..." under the little iPhone icon that just appeared in the status bar.

3. Fill in the following fields:

IP-Address of Mac: Leave the default value (192.168.100.1)
Password of Mac: Your admin password
WLAN Name: The name of the ad-hoc network that will be created - your choice
WLAN Password: It must be 13 characters-your choice as long as it's 13
SOCKS Port: Leave default (9999)
iPhone root Password: alpine (as long as you're running 2.x firmware)
iPhone Mac Address: Found under Settings - General - About - make sure you use the wi-fi MAC address.

4. Once your config is saved, go to "start connection" and follow the prompts. Your Mac will create an ad-hoc network, which you will then join with your iPhone (make sure you get an IP address on your iPhone before continuing). Everything should go smoothly, and voila, you're tethered!

Hope you enjoyed our how-to. For more on iPhone jailbreak apps, see yesterday's essentials list, and more how-to guides here. Enjoy the weekend!

Slashgear says i-Mo is roughly the size of a small keychain fob, and also has a microSD slot for data storage. If you would rather have a direct connection between your device and the internet, you can also connect via mini USB cable (7.2mbps down/5.6mbps up). The 802.11b/g wi-fi can also be used to give internet access to other gadgets at the same time.

Price and release date are still unannounced, but I wouldn't mind seeing AT&T or T-Mobile offering this up with a data plan. [Slashgear]

Since there was no elusive SIM card slot found like there was on the HP Mini 1000, the modder had to solder in her own. So the hack is not for the faint of heart, but it's confirmed working. Check out the how-to and some photos of the action. [tnkgrl]

The router looks like any other Netgear device in design, but it has a USB port for the dongle and (presumably) you configure all the settings through the router page. There's even an optional car power adapter so you can take your show on the road. The 3G Mobile Broadband router will be available in Q1 of this year for $130.

And for consumers and professionals on-the-go, NETGEAR’s 3G Mobile Broadband Wireless Router
(MBR624GU) creates an instant WiFi hotspot using 3G mobile broadband access service for broadband
access virtually anywhere, simply by plugging in any compatible 3G USB modem to the router. Mobile
users thus have the flexibility to create a WiFi network whether in a satellite office, construction site,
emergency center, vacation home, at an offsite event or campsite, or even from a moving recreational
vehicle. The 3G Mobile Broadband Wireless Router features auto detection of compatible 3G USB
modems and associated mobile carrier networks to have broadband access almost instantly. It supports
SPI, intrusion logging and reporting, denial-of-service (DoS) protection, up to five IPsec VPN endpoints,
and NAT. With Push ‘N’ Connect with WPS, energy saving features, and an optional car power adapter
to power the router while on the move, NETGEAR’s 3G Mobile Broadband Wireless Router is ideal for
sharing a 3G broadband Internet connection practically anywhere with friends, colleagues and family
members. More information can be found at
(http://www.netgear.com/Products/RoutersandGateways/3GMobileBroadband/mbr624gu.aspx).

3G Mobile Broadband Wireless Router (MBR624GU)
•
Compatible with extensive range of 3G USB Modems and networks.
•
Four Ethernet ports for LAN connectivity; USB 2.0 Host WAN port.
•
SPI, DoS, NAT, and supports up to 5 VPN endpoints.
•
“Push ‘N’ Connect” button based on WPS.
•
WiFi on/off button and Power on/off button to save energy while not in use.
•
Auto detection and installation process for easy setup.
•
Repeater configurable and static routing feature.
•
Advanced application based on QoS.

The original timetable called for initial rollouts in 2010, with a wide commercial launch in 2011 and true mass availability in 2012. An IDC analyst says that Verizon's shift to a more aggressive schedule was likely sparked by Japan's NTT DoCoMo announcing last month they'd offer LTE service commercially in 2010, showing that "the race is on." That's right, people, Verizon is throwing down for the good ol' US of A—Japan won't beat us on cellphone tech ever again.

After launching LTE, Verizon's planning to offer femtocells through partners like Best Buy that won't just make the signal actually decent in your house, they'll have built in Wi-Fi, so you won't have to have a separate box for it. Your move, AT&T. [Yahoo]

Previously, users had reported the existence of a dormant SIM slot inside the Mini 1000's WWAN module, and ability to hack the drivers to enable the hardware. Now that it's official, it's as easy as firing up connection manager 1.0 to get 3G going on the 10-inch netbook, albeit for an extra $200 (?!?!?!?!). In any case, the new and improved Mini 1000 is available from HP now, but dont forget, the MIE version is coming soon. [HP]

The system itself features an SD card slot, two USB ports, and comes preloaded with a few games, including quake. It's not intended to go compete with the current-gen offerings, but as mentioned earlier, it's for markets where the average consumer can't afford the cost of a Wii or Xbox (considering the cost of games after import fees). The Zeebo will arrive on Brazilian shelves in July 2009 and sell for roughly $258 USD. Games will cost between $10 and $30. [Folha Online via Engadget]

Toshiba's offering is a nicely spec'd 13-inch Satellite, which seems to be the sweet spot of the bunch. And finally, Lenovo is hitting us with a brigade right off the bat—Thinkpad X301, T400, SL300 and SL500, though eventually all of its laptops will have WiMax options. Dell, Sony and Panasonic will be bringing theirs out sometime next year, so unless you're looking for the fruit, basically any maker you're a fan of will have something for you (and don't forget Nokia's N810). [CW, Electronista]

So the little gizmo promises DSL speeds in a handheld form factor (no word on whether it'll be EV-DO or HSDPA). It'll cost $299 plus $39/month if you sign up for a one-year service contract, or $259 plus $34/month for a two-year contract. The device will also have built-in GPS. Other than that, we weren't able to get more details. We'll keep trying and update with any news. – Louis Ramirez

Product Page [via Electronista]

So what does this mean? Well, aside from making streaming video a more pleasurable experience (goodbye, choppy video), Rev B will also allow for new apps to mosey on into your phone, such as mobile TV. No word on when we'll see Rev B on Sprint or Verizon, although just the thought of the speed boost is enough to whet our appetite. – Louis Ramirez

Press Release [via Electronista]

Sprint's EX720 EV-DO ExpressCard [SlashGear]

Press Release [Sony Ericsson]

Press Release [via Mobiledia]

Other Sprint EV-DO news includes our friends in Portland, OR, Miami, and Puerto Rico all getting to join the fun and new GPS capabilities. Oh Sprint, you had me at increased download speeds. –Adam Frucci

Product Page [Sprint]