Given Verizon’s FiOS expansion has stopped in most places (unless you’re somewhere with franchise obligations), the only way DSL users will be getting FiOS is if your regional core infrastructure is upgraded and your line is perennially problematic. During yesterday’s earnings call Verizon stated they migrated some 223,000 “troublesome” lines from copper to fiber, most of those in regions impacted by Sandy. The company says they plan to migrate another 300,000 copper users in 2013. [...]

Verizon’s fourth quarter 2012 earnings released this morning show that the telco added a record high f 2.1 million new postpaid wireless subscribers during the quarter for a total of 98.2 million wireless subscribers. Driven by those wireless gains Verizon reached the $30 billion operating revenue mark for the first time in the telco’s operating history. 58 percent of Verizon’s contract subscribers now have smartphones, up from 53 percent just the quarter before. Wireless continues [...]

Originally, AT&T only allowed users to use Facetime over Wi-Fi. Then, they allowed Facetime over cellular, but only if users signed up for their new shared data plan with its $15 per gigabyte overage fees. Facing significant consumer criticism they’ve since slowly backtracked, and this week announced in a blog post that they’d kindly be allowing customers on “any tiered data plan using a compatible iOS device” to use functionality built into devices they own. [...]

In addition to the inevitable (and sometimes bi-annual) increase in Comcast TV prices, the carrier is notifying out-of-contract customers that their broadband service will see a hike starting in the new year. According to user discussion in our forums, the price hikes vary depending on your market — or more specifically the competition (or lack thereof) seen there. Customers not under contract say their broadband service is seeing rate hikes ranging anywhere from 3% to [...]

AT&T broadband users continue to claim there’s something not quite right about the way AT&T calculates data usage for their capped DSL and U-Verse users. As Broadband Reports was the first to exclusively report last year, AT&T began imposing 150 GB caps on DSL users and 250 GB caps on U-Verse users — with $10 per 50 GB overage fees. The move was unpopular due to the fact AT&T’s landline network doesn’t see much congestion, [...]

Suggesting a leak somewhere in AT&T’s supply chain, a second analyst this week is magically predicting that AT&T will be upgrading at least a few additional DSL customers to U-Verse. As we noted this week any significant landline upgrades would run contrary to AT&T’s character, and recent FCC filings suggest AT&T’s interested in actually shuttering the majority of their 18 million un-upgraded DSL users. George Notter of Jefferies & Company estimates that AT&T’s going to [...]

A new report by the Hudson Institute (pdf) declares that the United States is facing a growing broadband gap when it comes to rural markets, and that improving these markets would improve the economic health of the country as a whole. Study author Hanss Kuttner seems to be understating the problem; Kuttner’s study correctly notes that few rural users can get anything more than 3 Mbps down and 768 kbps up, but he fails to [...]

PC Magazine has again compiled their list of the nation’s fastest ISPs, and Verizon FiOS again takes top honors. The test used to face serious criticism from our users for its testing methodology, and now bases most of the results on data provided by Ookla (Speedtest.net). Following on the heels of FiOS was MidContinent Communications in second place followed by Charter, who saw significant gains in this years measurements. Notably absent are the telcos, courtesy [...]

At an investor conference this week AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson says the company is still determining the fate of millions of the company’s un-unpgraded DSL users. As noted previously a sale of these assets hasn’t gone so well, after Verizon’s sale of their DSL markets to Frontier and Fairpoint went so poorly for the acquiring companies, it put a sour taste in most smaller telco’s mouths. While AT&T’s lawyers and lobbyists pave the regulatory path [...]

After more than a year of negotiations that included the strike last summer of 45,000 workers, Verizon and the Communications Workers of America have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. Verizon workers will keep their standard of living and the benefits and working conditions we’ve fought for over the years,” says the CWA. What I’m hearing from union workers isn’t quite so enthusiastic; workers complain there’s a significant loss of retirement and other [...]