Comcast employees recently moved into a massive skyscraper in Philadelphia, a move designed to bring all of the company’s employees together for a more streamlined and productive business. The impressive building is also drawing the attention of customers and tourists with features such as a massive video wall which plays along the entire width of the lobby. The video wall is a 10-million-pixel high-definition screen which has five times the resolution of HDTV and thirty percent greater resolution than an IMAX film. Each of the 6500+ Barco NX-4 LED modules that make up this wall is capable of reproducing 281 trillion colors.

As 4G technology develops, we have seen it diverge in two different directions. Companies seem divided about whether they want to support WiMax or to throw their weight behind LTE (and some businesses are making a bit of investment in each to cover all bases). A recent wireless survey took a look at what is driving companies to choose one or the other and found that the two main motivating factors were technology availability and business models. The technology must be reasonably available to be supported but also must prove itself to be a wise marketing choice for the businesses seeking to move forward with it. For example, WiMax is popular in emerging markets where the technology for LTE just may not be available for businesses to seriously take advantage of in the near future.

The takeover of Canada's largest telecommunications company BCE has finally been solidified after months of doubts. This is the biggest leveraged buyout ever and it’s caused a lot of concerns and questions to be brought up as a result of the size of the deal. However, all of the necessary approvals have now come through including the terms of the buyout itself. The deal which is worth $51 billion is slated to be complete before the end of the year.

A fleet of buses in Sweden has recently made Wi-Fi available to all of its passengers. Over 80 buses transporting two million passengers annually travel to areas including Norway and Denmark, making this Wi-Fi deployment the largest in Scandinavia to date. The only downside is that the country’s recent law approving government wiretapping could cause some people to feel spied on while accessing the public transit Wi-Fi.

A report today over at TorrentFreak takes a look at the way that Google ranks Torrent sites and finds that Google’s information seems comparable to that reported by the sites themselves which hasn’t always been the case when looking at Alexa rankings for the sites. Using Google, it was determined that Mininova is the most popular Torrent site and The Pirate Bay comes in second. Rankings indicate that Torrentz and Isohunt compete closely for third place and then there are a handful of other torrent sites that also rank fairly high although the popularity of these sites varies between countries. The stats also indicate that Torrent sharing via all of these sites is on the rise.

• Ofcom tells BT: 'Invest in broadband, reap the rewards' [PCAdvisor.co.uk]
• Virgin Media blames 'administrative oversight' for threats on warning letters [Telegraph.co.uk]
• Qwest Talking to AT&T for Wireless [Xchangemag.com]
• Internet addressing agency loses its own addresses [Yahoo News]
• EFF, ACLU Sue To Find Out Details Of Gov't Use Of Mobile Phone Data To Track People [TechDirt.com]
• India will be the largest market for WiMAX by 2012: Report [The Economic Times]
• Firefox grabs bigger slice of browser pie [TheInquirer.net]

It's the Fourth of July, so once you've had your fill of fireworks, hamburgers, and potato salad, chat amongst yourselves in the comment section below. Have an excellent holiday!

Barack Obama angered a significant number of his core supporters recently when he threw his support behind a bill that would give the nation's largest phone companies immunity for handing over user phone and Internet data without a warrant. The vote for the bill is scheduled for after the holiday weekend, giving privacy advocates and other civil libertarians a chance for a last second fight against the bill.

User n2jtx writes in: "With the periodic reports on BPL and the usual "it's time for the hams to find something else to do", it is refreshing to see this article that talks about amateur radio operations and their role in communication in times of crisis." Whether it's a natural or man made disaster, ham operators usually come through in a crunch when traditional networks fail. The report highlights how hams work in conjunction with other volunteer groups such as the Military Affiliated Radio Stations (MARS) and Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), both of which coordinate with state and local officials during emergencies.

Gizmodo reviews the new Linksys WRT610N Dual N-Band Wireless Router, which goes on sale this week at $199 MSRP, but with Amazon offering it for $149. The new device delivers simultaneous 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands so 802.11N users and 802.11G users can coexist without N users having to use the crowded 2.4GHz space. The design also makes a fairly radical shift from the more blocky and familiar WRT54G, sporting a glossy "dust magnet" black and blue finish.

As part of the latest round in the $1 billion copyright fight between Viacom and YouTube, a federal judge has ordered the popular online video-sharing service to disclose consumer records. Seemingly violating the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), the judge has ordered YouTube to disclose precisely what videos consumers watched, and when -- though the 12 terabyte data dump would include "less specific identifiers than a user's real name or e-mail address," according to the Associated Press. I'm guessing that eight terabytes of that data will be "Rick Rolling".

• Comcast Invests In Mobile WiMax Startup [multichannel.com]
• Study: US broadband access up overall, but down among the poor [betanews.com]
• Irish Government unveils €435m broadband plan [siliconrepublic.com]
• Bandwidth Barons Want More Money for Fewer Bytes [gigaom.com]
• European Mobile Broadband Services Jeopardised By Regulation [cellular-news.com]
• Sony firmware 2.40 bricks PS3 [theinquirer.net]
• Built-in browser expiry proposed to fight botnet menace [theregister.co.uk]
• Copyright cops target British downloaders with lame ads [theinquirer.net]

With some providers, trying to figure out what their broadband tiers' upstream speeds are from their website isn't entirely unlike unearthing national security secrets. If that's the case, it's usually because on some level, they're embarrassed by what they're offering. I noticed that Light Reading has an entertaining rant about the upstream speed of Qwest's new ADSL2+ service, which the company is offering to a limited number of homes. story continues..

Firefox has joined some esteemed company in the Guinness Book of World Records. With the release of Firefox 3, the browser now officially holds the record for the greatest number of downloads in a twenty-four hour period. On June 18, 2008, 8,002,530 people downloaded Firefox 3, according to the official website. The website counter says there has been 29,113,166 downloads of the browser since launch.

Like Comcast, Time Warner Cable is migrating to switched digital video (SDV) in order to conserve bandwidth on their network. Unfortunately for customers in Kansas City, the company is upgrading to SDV before the technology has been modified to work properly with CableCARDs, so users of third party set-tops (like TiVo) are being told to downgrade to Time Warner Cable boxes.

Telephony Online asks the simple but highly contentious question: how much bandwidth does the American home really need? The question was raised again recently when Comcast and Verizon began offering 50Mbps tiers in some markets. For an individual user those speeds may seem excessive, but for an entire home it's quickly going to become commonplace.

I'm generally amused when a broadband provider employs low caps in the age of FiOS and HD web delivery, but I'm far more entertained when their marketing departments try and convince customers how reasonable those caps are. For instance when Rogers recently began charging overages, they sent out an e-mail informing customers, with pictures, that their new caps allowed 6,291,456 e-mails and 1,572,864 page views.

It appears that Comcast is expanding their tests of switched digital video (SDV) in two additional markets -- Minneapolis and St. Paul. SDV frees up bandwidth on cable systems by holding unwatched channels at the edge router, instead of transmitting all channels, regardless of whether they're in use, to your set-top box. Comcast is already using Cisco for a SDV trial in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and has tagged Motorola for a trial in the Denver area. In February, Comcast execs claimed they'd introduce SDV in about 15 percent of their markets by the end of 2008.

A new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project highlights that while broadband adoption still saw a healthy growth of 17% over the last year, adoption stalled or was minimal among the poor and African Americans. The report also explores in more detail why many Americans remain on dial-up.

• Mediacom, Qwest offering faster speeds [desmoinesregister.com]
• Virgin defends file-sharing campaign [BBC.co.uk]
• Charter Launches High-Speed Internet in Michigan [TradingMarkets.com]
• FCC chief Martin: The nation's indecency czar [Philly.com]
• Will tiered system slam 'YouTube generation'? [daytondailynews.com]
• Japanese ISPs Decide That Criminal Confessions Should Be Blocked Online [TheInquirer.et]
• Nokia settles 3G patent dispute [PCPro.co.uk]
• Google wins source code ruling against Viacom [Yahoo.com]