While Comcast lobbyists tried their best to slow the encroachment of Verizon FiOS into their hometown of Philadelphia, the Philly city council authorized a citywide franchise back in February (you can read the agreement here (pdf) if you're into that kind of thing). As per the deal, Verizon has around seven years to wire the whole city, though these agreements (as with NYC and DC) often have loopholes that let Verizon extend deadlines or wiggle out of obligations should certain adoption numbers not be met. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, service this week went live in Chestnut Hill, South Philadelphia and North Philadelphia, near Girard College. Additional neighborhoods should come online this year, but Verizon isn't saying which ones. Verizon does keep a PA construction notice (pdf) on their website, but it's quite often outdated.

The country of Finland recently declared they were making broadband a legal right, requiring that all 5.3 million of the country's residents be served by 1 Mbps service by next summer, and 100 Mbps service by 2015. That's a little easier to do in a country like Finland, which has just 5.3 million residents to our 300+ million, and doesn't have to deal with things like, well, Montana.

The FCC has long been an agency that has played fast and loose when it comes to using science and data to fuel its policy decisions. The agency for most of broadband's life cycle has been using outdated data, or inadequate data provided by industry lobbyists designed to make things look pretty and keep government out of their hair. With a new FCC and new boss Julius Genachowski, the agency has promised to be data driven. Yet Bruce Kushnick over at Harvard's Neiman Watchdog claims that in policy discussions, the agency's still using inadequate or old data -- sometimes more than a decade old -- to shape broadband and wireless policy.

Telecompetitor directs our attention to a study by ABI Research that indicates that femtocell shipments this year have been well, less than impressive. The technology, which creates essentially a micro-cell tower in the home, helps with coverage issues by allowing users to make calls over their home broadband connection.

According to a statement by the USDA's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Uncle Sam will be consolidating the two remaining broadband stimulus funding rounds into one. According to the government, they're merging the funding rounds "to increase efficiency and better accommodate applicants." The government also issued a fifteen-day RFI requesting feedback from bidders aimed at improving the application process. So far, about 2,200 different companies and organizations have put in bids for the $7.2 billion in available funding, making two additional funding rounds a little silly for the volume of demand, versus the limited funding available.

Consumer Group Free Press takes a few shots at Verizon's inconsistent positions on rural broadband, noting that while the baby bell continually claims to support getting broadband into the nation's rural nooks and crannies, their actions of late say the complete opposite. Forget FiOS -- the new Verizon is uninterested in delivering even DSL or phone service to most rural markets, which is why they're continually selling off these markets in tricky tax loophole leaping deals that usually wind up badly for the consumer and the sold markets:Verizon's justification of course is that rural America is costly to wire.

Late on Friday, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced seven new state recipients of broadband mapping and improvement funds. As with the last round of funding, the awards were most notable for who wasn't among them: Connected Nation. Criticized by some as essentially a bell-funded lobbying vehicle dressed up as a broadband mapping organization, Connected Nation again missed out on broadband mapping funds in Alabama, Washington, Wyoming, Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin. Those interested can track the funding by state via this map and grant database.

Back in January, bankrupt Charter Communications launched faster DOCSIS 60Mbps/5Mbps service, but only in St. Louis. Given Charter's bankruptcy (which they should be emerging from in a few weeks), it's not too surprising that the year was devoid of any additional launches -- until now. According to Charter, they're now launching the faster service in Victorville, California for $139.99 standalone, or $129.99 when bundled with an additional service. Not too surprisingly -- Charter sees competition from Verizon FiOS in Victorville, and is trying (albeit feebly with the cash on hand) to upgrade FiOS markets first.

As we explored last week in detail, Verizon appears to be pausing in their FiOS deployment in order to recoup some of the money in markets they've already deployed the service. One of the cities impacted by that pause is Boston, which is wondering where FiOS is given Verizon's struck citywide franchise deals with Philadelphia, New York, and Washington DC.

According to Australia's Computer World, the FCC's Susan Crawford has been meeting with Australia's phone industry lobbyists to closer examine that country's plan to build a national fiber network. Back in April, Australia announced plans to build a A$43 billion ($31 billion) network under the banner of a new private/public company -- with the government selling their stake after five years. Such a plan would obviously be considerably more expensive here in the States, and would face relentless opposition from the biggest carriers. Hopefully the FCC won't be following Australia's expensive and likely futile effort to clean the Internet of all its naughty bits. The FCC's broadband plan is scheduled to drop in 111 days.

Time Warner Cable launched faster $99 50/5 Mbps service in New York City late last month, though only in limited portions of the city. This limited footprint has proven to be a little confusing, as we've seen several customers complain that even Time Warner Cable isn't entirely sure which portions of the city have been upgraded yet.

The unions employees who warned regulators that Fairpoint wasn't equipped to handle the acquisition of Verizon's New England DSL and landline networks last year are rightfully saying "we told you so." As Fairpoint teeters toward possible bankruptcy, union officials tell Vermont locals that they can thank Verizon for all the fun everyone's having. Instead of simply selling to the highest bidder, Verizon used a Reverse Morris Trust to incur huge tax savings while dumping a huge debt load on Fairpoint.

The first round of NTIA grants doled out to states to map U.S. broadband were notable more for who wasn't chosen than who was.

Insiders tell the Boy Genius Report the company is gearing up for something called "Project Dark." What is it? According to the sources, it's a rapid expansion of the company's HSDPA network with speeds up to 21 Mbps (those speeds are already live in Philly), that's going to accompany the launch of the BlackBerry 9700 and a handful of Android-based devices. More interesting perhaps? T-Mobile's cooking up a new $50 unlimited voice, SMS/MMS and data for $50 a month aimed primarily at leeching customers from the growing number of no-contract operators. Of course unlimited never really means unlimited in T-Mobile parlance (they use a 10 GB cap), but if true, that would be a price that's hard to beat.

For years we've explored how many consumers are anywhere from a few miles to a few feet away from getting cable broadband service. Our forums are filled with tales from users who say getting their carrier to extend service that extra distance can be painfully expensive -- as in $25,000 for just a few hundred feet. The Cleveland Daily Banner (via Stop The Cap) explores how five relatively affluent development dwellers in Tennessee (including a former State Senator) are trying to get Charter to run coaxial cable an extra few miles to their development. Bankrupt Charter says the 36-48 months needed to see a return on the necessary $130,000 investment isn't a deal they'd do, but they are willing to run the cable if each person in the 55 home development is willing to pay $1,850.

The NTIA today announced that the agency has awarded the first four grants under NTIA's State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program to fund broadband mapping efforts in California, Indiana, North Carolina, and Vermont. According to an agency statement, The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) was awarded $1.8 million; the Indiana Office of Technology (IOT) was awarded $1.3 million; the Rural Economic Development Center, Inc. (e-NC Authority) was awarded $1.6 million; and the Vermont Center for Geographic Information (VCGI) was awarded $1.2 million. According to the NTIA, the four recipients submitted "well-formed proposals that are both fiscally prudent and serve as a model for others."

With 141 days left until the FCC is scheduled to unveil their national broadband plan before Congress, the agency today issued a statement and a 168 page slide show examining what they've accomplished at the halfway point. According to the FCC, they've conducted 26 workshops and hearings, where 230 different witnesses testified.

If you've paid attention, you know the modern "network neutrality" debate took off in 2005, when then AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre proudly, though dumbly, proclaimed that Google got a "free ride" on his network. According to Ed, this unfairness could only be rectified by charging companies who already pay for bandwidth money to ensure their traffic reaches AT&T consumers quickly.

We've seen countless wireless tower or hotspot deployments delayed by people who believe they're allergic to wireless transmissions, but we've never seen rural customers relegated to dial-up in order to protect garlic. The Chronicle Herald reports a farmer in Nova Scotia has managed to delay the deployment of a local wireless broadband tower because he's afraid that the tower's transmissions will harm or otherwise mutate his garlic. "Back in the ’70s I argued till I was blue with agricultural officials that chemical pesticides and fungicides and fertilizers were not healthy and I sort of feel I’m having the same argument all over again about radiation," the farmer tells the paper.

Chicago-area residents have been teased by Sprint and Clearwire since the companies gave a sneak peak of their Mobile WiMax technology back in 2007, giving boat-riding journalists an early look via temporary downtown tower array. Sprint subsequently promised a Chicago launch in 2008, but despite an unofficially lit network, it never became fully commercially available -- until now.