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A an industry group made of dozens of high-profile technology companies including Apple, Microsoft and Nokia, announced "significant progress" on its recommendations on how the Internet should be regulated.

It will be interesting to see in what ways how the recommendations from the Information Technology Industry Council will differ from the "policy framework" put forth by Verizon and Google last month that reaffirmed basic principles of an indiscriminate wireline Internet but made an exception for wireless.

The Federal Communications Commission, the agency that regulates interstate and international communications including wireless and wireline Internet, has pushed its next public meeting from Sept. 16 to Sept. 23, citing "scheduling issues."

The September agenda is not available yet, but it's possible that the FCC might rule at the meeting to reclassify Internet communications under Title II "common carrier" regulations, which would give the FCC more authority to regulate free access and could mean stricter enforcement of net neutrality than would be allowed under alternative proposals such as the one Google and Verizon unveiled this week.

The U.S. government is finally catching on to the growing trend that - surprise, surprise - people like to use their mobile devices to access the Internet. The only problem is, of course that America's mobile infrastructure is years behind that of other regions around the world, while rapid device innovation is quickly crowding the available spectrum. Today, President Barack Obama issued a presidential memorandum aimed at addressing this issue - making more spectrum available for government and commercial use.

According to a new survey commissioned by the Federal Communications Commission, 80% of Internet users in the U.S. don't know the advertised speed of their home Internet connections (PDF). A quarter of respondents thought that they were always getting the advertised speed their ISPs promised them, even though they did now know what speeds to expect.

In order to get reliable statistics about the actual speeds that consumers are getting from the ISPs, the FCC announced a new initiative today that will place broadband speed measurement devices in the homes of 10,000 volunteers.

In its 14th annual report to the United States Congress on wireless competition, the Federal Communications Commission said that far from diversifying, the sector is actually concentrating in fewer hands.

Covering a period including 2008 and into 2009, the report, issued today, found that this concentration had increased 32 percent since 2003 and 6.5 percent in 2008, indicating a significant decrease in competition. Less competition usually means fewer choices and higher prices for both individual and enterprise consumers.

Two important legal decisions were made this week that could have significant impact on technology startups.

On Tuesday, a U.S. Federal Appeals Court determined that the FCC had overstepped its regulatory authority in demanding that Comcast cease its "throttling" of peer-to-peer service users. And on Wednesday, the U.K. House of Commons approved the "Digital Economy Bill", which grants sweeping regulatory power to the British government, including the ability to block websites and punish consumers and companies who are found to violate copyright law.

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission built upon its growing new media prowess with the launch of its own iPhone and Android applications.

The FCC's new apps allow users to test the speed of mobile broadband services and report deadzones where mobile broadband is not available. The FCC iPhone app is a free download from iTunes or the Android marketplace.

Last week, we were at the mHealth initiative conference in Washington D.C. The keynotes were all about the impact mobile health applications are having in shaping the future of the health care system. Nothing demonstrates that more than the iPhone. In the 18 months since it was released, it has been perhaps the biggest thing to happen to health care electronic records, which has seen billions of dollars worth of investment in past decades.

Mobile and wireless health applications directly impact the individual's health and have the promise of ensuring that when a patient leaves a doctor visit, they don't become "lost" in the system. It allows consumers to be engaged with health and wellness in their daily lives and connect back to their health care provider.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating the privacy and security implications of cloud computing.

That could be quite an inquiry as the debate is still open about how to actually define cloud computing in the first place.

Ever since AT&T filed a letter with the FCC about Google Voice's refusal to connect to certain areas, the two companies have been in a heated public battle. On the one side, AT&T takes the stance that as a carrier, Google is required to offer open access to all numbers. Nevertheless, in today's blog rebuttal, Google asserts, "Google Voice is a free web application, one intended to supplement and enhance existing phone lines, not replace them."