ReadWriteWeb

Google and Verizon held a press call today announcing a joint legislative framework proposal: internet network transparency and FCC enforcement with up to $2 million fines for network providers that engage in anti-competitive measures that hurt consumers. This is the exact opposite of what reports last week speculated the companies were working on. (Note: broadband specialists and other press are very skeptical, see below.)

Under the proposal, the General Accounting Office would report yearly to congress about how well it all is working. Verizon said the company was concerned that too many rules up front could infringe on its ability to optimize the network for performance, but that some rules are clearly needed and transparency is important. "There will be no prioritization of traffic from Google over the internet, period," Verizon's CEO Ivan Seidenberg said today. "No paid prioritization of traffic over the public internet."

A study from wireless billing vendor Validas has revealed that Verizon Wireless smartphone owners are now exceeding the data usage of iPhone owners, who are currently restricted to AT&T. According to the study, average data consumption on Verizon smartphones is 421 MB as opposed to 338 MB on the iPhone. Out of all the vendors, Verizon Wireless has seen the largest data usage increase over the past year, jumping from 33.4% to 42.9%.

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.

Have you ever tried to plan a get-together with a group of friends only to find yourself texting and calling individual people in a frantic maze of communication? Thankfully there are now web apps that make the process of event planning easier, but what about those times when you need a quick decision and some people aren't by their computers? Verizon hopes to solve this dilemma by offering subscribers the opportunity to sign up for their new Group Communication service.

Excited Sprint customers have been awaiting today's release of the HTC Evo 4G - the first phone to take advantage of Sprint's high-speed 4G network. Before you run out and drop some cash on an Evo, you may want to take a look at a study released today by mobile phone resource Phone Scoop which uncovered some surprising findings.

Phone Scoop found that Sprint's 4G network is currently slightly slower than T-Mobile's HSPA+ (High-Speed Packet Access) network - an upgraded form of 3G. After testing each service in Philadelphia (where both networks are currently available), the study determined that T-Mobile's network has a small edge in download speeds, and a large advantage in upload speeds.

You know that a trend is ramping up when big companies begin to namecheck it. It's happening now with the Internet of Things, a term for when real-world objects connect to the Internet. Senior executives from two major U.S. broadband and telecommunications companies - Verizon and AT&T - plus the CTO of the world's biggest network systems provider Cisco, have recently discussed the Internet of Things.

As part of a patriotic statement about how the U.S. leads the world in Internet innovation, Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg said today that the "'Internet of Things' will infuse intelligence into all our systems and present us with a whole new way to run a home, an enterprise, a community or an economy."

Verizon Wireless prepares to take on the big names in mobile application stores, including Apple and Google, with the launch of its own carrier-specific "Vcast App Store" next week. Here, customers will be able to purchase mobile apps and pay for them on their monthly wireless bill. The store's launch was announced at the recent CTIA conference, where Verizon disclosed the launch date (March 29) and revealed other details about the store's planned operation. Most notably, the new VCast store has a revenue model that mimics that of Apple's iTunes. Application developers partnering with Verizon keep 70% of the revenue generated from app sales, while Verizon keeps the remaining 30% for itself.

Skype has announced today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that it has joined with Verizon Wireless and will be availble on a number of the company's phones.

The partnership brings Skype to both Blackberry and Android platforms on Verizon Wireless phones, which will be shipped beginning in March with Skype pre-installed. Skype over 3G will allow international call at rates unavailable over traditional wireless carriers.

According to 4chan's Twitter account and status update blog, they have been "explicitly blocked" by the Verizon wireless network.

If you're unfamiliar with 4chan and why an ISP/wireless company would block it, read more about it on Wikipedia. The high-traffic image board of mostly anonymous users was created by Christopher Poole in 2003 and has been the subject of a fair amount of negative media and legal attention over the past six years. But why would Verizon choose to block the site now? Does this put Verizon on par with foreign ISPs that block torrent sites and social networks? Or is there more to the story?

If you ever thought startup life would be about champagne toasts and million dollar term sheets then you need to get back in your time machine and set the dial for the nineties. If there's one thing we learned in the latter half of this decade, it's discipline. To say that it was a tough year, would be an understatement. But those of us who stayed lean will be back for 2010. While the below concepts weren't invented this year, they certainly hit their stride in 2009.