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Lots of memories of my computing past flooding through me this morning, and no, this won't be another Jobs tribute. But a post yesterday talking about whether you were using the Internet back in 1995 brought me back to that era, and I thought it would be a good time to show how much progress we have made in the 16-some years and what businesses were doing with the Internet back then.

The then-newly installed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, said in October 2009, "We are fast entering a world where mass-market mobile devices consume thousands of megabytes each month. So we must ask: What happens when every mobile user has an iPhone, a Palm Pre, a BlackBerry Tour or whatever the next device is? What happens when we quadruple the number of subscribers with mobile broadband on their laptops or netbooks? The short answer: We will need a lot more spectrum."

Yesterday, a systematic and mathematical analysis of U.S. spectrum allocation blatantly called Genachowski's statement to the 2009 CTIA Wireless conference flat wrong.

Wireless consultant Chetan Sharma has just released an updated report on U.S. mobile data for the last quarter of 2010, and it points to the growth in the wireless market, in mobile penetration and in data usage. According to Sharma, the U.S. wireless data market grew 5% from the third quarter of 2010 and was up 23% from 2009 For the entire year, revenues were $55 billion, a figure that Sharma predicts will increase to $67 billion by the end of 2011.

As Sharma observes, the mobile market crossed a number of important thresholds in the last quarter of 2010. Mobile subscriptions crossed the 100% penetration mark, for example. And smartphone shipments exceeded PC shipments for the first time.

Coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq have a major communications issue: military, security contractor and non-government organizations frequently need to communicate with each other during combat and other operations. But communications technology compatibility issues often prohibit them from doing so effectively.

DARPA contracted Ratheon in 2009 to build the "Mobile to Ad-Hoc Interoperable Network GATEway" (MAINGATE), a mobile network that both military and civilian organizations can use to communicate using any radio or wireless device. The agency announced last month that the system has now been tested for video, voice and data by both high- and low-bandwidth users.

We all know the problems inherent in passwords. Make your password requirements too simple, and passwords can be too easily cracked. Make them too difficult, and users will write their passwords down next to their computers. Not to mention users using the same password for everything. PowerCloud, a startup spun-off of Xerox's noted Palo Alto Research Center, is pushing what it calls "usable security" - an approach to making reality converge with security. Its first project is a partnership with D-Link to improve wireless networking security.

Few consumer technologies are as encumbered by arcane acronyms as modern cell phones. Right now, the buzzword in the mobile industry is 4G. The problem, though, is that none of the current networks actually fulfill the International Telecommunication Union's requirements for being called 4G.

The technologies that are currently in the market and being labeled as 4G are LTE and WiMAX. These represent such a major generational shift from today's 3G networks that it is obvious why marketing departments prefer the 4G moniker, even though the official standard bodies don't consider them to be official 4G technologies.

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.

One out of four households in the U.S. is now wireless-only. According to the latest statistics from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of wireless-only households continues to move up slowly. In the first half of 2009, 22.7% of all households had cut their landline and today this number is closer to 25%. In addition, it is also worth noting that about 15% of households that still have a landline report that they now receive almost all of their calls on their wireless phone.

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.

It is easier to seek forgiveness than it is to get permission according to Verizon, which has once again shown us what large corporations should not be doing when it comes to customer service.

David Weinberger, co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and the more recent Everything is Miscellaneous received a letter today from Verizon. A "legalistic pamphlet" that informed him he has 45 days to opt out of 'agreeing' to let Verizon share his personal information.