TechCrunch predicts a matter of time before Google becomes a wireless carrier. But is Google prepared to raise their capital expenditures 20-fold and employee headcount 10-fold? Are they prepared to halve their profit margin and stock valuations to get into the carrier business?

Goldstein reports that Verizon Wireless CEO Ivan Seidenberg has stated that data plan rates for Verizon’s new LTE 4G mobile data service have not been decided. Seidenberg has stated that, “…the company’s higher-end data plan could serve as a template for the offerings.”

Senators Snowe and Warner have introduced a bill to the Senate that will place Wi-Fi and femtocell access points in government buildings.

In yet another case of a made up conspiracy, OpenDNS founder David Ulevitch is misleading the public about Verizon Wireless supposedly blocking OpenDNS servers. I personally tested this accusation and verified that the Verizon Wireless network does not block OpenDNS.

Kim Hart reports that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is pushing ahead with his Net Neutrality plans next monthand might even cover wireless networks. This is despite a majority of congress objecting and a court with a long history of enforcing the “congressional tether” with an iron fist. This is despite a competitive wireless market with special requirements unique to wireless networks.

In what may be the final round of comments in the Federal Communications Commission’s Net Neutrality inquiry, I offered some closing thoughts, including: Does the U.S. really rank 15th — or even 26th — in the world in broadband? No. The U.S. generates and consumes substantially more IP traffic per Internet user and per capita than [...]

Sophos security’s Chester Wisniewski offered a “solution” for securing Hotspots, but it isn’t secure because it uses WPA-PSK. Anyone can sniff the initial connection and derive the unique session key which makes the solution insecure. I proposed a more secure solution for a secure anonymous hotspot back in 2007.

Microsoft technically “fixed” their sidejacking vulnerability by giving Hotmail users the option of manually enabling SSL. The problem is that most users won’t know to do this and even if they do, they’ll be forced to break Outlook Connector, Live Mail, and Windows Mobile Hotmail connectivity.

BlackSheep is a very clever tool for detecting amateur Wi-Fi hackers using FireSheep, but it won’t find serious Wi-Fi hackers and it distracts from the underlying problem of weak online security and nonexistent Wi-Fi Hotspot security.

I asked Microsoft for a response to their failing score on my “Online services security report card” for their Hotmail service and got the response that Hotmail customers were hoping to hear. Microsoft will fix the problem and enable full-time SSL browsing for Hotmail this month.