An appellate court on Tuesday handed a major victory to the FCC by upholding the Open Internet Order, which ensures equal access to the Internet. By a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the FCC's right to impose Net neutrality rules that essentially prevent big telecom and broadband companies from slowing down, speeding up, or blocking service.

The water- and shatter-resistant Samsung Galaxy S7 Active on Friday became available exclusively from AT&T. Consumers who have eligible service can get the Galaxy S7 Active for $26.50 monthly for 30 months on AT&T Next, or $33.13 monthly for 24 months on AT&T Next Every Year. With a new two-year wireless agreement, customers who opt for AT&T Next also can get a free Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch.

After two years of declining customer satisfaction, the telecommunications sector has halted the slide, according to the ACSI Telecommunications Report 2016, released Wednesday. There was a 1.9 percent gain -- to 70.1 on a 100-point scale -- in satisfaction with pay TV services, Internet service providers, fixed-line telephone services, wireless phone services and mobile phone makers.

A coalition of technology companies and advocacy groups earlier this week wrote to the Federal Communications Commission, urging it to open a public investigation into zero-rating practices, in which mobile providers allow some video or music providers to be excluded from data caps. The group called on the FCC to examine the zero-rating practices to determine whether they harm competition.

AT&T on Monday announced that it has agreed to buy Quickplay Media, which will serve as the backbone for DirecTV's upcoming multiplatform streaming video services. Quickplay, which supports AT&T's U-Verse TV Everywhere service, will support DirecTV Now, DirecTV Mobile and DirecTV Preview. The services will allow DirecTV content to be viewed on mobile phones, smart TVs, PCs and tablets.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission on Monday announced a joint investigation into the issue of mobile device security updates. The FTC issued an order requiring Apple, BlackBerry, Google, HTC America, LG Electronics USA, Microsoft, Motorola Mobility and Samsung Electronics America to provide information about how they issue security updates.

An army of 39,000 workers this week went on strike against Verizon in one of the biggest labor actions in the U.S. in several years. Fast food workers have joined in a show of support, and both Democratic candidates for president have entered the fray. Thousands of wireline workers from Massachusetts to Virginia walked off the job at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Verizon reportedly is planning to make a formal first-round bid for the core assets of Yahoo when the company begins fielding offers on Monday. Verizon, whose CEO last month confirmed his company's interest, is working with executives of its AOL subsidiary and three financial advisors to put together a bid by the April 11 deadline, according to the report.

The Federal Communications Commission on Monday announced a plan to create label disclosures that would give consumers a clear picture of the pricing, speed and bandwidth they are paying for under high-speed Internet contracts. The FCC's Consumer Advisory Committee proposed the nutrition-like labels amid concerns that providers were not transparent enough.

FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly on Tuesday suggested the government should investigate Netflix's practice of throttling video content delivery to customers using mobile devices. However, Netflix's video throttling was not a violation of the FCC's Net neutrality rules, O'Rielly also said. Netflix last week announced plans to offer a data saver feature for mobile apps beginning in May.

Google has been in talks with telecom service providers in India to bring its Project Loon to the subcontinent, Rajan Anandan, Google's managing director for Southeast Asia and India, said in an interview published Monday. The project would deliver Internet access via balloons floating thousands of feet in the air. It is Google's latest effort to bring Internet access to remote parts of Asia.

Your world is about to change. 5G is coming. Whether you are a wireless carrier, a handset maker, an app developer, a mobile TV provider, a worker, investor or consumer, your world is about to undergo a major transformation. AT&T recently announced plans to start testing 5G technology this year. Wireless data transmissions could be 10 to 100 times faster over 5G than on current 4G networks.

AT&T on Friday announced plans to start testing 5G technology, with a possible limited commercial rollout before the end of 2016. 5G offers the promise of besting the speeds of today's fastest wireless networks by a factor of 10 to 100, through the use of millimeter waves, network function virtualization, and software-defined networking. AT&T is collaborating with Ericsson and Intel on the effort.

T-Mobile's 700-MHz rollout has given its mobile users some of the fastest data speeds in the U.S. market, according to a report OpenSignal released Tuesday. OpenSignal crowdsources data on carrier signal quality from users who have its consumer mobile application installed. T-Mobile has the fastest 4G LTE download speeds in the country, overtaking Verizon by a slight edge.

T-Mobile's Binge On streaming video service violates Net neutrality rules, according to a report authored by Barbara van Schewick, director of The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. Among the reasons the Binge On service may be problematic: It doesn't offer unlimited video streaming, raising transparency concerns; and it gives participants a competitive advantage.

Sprint plans to lay off about 2,500 employees, including five vice presidents, according to news reports this week. About 2,000 of the cuts are in customer service. The company reportedly will close or reduce operations at six customer care centers: at its Overland Park headquarters in Kansas and in Colorado, New Mexico, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

AT&T on Tuesday began offering unlimited mobile data to its pay TV customers. New or existing DirecTV and U-Verse TV subscribers can get unlimited talk, text and data for $100 per month. AT&T will charge $40 for two additional phones, and a fourth phone will be free. Subscribers can add smartwatches and certain connected devices to their unlimited plans for $10 per device.

John Legere, T-Mobile's loquacious CEO, has apologized to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for what he described as a "color commentary" that drew sharp criticism. "I am a vocal, animated and sometimes foul mouthed CEO," Legere wrote in a blog post. "I don't filter myself and you know that no one at T-Mobile filters me either." Legere offered a mea culpa for "offending EFF and its supporters."

T-Mobile last week introduced its latest promotion aimed at attracting subscribers from rival mobile phone carriers: 12 months of Hulu streaming service for Verizon customers who switch to T-Mobile. In addition to a year's worth of Hulu service, T-Mobile will give Verizon customers who switch up to $125 off in-store accessories such as smartwatches, speakers, fitness trackers and headphones.

T-Mobile on Wednesday announced Binge On, a plan that lets qualified customers Netflix and chill as much as they want. It's the type of move meant to shake up the wireless industry and to cultivate more T-Mobile loyalists. Beginning this Sunday, certain customers can consume streaming content from several popular services without having it count against their data plans.

Karma Mobility last week unveiled Neverstop, an all-you-can-eat data plan for its mobile hotspot. There are no data caps, and the service, which runs on Sprint's 4G LTE network, is available in more than U.S. 450 cities. For $50 a month, customers get unlimited data minutes at speeds of up to 5 Mbps for both downloads and uploads. When LTE isn't available, the hotspot runs at CDMA speeds.

Nokia will test Artemis Networks' pCell technology, which promises speed boosts in bounds for wireless broadband without requiring new handsets, the companies announced Monday. Nokia plans to work with wireless carriers to test the technology in the U.S. and other countries starting in 2016. It has entered into a memorandum of understanding on pCell tech with Rearden, parent company of Artemis.

Rumors that T-Mobile plans to introduce an unlimited data plan for streaming video services circulated Thursday following a Twitter post from journalist Evan Blass, who tweets under the handle @evleaks. The company would allow unlimited high-speed data to be used to watch select streaming from services such as Netflix and HBO under its "Uncarrier 10" campaign, he suggested.

Project Loon, part of Google's parent company, Alphabet, on Wednesday announced that it has signed agreements with three mobile network operators in Indonesia -- Indosat, Telkomse, and XL Axiata -- to begin tests of its balloon-powered Internet service in 2016. Only about one in three of Indonesia's 250 million residents is connected to the Internet, according to Project Loon.

The European Parliament on Tuesday passed Net neutrality legislation to a chorus of boos from Net neutrality proponents. The European Union has found consensus on the common principles of Net neutrality -- no blocking, no throttling and no prepaid prioritization -- said Commissioner Günther H. Oettinger. However, the rules have three major loopholes, Net neutrality supporters said.

Verizon has announced it will begin sharing customer data with its AOL Advertising Network, triggering concerns about privacy and customer tracking. AOL will use Verizon's supercookie -- which is difficult to get rid of -- to track users. "This is a huge privacy problem, but carriers have never really cared that much about customer satisfaction," said tech analyst Rob Enderle.

Instead of bidding for the low-band spectrum that will be on offer, Sprint -- which is running neck-and-neck with T-Mobile, the self-styled "Un-Carrier" -- will focus on improving its network. It could be the last low-band auction the industry sees for decades, T-Mobile CEO John Legere said this summer. Up for grabs at the next auction are 600-MHz bands.

Putting this burning issue on the front page is great. Everyone should know the problems caused by wireless data thieves. The reason is simple. Data hogs are threatening to spoil things for everyone. Yes, that means for you and your business. Data hogs threaten T-Mobile's growth because they spoil things for regular wireless data users. This is also a larger problem for the entire industry.

Verizon is accelerating its efforts to boost wireless connections to 50 times faster than current offerings. The company has begun putting the components in place to enable it to begin field testing a new, speedier wireless technology, known as "5G," next year. "5G is no longer a dream of the distant future," said Roger Gurnani, chief information and technology architect for Verizon.

Sprint last week announced it was celebrating the AT&T/DirecTV merger by extending a truly valuable offer to DirecTV customers. "The Sprint network is winning awards across the country for reliability and speed, and our customers have never been more satisfied," crowed Sprint spokesperson Kristin Wallace. "We are simply giving DirecTV customers a compelling reason to experience Sprint."