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AT&T plans to layoff 12,000 workers (about 4 percent of its total staff), perhaps spurred by continuing landline defections. The layoffs will begin almost immediately and will continue throughout 2009.

Adding yet another item to the growing list of suggested "economic incentives" to ease the current financial crisis, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) has asked Congress to include broadband deployment incentives, arguing the payback could be in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

Verizon landed a massive $1.1 billion worth of new contracts under the General Service Administration's (GSA) Networx Universal MegaContract, believed to be the largest awards to a single company to date.

Sens Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska), John Tester (D-MT), Max Baucus (D-MT), Christopher Bond (R-MO), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Norm Coleman (R-MN), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Thad Cochran (R-MS) have written the Federal Communications Commission asking the FCC to rethink its timeframe regarding next week's vote on a proposed order for intercarrier compensation and Universal Service Fund (USF) reform.

Telework Exchange, a public/private partnership focused on telework in government, says its "Out of the Office: Federal Mobile Workforce Trends" study reveals 82 percent of polled feds telecommute some time each month, and 29 percent spend more time working outside of the office today than they did a year ago.

In light of the Federal Communications Commission's recent proposal to auction 25 megahertz of spectrum on condition it be used for a free national wireless network offering filtered content run by a single provider, Institute for Policy Innovation, a think tank, believes this could turn into "a government-fashioned, government-favored firm in the tradition of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

Everyone's favorite telecom consultant Scott Cleland, president of Precursor LLC, is warning the telecom industry of "the dangers and unintended consequences of a more government- centric broadband policy." He's spotlighting what he calls "glaring flaws" in three pillar broadband assumptions that bias the broadband debate away from America's free-market success and toward the OECD's industrial policy orthodoxy.

Even in this time of high gas prices and a perceived emphasis on telecommuting, a new survey says a majority of office workers fear working at home can hurt their career prospects.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) has ramped up its lobbying efforts on the Hill, calling on House and Senate leaders to support legislation aimed at developing a national broadband policy.

The Federal Communications Commission, following years of criticism and threats of Congressional action, yesterday finally issued an order scrapping its previous definition of "broadband" as any service delivering of at least 200 Kb/s.