Truth be told, however, chances are most of you will end up surrendering your unlimited plans the next time you pick up a new Verizon smartphone. Unless you have at least $400 handy to spend on a new phone, that is.

Verizon Said What?

On Thursday, Fierce Wireless reported that Verizon CFO Fran Shammo told the audience at an investor conference that Verizon was getting rid of its unlimited plan for 3G users. “A lot of our 3G base is unlimited,” Shammo said, according to Fierce Wireless. “As they start to migrate into 4G, they will have to come off of unlimited and go into the data share plan.”

Then Verizon Said…

It appears that Shammo may have been offering a prediction rather than a corporate policy. Unlimited data users will have to give up an unlimited data plan only if they purchase a subsidized phone when renewing a two-year contract. In other words, if later this year you go into Verizon to upgrade to the latest iPhone and buy the phone for $200, you can kiss your unlimited data plan goodbye.

But if you shelled out the non-subsidized price for the device, about $650 for a 16GB iPhone 4S from Verizon, you keep your unlimited plan.

What about 3G vs. 4G Phones?

Raney says it doesn’t matter what kind of phone you get. If you pay full price for your handset you can keep your unlimited plan, even if you get an LTE phone such as the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx.

When Does Verizon’s Policy Take Effect?

Unlimited data users who are eligible for an upgrade right now should run to their closest Verizon store to get a new phone at the subsidized price. Once the carrier introduces its multi-device shared data plans, expected midsummer, the new policy of paying full price for a phone to keep your unlimited data plan will take effect.

Verizon’s tiered data plans include 2GB, 5GB, and 10GB monthly allowances for $30, $50, and $80 respectively. Pricing for the carrier’s multi-device data share plans has not been announced.

Connect with Ian Paul (@ianpaul) on Twitter and Google+, and with Today@PCWorld on Twitter for the latest tech news and analysis.

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The company will run two trials in several markets, and both will bump the cap to at least 300 GB for all users. In one test, subscribers to higher-speed Internet will get more data, and in the other, everyone will get 300 GB. Users who exceed their limit in either trial will have to pay an overage charge — possibly $10 per 50 GB.

This is good news and bad news. Streaming video services such as Netflix and YouTube gobble up an increasing amount of data, and although most Internet subscribers consume nowhere near 250 GB per month, Comcast is at least acknowledging that it must offer more data for subscribers who do.

Still, Comcast’s increased data allotment feels like a distraction from the main policy change, which swaps hard data limits for overage charges. In the past, Comcast cut off users who exceeded their limit twice in a six-month span. In Comcast’s trials, subscribers who use too much data will simply pay extra, just as you do for exceeding the limit on a smartphone data plan.

Hidden Costs

I think overage fees are better than yanking your account, but if Comcast really wanted to take a consumer-friendly approach, the company would just throttle users who go over their limit, or at least give them that option. Instead, Comcast wants to turn heavy data users into a revenue opportunity. It’s not ideal, but it’s understandable from a business angle.

The real trouble comes with Comcast’s approach to net neutrality. The company landed in hot water with neutrality advocates last month when it announced that its Xfinity app for the Xbox 360 wouldn’t count against users’ data caps. In essence, users who watch lots of streaming video through other services, such as Netflix, risk hitting the cap and paying an overage fee, while users who stick with Xfinity can stream as much as they want, worry-free.

The writing’s on the wall: If you’re going to cut the cable cord, Comcast has a plan to get its money back. As with AT&T’s switch to data caps for home broadband, precedent is the issue. You may not use 300 GB at the moment, but streaming video is going to get bigger, inevitably at the expense of cable TV. Service providers are planting the seeds of protection now.

Incidentally, Comcast will offer unlimited data for users outside of its trial markets, while the company tests the new 300 GB plans. Enjoy it while it lasts.

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The deal is available in stores only, but shoppers can check local availability at Best Buy’s Website. Best Buy is only offering a discount on the 8 GB iPhone 4, in both black and white on AT&T, Sprint and Verizon Wireless.

Other third-party retailers have also slashed prices on iPhones in recent weeks. Target and Radio Shack both took $50 off the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S, and like Best Buy, both retailers only offered those deals in stores. Of course, all sale prices require a two-year contract.

It’s tempting to read into the sales as a sign of a new iPhone to come, but keep in mind that third-party retailers have offered these types of in-store deals around this time of year before. Last June, Walmart dropped the iPhone 4’s price by $50 for over three weeks. The following August, Radio Shack cut iPhone 4 prices by $30. Apple didn’t launch the iPhone 4S until October.

Apple may launch its next iPhone in October as well–at least according to rumors and analyst speculation. The latest iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S in-store sales are, in all likelihood, exactly what they seem to be: good deals and nothing more.

Follow Jared on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ for even more tech news and commentary.

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Among the reasons Verizon cites for refusing to comply with the subpoena served on the telco by attorneys for John Wiley & Sons is that the requested information is “protected  from  disclosure  by  third  parties’  rights  of privacy  and  protections  guaranteed  by  the  First Amendment.”

Wiley’s lawyers counter that in cases involving alleged copyright infringement, the rights’ holders “right to use the judicial process to  pursue  what appear  to  be  meritorious  copyright  infringement  claim” trumps an accused constitutional rights.

New York Federal District Court Judge Katherine B. Forrest is expected to hear arguments on Verizon’s actions on a conference call scheduled for Monday, May 14, at 2:30 p.m. ET.

In its subpoena, Wiley seeks the personal information of Verizon subscribers whose IP addresses have been linked to illegal downloads from BitTorrent file-sharing sites. Wiley’s action appears to be the first time that a bookseller has gone after online book thieves in court.

Typically, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) roll over when lawyers appear on their transoms with court orders for subscriber information on alleged pirates, but Verizon may be showing some initiative and taking advantage of recent judicial decisions casting doubt on the use of IP addresses to nail online buccaneers.

In a case involving alleged copyright infringement of pornographic material through BitTorrent, New York Federal Magistrate Judge Gary R. Brown wrote in his opinion dismissing the litigation, “the assumption that the person who pays for Internet access at a given location is the same individual who allegedly downloaded a single sexually explicit film is tenuous, and one that has grown more so over time.”

“[I]t is no more likely that the subscriber to an IP address carried out a particular computer function — here the purported illegal downloading of a single pornographic film — than to say an individual who pays the telephone bill made a specific telephone call,” he added.

In pursuing BitTorrent users for violating copyright laws, Wiley is deploying a controversial tactic used by the music industry. It’s filing thousands of “John Doe” lawsuits. Once it identifies the John Does by prying IP information from ISPs, it offers the alleged infringer a choice of paying a settlement or going to court.

Violators of Wiley’s copyrights can pay fines of up to $150,000 if found guilty.

Follow freelance technology writer John P. Mello Jr. and Today@PCWorld on Twitter.

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There are plenty of ways to extend a connection. Some are easier than others.

One thing you can try, especially if you’re good with your hands, is to build yourself a better antenna more suited for your needs. For instance, you can build a parabolic reflector that will focus the beam in a particular direction.

Wireless repeaters provide another option. These are basically range extenders. You locate them at the outer range of the router’s good signal, and they repeat the signals they receive.

HomePlug Device with three ethernet ports

But of all the various options, I come down strongly on the side of HomePlug technology. The HomePlug/Powerline standard sends network data over a building’s AC power at near-Ethernet speeds. I’ve yet to find another networking technology as easily plug-and-play as HomePlug.

Are there any downsides? I’ve read about interference problems with ham radios and wireless mice. I use a wireless mouse near a HomePlug adapter, and have had no problems.

Your standard HomePlug “starter kit” comes with two devices, each of which plugs directly into an AC wall socket. One of these goes in the same room as the router, and connects to it via ethernet. The other goes into whatever room you want Internet; this one generally comes with one or more ethernet connections.

A HomePlug ethernet repeater

But Crazy wants to extend WiFi, not ethernet. For that, you can buy HomePlug WiFi adapters that have antenna rather than or in addition to ports. In my experience, these aren’t quite as plug-and-play as the ethernet devices–you have to enter your network’s name and password–but they’re not difficult, either.

And yes, several companies make HomePlug wireless startup kits.

Read the original forum discussion.

Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector writes about technology and cinema. Email your tech questions to him at answer@pcworld.com, or post them to a community of helpful folks on the PCW Answer Line forum. Follow Lincoln on Twitter, or subscribe to the Answer Line newsletter, e-mailed weekly.

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A recent poll by the nonprofit trade group found that 70 percent of U.S. smartphone and tablet owners surveyed would switch carriers just for a feature like Passport. As luck would have it, this summer the Wi-Fi Alliance will begin certifying routers and mobile devices with Passport.

The new Wi-Fi feature promises to put an end to the annoying process of logging in to public hotspots through browser-based splash screens that are often an exercise in frustration. Passpoint allows devices to automatically identify and join Wi-Fi networks using the WPA2 security protocol without user intervention. The new login process can authenticate users based on a device’s SIM card, a username and password, or installed security certificate. Seamless online authentication means that other Wi-Fi enabled devices, such as digital cameras, could also join a Passpoint hotspot for photo and video uploads on the go.

Passpoint’s rollout comes at a time when most major U.S. mobile carriers offer monthly bandwidth caps instead of unlimited data plans. Currently, Sprint is the only American carrier to offer users unlimited Internet access. AT&T and Verizon, meanwhile, have since backed off on their unlimited bandwidth offerings in recent months. So Internet junkies desperate to watch live baseball games online, download mobile apps, or stream Spotify tracks may welcome the feature. Carriers, however, aren’t tripping over each other to announce Passpoint adoption. So far, only T-Mobile has plans to adopt Passpoint, according to Computerworld. It’s not clear whether other hotspot providers such as Boingo plan to support the automatic login feature.

The Wi-Fi Alliance’s recent survey was based on interviews with 1,001 U.S. smartphone and tablet owners age 18 or older.

Connect with Ian Paul (@ianpaul) on Twitter and Google+, and with Today@PCWorld on Twitter for the latest tech news and analysis.

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While T-Mobile USA doesn’t sell the iPhone itself, last summer it claimed to have more than one million subscribers wielding unlocked iPhones on its network. But those subscribers have been limited to sluggish 2G speeds, a problem the company’s CTO Neville Ray says it is working on; the company plans to shift some of its spectrum, allowing iPhones to run at full 3G speeds.

Part of the problem for T-Mobile’s iPhone users involves the carrier’s AWS frequency band, or Advanced Wireless Services, which operates at less common frequency ranges. A report last December suggested that the company was refarming parts of its spectrum to bolster its next-gen HSPA+ network, running in the much more common 1900MHz spectrum, which allows unlocked iPhones to connect at 3G speeds.

T-Mobile’s announcement makes that official. The wireless provider says it will launch 4G HSPA+ service in the 1900MHz band by the fourth quarter of 2012, bringing a claimed 33 percent speed increase in HSPA+ data speeds and improving coverage inside buildings. It’ll also allow T-Mobile customers to use a wider array of mobile devices, says the company, including the iPhone.

Furthermore, the company says it has selected Ericsson and Nokia Siemens to support its LTE network transformation, which it hopes to launch in 2013. The agreement includes installing “state of the art” LTE Advanced equipment at 37,000 sites on T-Mobile’s 4G network. LTE Advanced is newer than the LTE technology currently used by AT&T and Verizon.

T-Mobile has been re-strategizing after its failed pickup by AT&T last December. If that deal had gone through, AT&T would have become the largest carrier in the U.S. T-Mobile hopes to bounce back with Ericsson and Nokia’s help, using spectrum it secured from AT&T in the failed merger deal. T-Mobile says it hopes to launch LTE in its AWS spectrum in 75 percent of its top 25 markets. T-Mobile will also be the first carrier in the country to deploy Ericsson’s Antenna Integrated Radio tech, designed to reduce power consumption and reduce deployment times, says Ericsson.

What about Apple’s next iPhone? T-Mobile’s network upgrade would ready the company to support it, but Apple would need to include AWS band support in the phone itself, something T-Mobile’s Ray suggested might be coming soon back in January.

Matt Peckham writes for Time and PCWorld. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, and follow Today@PCWorld on Twitter for the latest tech news and analysis.

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The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)’s concern is Google Fiber, Google’s high-speed fiber-optic broadband that the company is currently deploying in Kansas City.

Google has already laid down more than 100 miles of Fiber in Kansas City, which was chosen last year as the first city to house Google’s experimental 1-gigabit-per-second network. Google plans to connect the first homes to its Fiber network in the next few months, Google Fiber spokesperson Jenna Wandres told Bloomberg Businessweek.

According to Google, its Fiber test network of approximately 850 homes in Palo Alto already offers download speeds of 922 megabits per second, so Kansas City residents should be really, really excited. The average Internet speed in the United States hovers around 5 mbps. Google plans to offer its Fiber network at competitive prices, as well.

So why is Hollywood concerned? Well, because faster download speeds can only mean one thing — pirates will be able to download content even faster. With Google Fiber’s purported download speeds, pirates will be able to download an entire DVD’s worth of content in less than one minute.

MPAA spokesperson Howard Gantman told Bloomberg that although Google Fiber “could be a great opportunity for consumers whose access to creative content is often hampered by slow speeds,” we should look to the example of South Korea, in which “the home entertainment marketplace was decimated by digital piracy,” which was enabled by speedy Internet.

Of course, TechDirt points out that South Korea is a bad example — because the Korean music industry “thrives on high-speed Internet,” and it “grew into an economic powerhouse while the country had some of the highest and earliest broadband penetration rates (and digital piracy rates) in the world.”

Gantman also spoke to Ars Technica, saying, “We want to reinforce that higher speeds could be a great opportunity for consumers, and that’s the bottom line.” But it’s not really the bottom line, because Gantman went on to say that “There are problems that can, in terms of [an] increase of digital piracy, come with that, but we are hopeful that efforts can be made.to address digital piracy.”

Don’t get me wrong — faster Internet download speeds could enable piracy. But with that logic we may as well just shut down the Internet — because, hey, no Internet, no online piracy! Er.yeah.

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like the movie industry should instead think about how faster Internet will positively affect its creative abilities. For example, with faster download speeds, the industry will be able to create better content, and will be able to get that content — that legitimate, non-pirated content — to people quickly.

Of course, if the movie industry doesn’t step up and create some sort of cool, speedy online content distribution to go with Google Fiber, then someone else will. And when someone else does, the MPAA will cry “Piracy!”

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(See related: Cutting the Cord: How to Ditch Your Cable Company)

Putting a cable subscription requirement around Hulu would, in theory, add “value” to traditional TV services. The Post says Hulu would leverage a consumer’s traditional cable or satellite TV package as a way to allow them to access content online and on-demand away from home. But for users who don’t already have a TV package and who use Hulu as an alternate way to watch popular shows like House or The Office, the move would ostensibly lock away content they’re currently able to view for free.

It’s less clear what the move would entail for existing Hulu subscribers. Hulu’s $8 a month subscription-based service, Hulu Plus, offers users more movies, full season TV episode runs and the ability to watch the service on alternative devices, including mobile phones and game consoles. Will Hulu Plus users be able to continue watching for a monthly fee, as they can with competitor Netflix? The Post doesn’t say.

Reaction to the story’s claims hasn’t been positive (search for “Hulu” on Twitter and you’ll be hard pressed to find a positive word spoken). The Post says the move is also behind last week’s cash-out by Providence Equity Partners, which owned 10% of Hulu after investing $100 million in the company in August 2007. And while Hulu’s ad revenue was up in 2011, forcing users who don’t already have a cable/satellite service to buy one, just to access Hulu’s content, seems more likely to drive customers away.

Matt Peckham writes for TIME and PCWorld. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, and follow Today@PCWorld on Twitter for the latest tech news and analysis.

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The R6300 features four gigabit Ethernet ports for hooking up wired devices, and two USB ports for network-attached storage and printer sharing. The router has DLNA support, which lets you securely stream media across multiple devices. The R6300 is also backwards-compatible, which means that it will work with all of your existing wireless devices. This is important, since there are no 802.11ac-compatible devices currently on the market, and none are expected until the end of this year (at the earliest).

The R6300’s top speed of 1.3Gbps is only attainable using the 5GHz band. This means that if you have devices on your network that use previous wireless standards (both 802.11ac and 802.11n operate on 5GHz, but not 802.11b/g), then your R6300 will also fall back to those standards. The R6300 is a dual-band router, though, so a settings tweak should let you banish slower devices to the lower 2.4GHz band, while maintaining faster devices on the 5GHz band.

Though the R6300 is the first 802.11ac router announced, it’s not the first time we’ve seen the technology. At CES 2012, we saw a prototype 802.11ac router from Buffalo running on unofficial standards, as well as one from TrendNet. Those routers are expected to debut in the fall, while the R6300 will be released in May.

The R6300 will cost $200 and be sold through Netgear’s authorized retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, and Fry’s Electronics.

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