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A second generation Automatic dongle, the Link2, has been spotted passing through FCC testing, ahead of plugging into your car's dashboard and piping driving stats to your phone. The Bluetooth dongle is outwardly identical to the existing model, which translates data on car status, driving style, fuel economy and more to a companion app for iPhone or Android, and currently there's no clear indication of what might have improved in functionality. In fact, the most exciting part right now looks like Automatic's new packaging design, which might actually have some legitimate usefulness to save it from landfill.

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We expected FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to rule in favor of ‘Net Neutrality’, so today’s letter comes as no real surprise. What Wheeler laid out was effectively a blueprint for keeping the Internet as free and open as we find it now, possibly forever. After a whopping four million public comments on the matter, Wheeler is set to ask his commissioners to examine a proposal to officially reclassify mobile broadband providers like AT&T under Title II, which will give the FCC stricter oversight.

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The FCC is likely going to rule that broadband should be reclassified later this month in order to better enforce what we all call net neutrality. The ruling will undoubtedly be met with much opposition from big companies, and AT&T has already begun the hemming and hawing over what may come by stalling their fiber optic build out. Now, AT&T is releasing their planned opposition to what the FCC will likely bring, laying out their incoming legal challenge for all to see.

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The FCC might be heating up the old net neutrality debate again come Thursday. The agency is expected to propose the rules that would determine how business around the Internet will be treated in the years to come. In this latest version, FCC chair Tom Wheeler is expected to adopt President Obama's stance to treat broadband providers the same way telecommunications companies are treated and to regulate them as public utilities, giving government more weight over the deals between broadband providers and content providers, much to the chagrin of many in the industry.

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When the FCC auction ended last week, Dish walked away with roughly $10 billion in spectrum. That spend was down from $13 billion, where Dish took advantage of $3 billion or so in discounts. Now, an FCC commissioner is questioning whether or not Dish should be entitled to those discounts. The rub is in how Dish actually acquired the spectrum, where they used a series of subsidiaries to snap up blocks of spectrum. In doing so, they took advantage of ‘small business’ discounts.

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An FCC auction for wireless spectrum ended this week, and according to the commission, $41.3 billion was raised. That’s a slight dip from the $45 billion we’d heard about when the auction actually closed, but various discounts and incentives helped bidders out. We know what you’re thinking, though. How did your carrier do? Who made successful bids? Luckily, the FCC also let loose all the info regarding who bid what, and whether or not their bids were successful. As you might have guessed, AT&T and Verizon came out on top.

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The FCC just took a bold step in the right direction. We’d previously reported the agency was discussing a reclassification on what broadband Internet actually is, with a proposal to raise the threshold to 25Mbps download and 3Mbps upload speeds for broadband. All the talk actually led somewhere, and the FCC is settled on that redefinition of 25/3Mbps as broadband. The previous definition of broadband was 4Mbps download, and 1Mbps upload. While this doesn’t change what your Internet provider offers, it does change how they present it.

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Marriott may have dropped its WiFi-blocking efforts, but that doesn't mean the FCC has forgotten about its petition and the WiFi-blocking habits of some other companies. In a warning issued today as an "FCC Enforcement Advisory", the agency made it clear that it is not acceptable to jam others' WiFi hotspots regardless of whether you're an individual or a company, and it specifically pointed toward hotels as an example. In addition, the FCC called hotspot-jamming actions a "disturbing trend" that must stop.

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A persistent rumor has once again reared its ugly head. If it sounds familiar, don’t be alarmed — we had deja vu, too. A new report claims Google is “preparing to sell mobile phone plans directly to customers and manage their calls and mobile data over a cellular network”. That’s right, Google is once again (allegedly) preparing to become an MVNO. We know, it sounds great, but this isn’t the first time we’ve heard this kind of thing, so we’re highly skeptical.

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Drones, balloons, rockets — Google has seemingly endless schemes for delivering Internet to us. We may be largely stuck on the ground, but that doesn’t stop us from beaming info all over the place. In a new letter to the FCC, Google outlines their case for spectrum. Rather than get into the spectrum wars carriers are engaged in, google is going over their heads; literally and figuratively. Rather than frequencies you and I are largely familiar with, Google wants some in the 24GHz neighborhood.

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T-Mobile’s Uncarrier approach is certainly exciting, and it’s given customers plenty of reason to drop that other carrier they may be on and give T-Mobile a shot. Still, quarter after quarter, T-Mobile talks up their growing customer base while reporting financial losses. Long-term, they may be in good shape. Their growth pattern may take years to result in reliable earnings, though. Parent company Deutsche Telekom has T-Mobile up for grabs, and now we know why: the Uncarrier isn’t meant as a standalone entity.

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Gogo, who provide in-flight WiFi options for many flights, have announced something exciting for the future of connectivity. The FCC has given Gogo the green light to start operating using their next-generation technology, dubbed 2Ku. According to Gogo, 2Ku will bring peak speeds of 70Mbps to you in-flight via a new spectrally efficient antenna. Gogo also says it costs less that competitor’s solutions, and is only 4.5-inches tall. The company even says future satellite technology could push 2Ku even further.

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