The newspaper industry’s version of an infomercial.

Does your local newspaper sell its journalistic credibility down the river with an annual “best of” contest asking readers to vote for their favorite companies the newspaper later uses to shamelessly pursue advertising deals for a “special supplement” announcing the results?

The Topeka Capital-Journal sure does, and they’ve transformed the seedy affair into an art form, complete with softball interviews for some of the winning companies.

Take AT&T, which somehow got voted Topeka’s best cell phone company. (Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and TracFone also made their “list” — showing either the tiny number of cell phone competitors in Topeka or a desire not to leave anyone out.)

In a “special” to the Capital-Journal, ad sales guy “reporter” Phil Wilke managed to interview an AT&T spokesman… by e-mail. It was not a tough interview:

Pulitzer Prize material it is not.

Consumer Reports readers do not think as highly of AT&T, but then that magazine does not accept advertising from AT&T — Topeka’s newspaper does. (J.D. Power and Associates also put AT&T at the bottom in its own survey.)

I first got suspicious when Olive Garden, the Chef Boyardee of Italian restaurants, made the list for “best restaurant service,” “best Italian restaurant,” and [shudder] “most romantic restaurant.” There is either something very wrong in Topeka, or these results don’t mean a thing.

But they do mean a lot of advertising revenue for the Capital Journal, which can call every winner and implore them to take out a special ad “thanking readers” for placing trust in their establishment. Puff pieces like the AT&T interview found above do little  for the newspaper’s credibility and trust with readers, however.

Surprisingly there was no category for Topeka’s best news source, but we did finally locate one where a nomination for the Topeka newspaper was appropriate: “BEST PLACE TO PLAY SOFTBALL.”

Free Wi-Fi is always popular and Fort Wayne, Ind. is welcoming news that Frontier Communications intends to install and operate a downtown network of hotspots offering what local newspapers characterize as “free access.”

The area being outfitted with wireless Internet is bordered by Clay Street to the east, Broadway to the west, Headwaters Park to the north and Lewis Street to the south, according to city officials.

Frontier says it plans to offer 512kbps access on most hotspots, 1Mbps service on others, with a limited number operating at still higher speeds where fiber optics are available.

But Frontier’s Wi-Fi networks in other cities have some important considerations for those expecting wide open, free access.

Free has its limits.

In Rochester, N.Y., free access hotspots are extremely limited in number and offer very slow speeds (often close to dial-up) to entice users to upgrade to a premium Wi-Fi speed plan starting at $9.99 per month for current Frontier customers, $30 a month for non-customers. The vast majority of hotspots only offer five minutes a week of free access.

In Terre Haute, free access is available to only the first 100 users connected to the network. All others are required to pay. Those who do choose to subscribe can only use one device at a time.

The scheduled rollout of Frontier Wi-Fi in Fort Wayne has yet to be announced.

Phillip “At Least They Are Transparent About Robbing You” Dampier

The unassailable truth is that if there is a right way for a company to treat its customers and a wrong way, AT&T will always choose the wrong way. It’s the primary reason I refuse to do business with them.

The company’s recent decision to block Apple FaceTime for customers who refuse to be herded to one of AT&T’s new Mobile Share plans is another shot across the bow of Net Neutrality, which declares customers should be able to use the applications and services of their choosing — particularly on networks where they pay for those choices.

Principal #1 of Net Neutrality: Companies should not be playing favorites with applications or services by blocking or restricting those a provider does not favor.

AT&T’s response: ‘Whatever.’

The predictable outrage of customers should have come as no surprise to AT&T, but somehow it did.

The company picked testy senior vice president for regulatory affairs Bob Quinn to mount a rapid defense against the pitchfork-and-torch-yielding throngs on AT&T’s Public Policy Blog. That was their second mistake.

Quinn, who spent last December valiantly defending AT&T against its too-precious CupcakeGate mini-scandal, conjured up this pretzel-twisted logic tap dance to explain away its latest boorish behavior:

Providers of mobile broadband Internet access service are subject to two net neutrality requirements: (1) a transparency requirement pursuant to which they must disclose accurate information regarding the network management practices, performance, and commercial terms of their broadband Internet access services; and (2) a no-blocking requirement under which they are prohibited, subject to reasonable network management, from blocking applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services.

AT&T’s plans for FaceTime will not violate either requirement.  Our policies regarding FaceTime will be fully transparent to all consumers, and no one has argued to the contrary.  There is no transparency issue here.

Nor is there a blocking issue.  The FCC’s net neutrality rules do not regulate the availability to customers of applications that are preloaded on phones.  Indeed, the rules do not require that providers make available any preloaded apps.  Rather, they address whether customers are able to download apps that compete with our voice or video telephony services.   AT&T does not restrict customers from downloading any such lawful applications, and there are several video chat apps available in the various app stores serving particular operating systems. (I won’t name any of them for fear that I will be accused by these same groups of discriminating in favor of those apps.  But just go to your app store on your device and type “video chat.”)  Therefore, there is no net neutrality violation.

A company lecturing its customers for daring to question its decisions is always a good way to enhance those warm and fuzzy feelings people have about America’s least-liked wireless phone company. Quinn first scolds customers and consumer groups about their “knee jerk reaction,” for being upset about the issue. Then he declares they have “rushed to judgment,” using a turn of phrase not heard since O.J. Simpson’s defense team pounded it to death, and look where that ultimately got us.

The crux of AT&T’s argument is they get a free pass to “block and herd” because Apple FaceTime was pre-installed on customer phones. Therefore, since AT&T didn’t block you from downloading an app you already had, it cannot possibly be a Net Neutrality violation. Because as we all know, Net Neutrality is only about download blocking.

At least AT&T is keeping their promise to be transparent. They have, indeed, fully informed you they are mugging you while in the process of mugging you. Full disclosure… matters.

Somehow, I missed the “preinstalled does not count” section in the Federal Communications Commission’s December 2010 order to providers telling them to preserve the free and open Internet. So I spent last night with this legalese page-turner (194 pages to be exact) to refresh my memory.

Nope, it isn’t in there. You can read it for yourself from the link above.

So it isn’t me. It is them, making up the rules as they go, again.

Quinn graciously offers customers one concession: AT&T will allow you to use Apple FaceTime over your own home Wi-Fi network. Gosh thanks!

For customers addicted to FaceTime, AT&T’s solution is an expensive plan change. An average customer currently paying $70 for 450-barely used voice minutes and 3GB of data will find FaceTime off-limits on AT&T’s network unless they “upgrade” to AT&T’s $95 Mobile Share plan, which gets you only 1GB of data, but endless voice minutes you don’t want and unlimited texting you don’t need.

Result: Pay $25 more a month and get your data allowance slashed by 2/3rds. That’s a deal — AT&T-style.

But it is one some customers are through taking. Nalin Kuachusri:

The new FaceTime restrictions will usher in the end of my 12+ year relationship with AT&T. I’m tired of the consistent manipulation of plans and features to extract more and more money for services I don’t need. For example: there used to be several text-message options (200, 1000, 1500, unlimited) so I could choose and pay for the one that fit my usage best. Then there was the option to move from unlimited data to 2GB/month to save $5. That was great for me and fit my usage. Then I was forced to move back to $30/month if I wanted to add tethering where I’ll get an extra GB that I’ll never use. Finally, after 12 years as a customer with an account in good standing, I was not allowed to unlock my phone for my 10-day trip to Europe so I could get a local SIM. I couldn’t be happier to give you one final $200 payment as an early-termination fee so I can move to Verizon.

Unfortunately for Kuachusri, the bosses at Verizon Wireless are likely slapping themselves silly because they did not come up with the idea first.

Insiders at the Federal Communications Commission have leaked word all five commissioners have cast their votes in favor of a controversial partnership deal between Verizon Wireless and the nation’s largest cable operators to cross-market products and services to customers.

Three Democrats and two Republicans have approved both the marketing agreement and a spectrum transfer deal from cable operators to Verizon Wireless.  Republicans did not approve of an order mandating a data roaming obligation or the recognition the FCC has the authority to oversee the marketing agreement, but both will remain part of the final order.

The Justice Department earlier approved the modified deal that includes a time limit on the marketing partnership and restricts certain cross-marketing in FiOS-wired areas.

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said the spectrum transfer was urgently needed to address wireless spectrum shortages. But consumer groups opposed the deal, calling it anti-competitive and anti-consumer. Some unions also say the deal comes close to collusion and will lead to Verizon further pulling back from its fiber upgrade FiOS in favor of selling cable subscriptions.

Analog cable service is on the way out in Montreal.

Vidéotron Ltd. has stopped accepting orders for analog cable service from new customers as it prepares to make the transition to all-digital operation sometime in 2013.

The cable operator, dominant in Quebec, wants to dump analog service to make room for additional HD channels and faster broadband service, and although the company has retained a few dozen analog channels in some areas for the benefit of hotel operators and budget-minded seniors, the time has come to turn the lights out on the 60 year old technology.

Vidéotron is transitioning its customers hanging on to analog service in chunks, according to a report in the Gazette.  The vast majority of those customers are seniors, but hotel rooms also comprise a substantial percentage of the 412,000 holdouts.

Vidéotron experimented with a partial transition to digital in the Gatineau region, cutting analog service to just 30 channels. To entice customers to switch to digital, Vidéotron offered free digital set-top boxes to existing analog customers and special promotional packages that gave them digital service at the analog price. Company officials say it is unlikely customers across the Island of Montreal would get similar deals, but some price concessions on equipment are likely.

Vidéotron hopes the transition will make room for up to 100 new HD channels on a system that currently has just 71. The cable operator is facing increasing competition from Bell’s Fibe TV and satellite service, which provides a larger selection of HD channels, particularly for Anglophones in the province.