While Google Fiber gets a massive amount of media hype (justly based on its disruptive speed and price point), the reality is that despite numerous city "launches" -- not that many people can actually get the service. But while many ISPs and analysts have dismissed Google Fiber as an adorable experiment that will never impact them, many of these folks appear to be changing their tune as Google Fiber's list of under-construction and potential markets continues to grow.

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Although Google’s announcement is just that, could lead to nothing, and requires minimum capital commitment by Alphabet at this stage, it increases on the margin the likelihood that Google Fiber will pass a large number of locations within five years. Correspondingly, it increases the chances that we will see Alphabet’s capex in the non-core businesses, or what the company has referred to as “Other Bets,” increase significantly.

Indeed, if Google Fiber were to build out in Chicago and/or Los Angeles and their surroundings, it could precipitate increased interest from other major metro areas, making it easier for Fiber to scale up. Our high end estimate of 20-25 million homes passed by Google Fiber may prove less aggressive than we thought.

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CenturyLink this week again reiterated that it hopes to soon offer an "over the top" Internet video service that the company will begin trialing in 2016. CenturyLink Chief Financial Officer Stewart Ewing has previously stated the company hopes to be able to offer the service for around $20 to $30 a month, though it's too early to determine technical specifics. This week, Ewing proclaimed that the company sees Internet video TV as a way to offer television without the expense of a tech visit.

"As others are doing, we're also looking at an over the top product that we could deliver either some of or all the content we have today," Ewing told attendees of an investment conference this week.

"This is a product that we'll trial in 2016 that we believe we can get to the customer without a truck roll so it could help us decrease the cost of delivering the video to the customer." Ewing added that "OTT does not help on the content cost side, but it does help from the overall standpoint on the cost of deploying the service."

• 'Internet economy' is six percent of US GDP: study [phys.org]

• Internet's root name servers DDoS attacks peak at 5M queries per second [scmagazine.com]

• The promise and peril of universal Internet: Can Google Loon tech be trusted? [theatlantic.com]

• Broadband operators must conquer the home to meet threat from Google and Apple [broadbandtvnews.com]

• AT&T Has Fooled The Press And Public Into Believing It's Building A Massive Fiber Network That Barely Exists [techdirt.com]

• Sprint and Microsoft launch carrier billing for Windows 10 users [fiercewireless.com]

• Cord cutting will accelerate over each of the next four years, so that nearly a quarter of U.S. homes won't have pay-TV by 2019 [wsj.com]

• Watch out for 5G pretenders (Lookin' at you, Verizon) [lightreading.com]

T-Mobile continues to dole out Christmas promotions, and this time is taking direct aim at Verizon Wireless. The company today announced that it's giving customers that switch from Verizon Wireless to T-Mobile a free year of Hulu.

About 20% of current traditional cable customers may cut the cord in 2016 according to new research by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC). The continued trend rises as consumers increasingly find themselves frustrated by the steep price tag and inflexibility of traditional cable options, notes the firm.

While DirecTV is likely going to be the first pay TV provider to seriously embrace ultra HD and 4K video, the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus has given the satellite provider a slap on the wrist for what it claims is over-ambitious 4K advertising. You see, while DirecTV does currently offer 4K content on demand, its live 4K channels aren't expected to go live until early next year.

"AT&T is out-building Google Fiber," the Washington Post crows. AT&T is "outpacing every other competitor" when it comes to fiber to the home, an analyst tells Computer World.

As Comcast's broadband usage caps now impact about 12% of the company's userbase (and growing), the company oddly continues to deny it even has caps. In fact, Comcast has gone so far as to scold journalists over the last few years, semantically arguing that because users can buy more data, technically they aren't usage capped.

Add Verizon Wireleess to the list of companies who've decided to start experimenting with "zero rating," or letting some content not count against your wireless broadband usage cap. Verizon Executive Vice President Marni Walden told Recode this week that the company's "sponsored data" program should start in as soon as a few days, though further specifics weren't provided.

AT&T will soon join Verizon and Comcast in trying to woo Millennials with a new Internet video service. Speaking at an investor conference this week, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said AT&T would soon be launching a service that looks a lot like Verizon's Go90 platform, which offers curated, free access to a smattering of online content (much of it already available elsewhere). Facing slowed broadband and smartphone growth, large ISPs are pushing harder into content and advertising.

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Stephenson said AT&T is aggressively pursuing rights to offer an OTT bundle of content for people without a satellite TV subscription for a mobile or single home screen, citing 30 million homes without pay TV subscriptions in the U.S. He said the company was "very interested" in such an offer for cost-conscious consumers and would discuss this topic soon. It wasn't immediately clear if that offer would be immediately available.

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• Congress Inks Pact On A Permanent Internet Tax Ban [msn.com]

• Verizon plans in the next few days to start testing sponsored data, the equivalent of toll-free calling for the Internet age [recode.net]

• How AT&T is out-building Google Fiber [washingtonpost.com]

• Canadian ISP Senga Services uses Facebook to shame non-paying customers by posting names and debt owed [ibtimes.co.uk]

• Yahoo abandons Alibaba spinoff, will move to sell Internet business [variety.co m]

• Sprint extends data-free music streaming to Boost, but remains silent on whether it will come to Sprint subs [fiercewireless.com]

• AT&T CEO: We're focused on high-end wireless customers [fiercewireless.com]

• U.S. broadband market reaching saturation? [fiercecable.com]

• Google Play Music adds family plan allowing six family members to stream simultaneously for $15 per month, extends to YouTube Red [theverge.com]