UPDATED: AT&T’s (Quote) $85 billion merger with BellSouth got its long-awaited blessing from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today after the two sides hammered out new concessions on network neutrality, cuts in broadband rates and divesting some of its spectrum allocation.The approval puts to end the delays over the FCC’s vote on the merger that boiled down to network neutrality provisions.AT&T agreed to promise that it wouldn’t prioritize Internet traffic over its platform, a key concession that helped seal a bipartisan vote by the FCC commissioners. In a release today, the FCC said …

It’s not quite a family reunion, but the new AT&T has had its buyout of BellSouth approved by the FCC in a 4-0 vote: The combined firm comprises a large fraction of the original AT&T, but with long-distance no longer a viable business, cell phone operators (including jointly owned Cingular) in fierce customer competition, and the future of broadband a monopoly and duopoly business—it’s not your father’s AT&T. The merger was approved with AT&T agreeing to a host of conditions, including net neutrality, the provision and sale of naked DSL lines, and the divestment of its 2.5 GHz frequency holdings.

Thanks to the seemingly ubiquitous nature of wireless connectivity, many of the promises of new options for consumers and business made in 2006 will be realized in 2007, according to experts surveyed by internetnews.com.

Companies that made headlines in 2006 will again hold the spotlight, including AT&T, Sprint Nextel and Vonage . And cellular carriers will embrace past competitors as old technology is upgraded.

With nearly 75 percent of the U.S. population owning a cell phone, 2007 looks to be the year of the dual-mode mobile phone. Such handsets can place calls using either a cellular network or a Wi-Fi connection, ABI Research analyst Phil Solis said.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Ford and Microsoft have decided to sync. At the Detroit Auto Show and the Consumer Electronics Show in January, the two firms will jointly announce Sync, an in-car navigation and infotainment system built on Microsoft’s platform.

Sync is designed to let drivers navigate better, download and listen to music, talk by cell phone, and even get e-mail without using their hands, according to reports. Powered by Bluetooth — the same technology that powers wireless cell phone headsets — Sync will debut in two Ford models, the Focus and Five Hundred series, in 2007, then expand to all Ford models in the 2008 model year.

It is perhaps the most hyped consumer electronics product today,and it might not even exist: Apple’s music phone.

Nobody seems to have seen it, at least nobody who’s talking.Nobody quite knows what it will look like or how it will work. Noone even knows what it will be called.

But just about everyone — consumers, analysts, investors — isconvinced that Apple’s working on one. And many are betting that thecompany is going to unveil it at the Macworld conference in SanFrancisco next month.

The anticipation for what’s been dubbed the “iPhone” has beenbuilding for months now with analyst …