In a development that only Scrooge and the Grinch would find amusing, the tech industry has entered into a fevered period of pre-holiday job cuts. In the last few weeks, there have been layoff announcements from Adobe (ADBE) (680 jobs), Electronic Arts (ERTS) (1,500 jobs), Sprint (S) (up to 2,500 jobs), Microsoft (MSFT) (800 jobs), RealNetworks (RNWK) (70 jobs), AOL (100 jobs), Sun Microsystems (JAVA) (3,000 jobs), Blue Coat (BCSI) (roughly 150 jobs), Lexmark (LXK) (825 jobs) and Nokia Siemens (NOK) (potentially north of of 5,000 jobs).

Applied Materials (AMAT) could be next.

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A U.S. District Judge dismissed a lawsuit against Facebook by Power.com Thursday, the latest move in a back-and-forth legal battle between the two social-media services.

In December, Facebook blocked Power.com, a site that links members’ social-networking accounts, from accessing Facebook profiles. It also sued the company, accusing it of trademark and copyright violations.

Power.com countersued Facebook in July. Its founder, Steve Vachani, has noted that sites such as Twitter, MySpace and Google’s (GOOG) Orkut enable access from Power.com and said at the time that his suit was “about users’ control of their data.” It brought on as legal counsel Scott Bursor, who fought Verizon Wireless (VZ) and Sprint (S) in early-termination-fee disputes.

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Deutsche Telekom (DT), parent of U.S. mobile operator T-Mobile, is holding talks about gaining access to spectrum controlled by Clearwire (CLWR) and MetroPCS (PCS) as a way to build out 4G wireless service, according to Bloomberg, which cites “two people familiar with the matter.” The story says the company is also in talks with Sprint (S), which owns 51 percent of Clearwire. Recall that last week there were rumors that DT might want to acquire Sprint and merge it with T-Mobile.

The story notes that both MetroPCS and Clearwire own spectrum suitable for 4G networks. T-Mobile has yet to announce a 4G expansion plan; both Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) have begun upgrading their networks and plan to use the LTE standard.

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The best days for the Palm (PALM) Pre may already have past. That was the implication of the Sell call on the stock this morning from Morgan Joseph–and the same theme can be found in a similarly bearish note this morning from Collins Stewart analyst Ashok Kumar.

Kumar says that despite being positioned as a flagship product at Sprint (S), Palm shipped under 300,000 units in May and June. He says the company ramped up production aggressively in July when shipments exceeded build levels in the previous two months, but that the “momentum appears to have already peaked.”

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Sales of the Palm (PALM) Pre smartphone may be creeping up to 30,000 a week this week versus a prior trend of 25,000, writes Pali Capital analyst Walter Piecyk in a blog post this morning. (Free registration required to view the post.) Piecyk observes the Pre was available for $99 briefly this week through online orders, but that Sprint (S), which has the exclusive on the Pre, also stepped up a print campaign targeting AT&T (T) customers who may be interested in moving from the Apple (AAPL) iPhone at the end of their contract.

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Prepaid wireless carriers have gotten a lot of attention in recent months because of the ailing economy, which has helped them as consumers seek out cheaper cellphone plans.

Now that most of the biggest ones in the U.S. have reported their first quarter results, how did they perform? We looked at six–Boost Mobile, Sprint’s (S) prepaid unit; Leap Wireless (LEAP); MetroPCS (PCS); T-Mobile; Tracfone, the U.S. prepaid unit of America Movil; and Virgin Mobile USA (VM), which posted earnings earlier today.

Of those, Tracfone remains the biggest in terms of subscribers, ending the first quarter with 11.8 million. MetroPCS and Boost added the most net new subscribers, gaining about 684,000 and 674,000, respectively.

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The explosion of low-cost, prepaid wireless plans are raking in the customers during this recession, and Boost Mobile, a division of Sprint (S) that boasts an estimated 4 million users, is no different.

But subscribers to Boost’s $50 unlimited plan, which was rolled out last January, have been experiencing delays in text message delivery, reports the AP, implying that the company may be experiencing some growing pains.

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Given the buzz surrounding Verizon’s (VZ) smart-phone efforts lately, it’s useful to review all the recent reporting and size up what looks most likely.

The CDMA iPhone: Some publications have suggested that Verizon is discussing with Apple the possibility of making a version of the iPhone to run on the carrier’s existing CDMA network. USA Today reported this in a story earlier this week, and the New York Times (NYT) echoed it, even as it noted why this idea makes no sense. CDMA is essentially a U.S. technology used by Verizon and Sprint (S). The rest of the world operates on a standard called GSM. That’s partly why Apple (AAPL) chose to work with AT&T (T) (a GSM provider) in the first place.

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Just how much of a threat is Sprint’s (S) new $50 prepaid Boost Unlimited plan for all-you-can-eat voice and data service? That question is particularly important to the companies Sprint has clearly targeted with the new offering: Leap Wireless (LEAP) and Metro PCS (PCS).

And it is a matter of no small debate.

William Power, an analyst with Robert W. Baird, this morning upped his rating on Leap Wireless to Outperform from Neutral. He notes that the stock has sold off almost 30 percent since Jan. 6, largely on concerns about the competitive threat from Boost Unlimited. But Power contends that the concerns are overdone. He contends Leap and Metro PCS have competed effectively with past Boost offers, that having an additional “unlimited” player in the market could boost the overall market and that Sprint plans to focus Boost in particular on markets where it has excess iDEN capacity. Power also says he continues to think a merger between Leap and Metro PCS is likely at some point.

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After a grueling eight-city coast-to-coast test of the 3G networks run by AT&T (T), Sprint (S) and Verizon (VZ), we’ve come up with some clear-cut test results. Think you know who has the best network? Think again.

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Clearwire shares are down sharply following negative comments on the company this morning from analysts at J.P. Morgan and Stanford Group.

The company’s shares gained ground yesterday following the completion of its deal to acquire Sprint’s (S) Xohm wireless broadband business; it also closed a $3.2 billion investment from Google (GOOG), Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWX), Intel (INTC) and others. But there are concerns that the company still faces daunting challenges, including a highly competitive market and a need for substantially more capital.

J.P. Morgan’s Mike McCormack resumed coverage with a Neutral rating, from Overweight previously. That’s an eye-opening change, given that Morgan was one of Clearwire’s advisers on the Sprint deal. He has a $6 price target on the stock.

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“Sprint” is not something Sprint Nextel (S) has managed to do for a long time; maybe it needs to change the company’s name to “Splint.”

Certainly, they can use some first aid. The company this morning posted third-quarter revenue of $8.82 billion, a hair below the Street at $8.85 billion, and down 12 percent from a year earlier. The company posted adjusted EPS before amortization of zero cents, below the Street consensus of three cents. Wireless revenue was down 13 percent; total wireless customers fell 1.3 million in the quarter, including the loss of 1.1 million post-paid customers. The company’s adjusted OIBDA margin in the quarter tumbled to 23.4 percent, from 32.4 percent a year earlier. Wireless churn was 2.15 percent, up from 2.0 percent in the second quarter. On a GAAP basis, the company lost $326 million in the quarter, compared with a profit of $64 million in the year-ago period.

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In what he’s calling a “mid-quarter update,” Sanford Bernstein telecom analyst Craig Moffett says the rich–AT&T (T) and Verizon Communications’ (VZ) Verizon Wireless unit–are turning in impressive results while second-tier providers Sprint Nextel (S) (No. 3 in the U.S.) and Deutsche Telekom’s (DT) T-Mobile (No. 4), and third-tier providers MetroPCS (PCS) and Leap Wireless (LEAP), are putting up some pretty dispiriting numbers.

“Never before has the divergence between the high end and low end of the wireless market been so stark,” writes Moffett.

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The FCC voted 5-0 today to approve a plan to combine Sprint’s Xohm network with Clearwire’s (CLWR) own WiMax network. Investors in the newly combined company include Google (GOOG), Intel (INTC) and a group of cable companies.

According to the AP, the Justice Department has already indicated that it will allow the deal to proceed, but will continue to monitor it.

Both Sprint (S) and Clearwire today built on robust gains posted on Monday.

Sprint, which rose 87 cents yesterday, added 15 cents in today’s regular session, and has advanced another 42 cents to $4.57 after hours. That brings the two-day rally to $1.44, or 46 percent.

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If you thought that the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping was limited to AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, think again.

While these household names of the telecom industry almost certainly helped the government to illegally snoop on their customers, statements by a number of legal experts suggest that collaboration with the NSA may run far deeper into the wireless phone industry. With over 3,000 wireless companies operating in the United States, the majority of industry-aided snooping likely occurs under the radar, with the dirty work being handled by companies that most consumers have never heard of.

A recent article in the London Review of Books revealed that a number of private companies now sell off-the-shelf data-mining solutions to government spies interested in analyzing mobile phone calling records and real-time location information.

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