bandwidth

Thursday's news about the upcoming 250 GB monthly cap for Comcast data subscribers left some questions unanswered. I shot a few of my own, as well as some from readers over to Comcast to get them answered. These are mostly items that did not appear in both the post about the amendment, or the otherwise comprehensive FAQ page.

Update at 5:05 p.m. PDT: In a bizarre twist, the previous answers to my questions were answered by someone named Bill G., who Comcast says is not an authorized spokesperson for the company, despite answering my e-mail sent through … Read more

Starting October 1 customers of Comcast's residential data services will have an invisible barrier on their monthly data usage. Under the new guidelines of Comcast's Acceptable Use Policy announced Thursday, that cap will be set at 250 gigabytes per month, per account.

Users who go over the limit will get a courtesy call from Comcast's customer service for the first instance. However, under the new policy a second-time offense means the service is immediately suspended for an entire calendar year.

Surprisingly the company is not providing any tools to help users monitor their current usage. An FAQ on Comcast's support site … Read more

Donald and Jasmine discuss the recently announced sixth-generation lineup of Archos portable media players, now portable media tablets. Plus, talk of Internet radio death knells and another way you can get your hands on free product. Listen now: Download today's podcast

Archos announces sixth-gen product lineup

Fees may sink Pandora

Zune to drop 120GB model

---iHome ZN9 Giveaway---

RULES:

1) Winners will be picked randomly and announced on next week's show

2) Only ONE entry per person will be eligible for the drawing. (We will count the FIRST entry received.)

3) You must not be … Read more

The Bandwidth music tech conference in San Francisco attracts folks from all corners of the music industry: from label owners and musicians, to Internet radio broadcasters and mobile phone software developers. This year, the conference featured panel discussions on topics such as the future of music gadgets (a subject dear to my nerd heart), developing music services for mobile phones, and the realities of running a label in today's fractured music industry.

One of the more popular themes drawing heated discussion across all panels was the idea of ditching the paid download model dominated by iTunes in favor of … Read more

Internet papa Vint Cerf said broadband speed limits rather than broadband data caps would be more useful in managing congested networks.

Cerf, who is Google's chief Internet evangelist, on Monday wrote a post on the company's public policy blog blasting the idea of applying data caps and metered rate plans. Instead he proposed a plan that limits network speeds.

His comments come just days after the Federal Communications Commission's symbolic ruling against Comcast for violating the agency's Net neutrality principles. The FCC came down hard on the cable operator for blocking access to peer-to-peer file-sharing protocols … Read more

There's a dangerous trend afoot: U.S. wired broadband providers are looking at setting up tiers of service, not based on bandwidth (speed), which many already have, but rather based on amount of data received or transmitted in a given time period. Some Internet service providers are running experiments right now; see Comcast targets bandwidth hogs in test.

It's not, on the face of things, an unfair concept. In some parts of the world, pay-by-the-bit bandwidth (or penalties for overage) is the norm. But adding capped bandwidth services to existing U.S. plans could be disruptive to the … Read more

Today we talk with Doug Bandes from Broadband Enterprises about the new Web shows the network has to offer. Plus, we'll spend some time talking more about The Dark Knight, as well as Comcast capping your bandwidth. So come take a listen--if your ISP allows it.

Listen now: Download today's podcast