CNET News Daily Podcast: You only need 250GB of downloads a month, says Comcast

Do you download more than 250GB of data per month? If you're a Comcast customer, you'll likely want to get out of the habit--quickly. Beginning October 1, the Internet provider said customers that use more than 250GB per month, per account will get their account disabled. It's got a lot of people in an uproar. Make sure to check out Webware.com's coverage of the news.

Also on Friday's podcast: Apple and AT&T could be looking at a plan to allow tethering of the iPhone, Nintendo Wii sales continue to propel the company forward, and is Napster for sale?

Listen now: Download today's podcast

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Today's stories:

Comcast's cap plan

Nintendo shares soar on bumped-up forecast

Microsoft to drop $486 million for European shopping site

Google to buy GeoEye satellite imagery

IBM tests 4-terabyte solid-state drive tech

Napster won't rule out a sale

Tethering coming soon to iPhone 3G?

McCain taps outsider Palin to be VP

[zaznet]

Before making this sort of capacity change they should be providing useage reports to their users so the home user knows if they are going to be over that cap based on historical use. I have downloaded multiple large files but could not estimaet my total download with any real accuracy. Total bandwidth used can not be calculated in bytes of files downloaded to my system.

[murbo]

exactly, a bandwidth monitor installed on your computer is not accurate at all. the traffic that never gets in to your internal network is ignored altogether. and add all the overhead data to that, you may get screwed before you even know it... I'll go get FIOS as soon as it becomes available at my location.

[Stormspace]

This is actually anti competitive behavior as it gives Comcast the ability to offer services that are not measured, while competing firms will have to risk customer uncertainty over bandwidth usage. Examples of this might be VOIP services offered by Comvast not being tracked, while VOIP services offered by competitors being metered; TiVo and competing DVR services suffering since updates and TiVo PPV would count against the cap; slingbox users might suffer as well as any other inrternet appliance that communicates with outside areas.

[ihfwt]

I live in Canada and have cable broadband Internet access 7.1 Mbits down and 768 kbps Up. It also comes with a Download limit of 20 GB and Upload limit of 10 GB per month. Comcast's 250 GB of data per month is extremely generous from where I'm sitting.

[doconn7]

And here it is another strike at a crumbling cable network! Nothing like shooting yourself in the foot.

[igorz07]

I'd really like to hear your podcast, but I don't want to go over my limit. Sigh.

It's kinda interesting that Comcast spends millions telling us how much faster they are ... how you can use MORE bandwidth quicker than fios or dsl ... THEN they tell us "don't you dare use it or we'll stop taking your money". Memories of the black sheriff scene in Blazing Saddles aside, one wonders if anybody at Comcast actually TALKS to their marketing department.

Isn't the whole idea of broadband that, pretty soon, ALL media is going to go through the net? So, if we have Comcast, then that means we'll have to carefully weigh whether we REALLY want to watch that episode of Big Brother. I predict, along with the obvious demise of Comcast (I mean, how stupid can you be and still survive), this will also be the demise of network TV (I mean, how stupid can you be and still survive).

[Fil0403]

IMHO from "not using it" to "using «only» 250 GB a month" goes a slight difference. In any case, if, for you, that is the same as not using Internet at all, you can always offer me that bandwidth per month.

[Fil0403]

I have a proposal to Americans: switch over ISP's with us Europeans; we get your "tight" 250 GB/month limits, you get our common 25 GB/month limits.