According to Time Warner, unless you have at least 7Mbps internet, you can't download music, or even "Windows Media Player software." And you need their most expensive plan for "Super Fast Shopping Concert Tickets & Online Auctions" and watching videos. No wonder I couldn't snag Momofuku Ko reservations when I still had Time Warner!

And then there's Cox. By being vague, they're a little less bad, but still perpetuating the idea you can't share photos or download music without at least a 10Mbps connection. And WTF is PowerBoost? (DOCSIS 3.0?)

Verizon is the least offensive here—while they still say you need at 7.1Mbps for streaming video, their other claims aren't totally unreasonable, and just below the chart they give you access to what the bandwidth translates to in real-world experience at each tier, like that a 50MB album would take over 6 minutes to download with their 1Mbps connection, so you see what you're paying for.

Here's AT&T's ridiculous chart again, which says you need at least 3Mbps to use Facebook, and at least 18Mbps to download movies.

Comcast doesn't merit going into the wall of shame, surprisingly, since they just show you how fast stuff downloads at different (theoretical) speeds, so there's no real fear-mongering involved.

The bottom line is that you have to know your own internet habits and what kind of speed you really need—don't let your prospective ISP scare you into you paying for more bandwidth you'd actually use. Personally, I'm pretty comfortable with around 20Mbps down, and 10 up. But six is definitely tolerable, and I'd wager for most people, unless you've got a bunch of people watching Netflix and downloading music and playing games all at once (like me).

Image via YsteJam Photography/Flickr

From Comcast:

The meter will first show data usage being consumed in the current month. Over time, it will show the most recent three months of usage (including the current month).

As you can see, it's simple and easy and it should provide customers with helpful information about their overall bandwidth consumption. We've found that even some of the most technically savvy people have very little information or understanding about their monthly data usage. We believe many will be surprised by how little data they actually consume.

The meter displays usage on a per Gigabyte (GB) basis, over a calendar month, which may be different from the customer's monthly billing period cycle. The meter updates roughly every 3 hours and is designed to display usage conservatively and in favor of customers, such that it rounds DOWN usage to the nearest GB rather than rounding up.

It's important to underscore that almost 99% of our customers should not be concerned about their monthly data usage or ever crossing our 250 GB per month excessive usage threshold. The median customer consumes approximately 2 to 4 GB of data in a month.

For the fraction of less than 1% of our customers who are concerned about exceeding our excessive use threshold, this meter will help them monitor and calibrate their usage. It may also help them identify potential problems such as the presence of a bot or virus or excessive use of their bandwidth via an unsecured wireless router.

What's unique about this meter is that it measures all data usage over a cable modem. So, if a customer is using multiple computers and other devices, such as an online gaming console, laptop, or additional wireless devices (such as an iPod Touch), the meter will report data usage for all of those computers and devices combined.

This development has been a long time coming for Comcast power users who have been relying on third party bandwidth meters in an attempt to avoid exceeding the monthly 250 GB data cap. Unfortunately, the"short" trial has to wrap up in Portland before Comcast starts rolling it out nationally. [Comcast]

This fortress, which looks like a heavily armed gas station preparing for a zombie invasion (without the gas pumps) is a stopping point for emails sent to many three-letter government agencies. It's far enough away from DC to survive a nuclear blast, but close enough to service all the relevant entities that depend on them. More beautiful, informative postcards from locations you may never have expected were so important over at: [Wired]

First, a direct translation: AT&T's upgraded (or more accurately, upgrading) 3G network claims data download rates of 7.2 megabits per second. Though that's the lingo used to describe bandwidth, it's important to remember that those are not megabytes. AT&T's impressive-sounding 7.2 megabits would yield somewhere closer to .9 megabytes (900 kilobytes) per second, and that's only if you're getting peak performance, which you never will because...

That 7.2Mbps is theoretical, and due to technical overhead, network business, device speed and overzealous marketing, real world speeds are significantly lower. UPDATEDEven looking at the old hardware on the current 3G network—the networking guts in your iPhone 3G is technically capable of reaching the 3.6Mbps downstream that AT&T's network is technically capable of pushing. There are lots of reasons you don't ever see that. For one, it's limited to 1.4Mbps to preserve battery life—the faster you download, the faster you burn that battery. Another is congestion—all the a-holes watching YouTubes around you—and backhaul—the amount of pipe running to a tower, or more English-y still, the total bandwidth the tower has available. Another is proximity—the closer to the tower you are, the faster your phone is gonna fly. So for top speeds, you should sit under a deserted tower with plenty of backhaul.

As you can see on our chart above, our tested speeds for everything from EV-DO Rev. A to WiMax ran at anywhere from one half to one sixth their potential speed. Accordingly, Jason found AT&T's network to run at about 1.6Mbps with the iPhone 3G S—about a third faster than with the 3G, though he was probably still connecting at 3.6Mbps rates—the 7.2 rollout won't be complete until 2011, according to AT&T.

AT&T-style HSDPA is expected to reach out to an eventual theoretical speed of 14Mbps, which will undoubtedly make the current 3G networks feel slow, but won't necessarily blow them out of the water. That's the thing: the iPhone, and indeed just about all high-end handsets on the market today, operate at speeds that are reasonably close to the limits of 3G technology. In a funny sort of way, the iPhone 3GS is already a bit out of date.

So what's next? And what the hell are those really long green bars up there? Those are the so-called 4G (fourth generation) wireless technologies. Americans can ignore HSPA+ and EV-DO Rev B. for the most part, and given that they're the slowest of the next-gen bunch, shouldn't feel too bad. And anyway, as Matt explained, WiMax and LTE are what's next for us.

Both Verizon and AT&T are within a couple of years of deploying LTE in their networks, and WiMax is already out there in some cities. Our own WiMax tests on Clearwire's network peaked at an astounding 12Mbps—nearly eight times faster than the iPhone 3GS on AT&T. And even if WiMax is shaping up to be more of a general broadband protocol than a cellular one, this is the kind of thing that'll be in your phones in a few years, and the promises are mind-boggling: earlier this year, Verizon's LTE were breaking 60Mbps.

So in short, your brand-new, "S"-for-speed iPhone is pretty speedy—as long as you only look to the past.

Because, as we know, we're getting trounced there. Japan's fiber connections blow away even the speediest FiOS install you can get here, and South Korea's percentage of homes with broadband connections makes our (albeit significantly less population-dense) country look almost third world.

Waverman's Conectivity Scorecard, besides providing a great Flash interface to scroll through each country's ratings, takes into account not just pure infrastructure statistics, favoring a broader look at how broadband is actually used in three main areas: at home, in businesses and by the government. And while our domestic broadband percentage may be lagging (especially in rural areas), our disproportionately high usage of the high-speed web at work and, if you can believe it, the government is enough to push us to number one.

And while Waverman could just be singing to the keep-broadband-out-of-the-Stimuls crowd, it's an interesting way of looking at things. [Connectivity Scorecard via Bits]

No one knows yet; all we do know is that TWC COO Landel Hobbs announced intentions to expand the caps to more cities this year.

Dan over at Alley Insider points out that Time Warner's strategy doesn't appear to only be about stopping hardcore pirates (which a more roomy 250GB cap, like Comcast's, is better at)-no, they appear to be going for a new revenue model in which they hit up harder-core users for overage fees. Although if they keep the bar set at 40GB, they might be sticking not just big Torrenters but mom and dad streaming Netflix Watch Instantly, too. Yippee. Don't even try this in NYC, Time Warner. [Alley Insider]

Having cell troubles at large public events is something we've all experienced, but the inauguration crowd, which could top out at around two million iGeneration texters and tweeters, will likely bring every DC-area network to its knees. That's why all of the major carriers are spending millions for this one day, bringing in extra COWs and COLTs (cell on wheels, cell on light truck) to beef up bandwidth. The NYTimes talked to most major carriers, and it's interesting to hear all that goes on behind the scenes for a big event like this. Sprint claims they've been planning for the inauguration since April.

Despite the networks' best efforts, Grandpa Gene Kimmelman of the Conusmer's Union (publishers of Consumer Reports) says it's not enough:

“It’s like paying for an all-you-can-eat buffet and discovering there are only scraps left,” Mr. Kimmelman said. He suggested another way the carriers might spend their millions of dollars: “Maybe they should offer a rebate if they cut usage on Inauguration Day.”

Funnily enough, the NYTimes, is one of many news outlets is one of many with open calls for citizen reports filed via smartphone from the field. Oh the paradox of media in our connected age! [NYTimes]

It seems unlikely that Google would go all in on the hardware end like this, but whether they partner up or not, just a rumor is enough to make companies like Cisco nervous—and send Juniper stock into a tailspin. [SD Times via Bnet via Slashdot]

The golden rule—which we covered a bit here—to keep in mind is this: If you use more than 70 percent of your downstream or upstream bandwidth for more than 15 minutes, you'll be slowed down for at least 15 minutes, or until you're brought back down to using 50 percent of your bandwidth. The other, more esoteric way to bring on the sludge is actually a pair of conditions: If a certain CMTS port—cable modem termination system, the hub your cable modem, along with those of up to 15,000 (but probably fewer) runs to—is congested and if you've been targeted as the asshole why.

By slowed down, it means all of your packets are assigned "Best Effort" quality of service, a lower tier than Priority Best Effort. Which means this, according to Comcast:

If there is no congestion, packets from a user in a BE state should have little trouble getting on the bus when they arrive at the bus stop. If, on the other hand, there is congestion in a particular instance, the bus may become filled by packets in a PBE state before any BE packets can get on. In that situation, the BE packets would have to wait for the next bus that is not filled by PBE packets.

This all happens in a compressed time frame though—missing 50 buses would mean being delayed by about a tenth of a second, but it is possible to have your packets dropped in "extreme cases." (See? The bus metaphor was theirs.)

Don't forget your bandwidth counter either, guys. You wouldn't wanna zoom past your 250GB cap and get slowed down, would you? Enjoy your internets, and don't hog it all! [DSL Reports]

In an interview with Ars Technica, FCC chair Kevin Martin confirmed that the latest iteration of the proposal has eliminated the smut filter:

Why the change? "I'm saying if this is a problem for people, let's take it away," Martin said. "A lot of public interest advocates have said they would support this, but we're concerned about the filter. Well, now there's an item in front of the Commissioners and it no longer has the filter. And I've already voted for it without the filter now. So it's already got one vote."

"Got anybody else?" I asked him.

"Not yet," Martin admitted with a chuckle.

More relevant, however, is that last tidbit: this thing ain't never gonna pass. Despite being a poorly planned scheme from the very beginning, its list of enemies is pretty much everyone whose approval is needed to get this through—the Bush Administration, cable companies, congressional leaders, and on and on. So despite being a good move for removing censorship and all, this plan still needs quite a bit more drawing board time. [Ars Technica via /.]

Obviously, the vast majority of subscribers will never have to worry about service suspension or termination because of bandwidth overages, but for those that do, a tool like this is vital. Up until now, Comcast urged concerned customers to download bandwidth meters online or rely on a meter contained within the McAfee Security Suite to track their usage. According to DSL reports, this online tool could come as early as January 5th and it will update users on a three hour delay—not in real time. Not a perfect solution, but at least it will be convenient. [Comcast via DSL Reports via CNET]

Comcast tries to ameliorate the news by putting the cap in terms even grandma can understand: 250GB = 50 million emails! 250,000 hi-res photo uploads of the grand kids! But in reality, if you're sharing your connection with roommates and downloading legitimate VOD stuff from Apple or Vudu, yet alone your torrentz, hitting 250GB in a month is not that far from reality. And now that Comcast has thrown their hat into the cap ring, it's not unlikely to assume other biggies will follow. Guhhhh.

Read more on how caps are killing us from Matt's recent Giz Explains on the topic.

[Comcast via Giga OM via DSL Reports]

Full Release and FAQs:

Announcement Regarding An Amendment to Our Acceptable Use Policy

It's no secret we've been evaluating a specific monthly data usage or bandwidth threshold for our Comcast High-Speed Internet residential customers for some time. Rumors circulated online last year and they popped up again in May.

In January, we added new frequently asked questions about what we consider acceptable use of our service to our online Help site www.comcast.net/help and Security Channel page www.comcast.net/security.

We've listened to feedback from our customers who asked that we provide a specific threshold for data usage and this would help them understand the amount of usage that would qualify as excessive. Today, we're announcing that beginning on October 1, 2008, we will amend our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) available at http://www.comcast.net/terms/use/ and establish a specific monthly data usage threshold of 250 GB/month per account for all residential customers.

250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of data, much more than a typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis. Currently, the median monthly data usage by our residential customers is approximately 2 - 3 GB. To put 250 GB of monthly usage in perspective, a customer would have to do any one of the following:

* Send 50 million emails (at 0.05 KB/email)
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song)
* Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)
* Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo)

This is the same system we have in place today. The only difference is that we will now provide a limit by which a customer may be contacted. As part of our pre-existing policy, we will continue to contact the top users of our high-speed Internet service and ask them to curb their usage. If a customer uses more than 250 GB and is one of the top users of our service, he or she may be contacted by Comcast to notify them of excessive use. At that time, we'll tell them exactly how much data per month they had used. We know from experience the vast majority of customers we ask to curb usage do so voluntarily.

As stated above the new monthly data usage threshold will officially take effect starting October 1st. We are notifying customers in a number of ways. For example, we have posted a preview of the amended AUP as a PDF on this page. We are also running banner notices on our Comcast.net home page and on our Security Channel Web page to alert customers about this upcoming change. In addition, we have provided a number of FAQs that are available at http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use. Finally, we will also notify our customers directly by including an insert (also called a bill stuffer) in an upcoming monthly billing statement.

What is Comcast's approach to Excessive Use?

Comcast has an excessive use program to provide a high-quality service for all of its customers. The company uses reasonable network management practices that are consistent with industry standards. Comcast maintains an Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") located at http://www.comcast.net/terms/use/ for its Comcast High-Speed Internet Service customers. The AUP discloses what constitutes unaccpetable conduct and uses of the service. The AUP includes requirements regarding data usage that all Comcast customers and users of the service must follow.

Comcast determines excessive usage in relation to typical residential uses of its service. The company does so in order to identify truly excessive use while not impacting the vast majority of Comcast customers - more than 99% - who use the service as intended.

Does Comcast use a monthly data usage threshold to determine excessive use?

Comcast will initiate a 250 GB monthly data usage threshold for all residential Comcast High-Speed Internet accounts. This threshold will be in place to provide a clear definition of what would constitute as excessive use of the service.

The new monthly data usage threshold will go into effect starting October 1, 2008.

Why is Comcast going to provide a monthly data usage threshold for its residential high-speed Internet users?

Comcast has been evaluating a monthly data usage threshold for quite some time and it has heard from high-speed Internet customers who have asked that it provide a specific number for excessive use. By providing a specific monthly data usage threshold, Comcast hopes to provide more clarification to its customers about what would qualify as excessive use.

When will the 250 GB monthly data usage threshold be put into effect?

Comcast will initiate the 250 GB monthly data usage threshold starting October 1, 2008.

What will happen if a customer exceeds 250 GB of data usage in a month?

The vast majority - more than 99% - of Comcast customers will not be impacted by a 250 GB monthly bandwidth or data usage threshold. If a customer exceeds more than 250 GB and is one of the heaviest data users who consume the most data on our high-speed Internet service, he or she may receive a call from Comcast's Customer Security Assurance ("CSA") group to notify them of excessive use. At that time, Comcast will tell the customer exactly how much data per month he or she had used.

If a customer surpasses 250 GB and is one of the top users of the service for a second time within a six-month timeframe, his or her service will be subject to termination for one year. After the one year period expires, the customer may resume service by subscribing to a service plan appropriate to his or her needs.

Will all customers who exceed 250 GB of data usage in a month be identified as excessive users?

Yes, Comcast is setting 250 GB as the residential data usage threshold for excessive use. Customers who exceed 250 GB and are among the top users of Comcast's high-speed Internet service may get contacted by Comcast about their excessive use.

"Effective in 30 days, Sprint reserves the right to limit throughput speeds or amount of data transferred and to deny, terminate, modify, or suspend service if usage exceeds 5 GB/month in total or 300 MB/month while roaming off network."

[Thanks Brett!]

The cap is being put into place to control a small number of users who have set up file sharing servers and are pumping out far more than that a day. If you're a downloader, don't you worry, no download cap is going to be put into place, so feel free to continue using the hell out of that gorgeous 100Mbps connection of yours.

Sure makes that Time Warner download cap of 40GB per month seem stingy as hell, doesn't it? Stupid jerkface American ISPs. [Ars Technica]

It is more or less accepted that a minority of users use disproportionate of bandwidth, but what they're using it for is changing. It's increasingly video, not BitTorrent. The whole pro-BitTorrent thing is a smokescreen, because BitTorrent is less and less of an issue—video, and increasingly, HD video will be the real one. (Along with any number of other increasingly bandwidth-intensive apps.) And it'll be more and more competitive with providers' TV offerings—we've already seen Time Warner cry about it. But there's no legitimate way to block it and protect their content.

They can, however, make it more expensive for you to download with bandwidth caps (which is conveniently net neutral). And that's what I think this is partially about—protecting their TV business, not just curbing voracious bandwidth appetites. Regardless of the motivations, it's definitely coming. Comcast's tests will probably start soon, Time Warner's are already underway and regional ISPs have been doing it for a while. It's looking very much like the future of broadband here.

At least if we're using it less maybe the internet won't explode now. [Wired]

A spokesperson for the cable company said that excessive use qualifies as anybody who downloads "30,000 songs, 250,000 pictures, or 13 million emails in a month." Since it's hard to quantify emails and pictures in terms of size, we'll have to judge by songs, which are usually about 3MB to 5MB depending on how high it's encoded.

But Comcast doesn't actually tell people exactly what this cap is, leading users to sit in fear of whether or not they'll go over and be booted. Although it's mostly heavy BitTorrent users who have been subject to this, the rise of ABC, NBC, Amazon, iTunes and NetFlix video services has put regular people who really enjoy TV into the same group as well. [Gamdaily via Kotaku]

It's based on a nanoStructures optical fiber design, in case any of you optics nerds were wondering. Corning's president, Peter Volanakis, sung its praises in a press release:

"We have developed an optical fiber cable that is as rugged as copper cable but with all of the bandwidth benefits of fiber. By making fundamental changes in the way light travels in the fiber, we were able to create a new optical fiber that is over 100 times more bendable than standard fibers."

"This design relies on nanostructures that serve as a mirror or a guardrail, and as the fiber is turned or bent, the light doesn't leak out. We have wrapped the fiber around a ball point pen and it retains its effectiveness."

"This fiber technology will enable us to bring faster Internet speeds, higher-quality high-definition content and more interactive capabilities than any other platform which exists today," said Paul Lacouture, a Verizon Telecom executive.

What does that mean for you and me? How about an HD movie downloading in one second compared with the snail's pace of a few hours it takes to download a 720p flick from Xbox Live today? All that breakneck speed will be made possible by this tiny device that's just 3.25 x 5.25mm small. But will this minuscule chip really solve the current bandwidth problem?

There's plenty of fiber around, but until this breakthrough, it was all dressed up with no place to go. What's needed is this kind of technology that can speed up transfer and receive rates. Well, and then actually getting that fiber optic connection to the doorsteps of households across the world (otherwise known as fiber to the home) is no easy task, either. However, Verizon FiOS is making some progress here.

Once those connections are made, it'll be up to weasels like Time Warner Cable and Comcast to figure out ways to throttle this blazing speed, and charge you unreasonable fees for it. Propellerheads, check the press release link for details. – Charlie White

Press Release [IBM, via Sci Fi Tech]

To get that amount of boost, unfortunately, the antenna has to be gigantic and ugly. That's actually an IETF RFC standard—RFC 4797 - Specifying Aesthetic Design For Wireless Component Enhancers. Look it up if you don't believe me. – Jason Chen

The Buffalo wireless adaptor [Akihabara News via Mobile Mag]