As it turns out, Xfinity is just a rebranding of TV Everywhere—a free service that allows you to play your tv content on up to three authenticated internet devices. We already knew that would be rolling out in December, but Zats has specified an exact date of December 12th.

As for remote DVR scheduling, details are a little hazier. Comcast has "promised" that the feature is on the horizon, but no specific dates have been announced. [Zats]

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]

Ars Technica says the constituents in Massa's district have been subject to data caps from both of the available broadband providers, and Massa thinks that the lack of competition in the broadband market makes volume usage fees unnecessary and unfair to consumers.

Instead, he wants broadband to be treated more like a utility, with the Federal Trade Commission deciding whether or not data caps are fair. And with the current phone/cable duopoly structure in the broadband landscape, Massa thinks companies can do without usage fees.

That said, this bill still has to make its way through House, then Senate and then onto the President's desk. And there have already been a fair number of detractors both inside and outside of congress. Basically, it has a long way to go. [House of Reps via Ars Technica]

Austin, San Antonio, Rochester, NY, and Greensboro, North Carolina are the next cities to suffer Time Warner's comparatively draconian 40GB caps at the high-end—Comcast's is 250GB, AT&T's is 150GB, and all of them suck.

Every gig you overshoot your cap costs a dollar, meaning an HD movie download from iTunes could end up costing another $5 on top the $20 you're paying for the movie. Just four HD movies (assuming a conservative 5GB per flick) would swallow half of your allowed data for the month. You might wanna lay off the high def YouTube and Hulu too. Oh yes, the squeeze on high def video that doesn't come direct from your cable box is here. Actually, can I just say the internet is dead? OK. The internet is dead. [BusinessWeek - Thanks Joshua!]

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]

The good: The new cap is 10GB, a fairly reasonably amount for mobile data (really, that's like over 300MB a day). After you hit 10GB, your connection will be throttled down to 50kbps, just like T-Mobile's original cap plan. The bad: It will cover every phone, including the SideKick. Worse for SideKick users, their monthly data is going up to match the G1's. The supposed T-Mobile employee revealing this info also mentions "$34.99 for all you can eat (cough 10GB cap)" though it's not quite clear what he's referring to specifically.

Really, G1 users are most likely to be affected, since it's the only phone T-Mobile's got conducive to really moving that kind of data. How much data are you guys using a month on average, anyway? [Android Community Forums via Android Community]

Kinda interesting, since their own metered broadband plan is rumored to run up to 250GB (read why metered broadband is bad). Has anyone else gotten hit with the hammer at a lower rate of usage like Ace here? Tell us, we wanna know (or any other Comcast dirt, please send it to tips@gizmodo.com)! [Thanks Ace! - Giz's Comcast Coverage]