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Comcast

FCC: We'll investigate Comcast-BitTorrent flap

Federal regulators plan to investigate whether Comcast improperly interferes with BitTorrent and other file-sharing traffic on its network.

The announcement by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin arrived in a panel discussion at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, according to an Associated Press report Tuesday.

Since at least last summer, reports had been circulating that the cable company was throttling BitTorrent traffic, which Comcast promptly denied. But in October, the AP released the results of tests, based on attempts to download the King James Bible, which it said confirmed that Comcast was actively interfering with the practice. … Read more

The end of the cable set-top box? Yes, Comcast says

Comcast, the United States' largest cable operator, says the set-top box's days are numbered.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday, CEO Brian Roberts predicted in a keynote address that by the end of the year, "virtually the entire cable industry will support Tru2way," an "open cable" standard that would render the bulky boxes moot by directly integrating any U.S. cable provider's service with a variety of devices. Initial partners in the Tru2way endeavor include Motorola, TiVo, Intel, Samsung Electronics, Microsoft, LG Electronics, Cisco Systems, and Sun Microsystems.

Roberts also … Read more

Comcast promising 160 Mbps. Don't hold your breath

As a Comcast customer, I was happy to read that it's planning to roll out 160 Mbps Internet service in 2008. I'm not expecting much, however. I currently pay extra to Comcast to get 8 Mbps service...and I routinely get closer to 1 Mbps and 2 Mbps, tops.

So while Comcast can talk up 160 Mbps, I won't hold my breath. At its current ratio of promise to delivery, however, I'd still be at 20 Mbps. I'll take that.

Comcast Digital Voice: Telemarketers included

I'm several weeks into my switch from Vonage to Comcast's Digital Voice. Verdict? Comcast Digital Voice works great. It has yet to go down and the sound quality is consistently excellent.

Unfortunately, I can't fully recommend it for two reasons:

It has an annoying habit of knocking down my wireless connection in my house. I haven't noticed it for the past two weeks, but in the first month it was disrupting my wireless access point on a daily basis. It was easy enough to fix: unplug the access point and plug it back in. But kind … Read more

Annoyed Comcast customer sues over 'always-on' assurance

Should Comcast be required to live up to its claims on its Web site and in press releases? One annoyed customer in Pennsylvania thinks so.

After Adam Schwartz's Internet connection was down or interrupted for almost two weeks in April 2005, he filed a lawsuit trying to hold the broadband provider to its statements talking about an "always-on" network connection. A federal court ruled in his case last Friday.

The "always-on" line is taken directly from Comcast's own literature. A press release boasts that Comcast's customers have "high-speed, always-on Internet connections." … Read more

Can the Internet really compete with cable TV?

Whether broadband can provide serious competition to cable TV has suddenly transformed from a theoretical question to the heart of a political debate in Washington.

The debate is expected to come to a head on Tuesday morning, when the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to meet to decide whether to impose extensive new regulations on the cable industry.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican who's acting more like a Democrat, wants the regulations. The cable industry, already reeling from a hefty decline in share prices, definitely doesn't.

Also taking the free-market view are Republican senators, who said in … Read more