Looks like Comcast is going to cut off their heaviest bandwidth users if they're not careful.

Just FYI, it's bandwidth total (upload and download)

From Comcast:
[i]Dear Michael Schultz,


Thank you for contacting Comcast via e-mail.

I understand that you have questions regarding the bandwidth cap and I
apologize for any confusion with this.  The cap of 250GB is for the
total use of internet service including download and upload of files.

In order to maintain a high-quality online service for all customers, we
have a responsibility to manage our network appropriately to provide the
best possible experience.  While Comcast has been evaluating a monthly
data usage threshold for quite some time, we have 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.  As of October 1, 2008, data usage above
250 GB/month per Comcast High-Speed Internet residential customer
account will be considered excessive.

Generally speaking, more than 99% of our customers use our service as
intended, as a residential product so less than 1% of Comcast customers
today use and excessive amount of data.  By way of comparison, they use
more bandwidth in one month than a regular customer would use over a
period of many years.  To reach 250 GB in a month, for example, a
customer would have to do any 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)

There are many online tools customers can download and use to measure
their consumption. Customers can find such tools by simply doing a Web
search - for example, a search for "bandwidth meter" will provide some
options. Customers using multiple PCs should just be aware that they
will need to measure and combine their total monthly usage in order to
identify the data usage for their entire account.[/i]

Quoting NewEnglander:

Quote:
Wait for Time Warner to announce their cap which is way less than 250 GB of data.

Quote:
The caps differ depending on the tier of service paid for by the consumer. The lowest level of service is a 768Kbps connection with a 5GB cap for $29.95 per month. The high-end package will offer 15MBps with a 40GB cap for $54.90 per month. Consumers will pay by the gigabyte for consumption in excess of the established caps. Customers will be able to see how much bandwidth they have left by visiting the Time Warner Cable web site.

Ouch.

I have only found two routers that have bandwidth monitoring build in.  One is D-Link's gaming one at around $200.  Right now I am running NetMeter on all the computers to get an idea of how much bandwidth is being used.  Unfortunately I have no way to monitor the 5 game systems.

Quoting schultzy:

Quote:
I have only found two routers that have bandwidth monitoring build in.  One is D-Link's gaming one at around $200.

The cheap Linksys WRT-G/GS/GL with modified firmware (DD-WRT/Tomato/etc) also have the ability to monitor bandwidth.

Quoting schultzy:

Quote:
Generally speaking, more than 99% of our customers use our service as
intended, as a residential product so less than 1% of Comcast customers
today use and excessive amount of data.  By way of comparison, they use
more bandwidth in one month than a regular customer would use over a
period of many years.  To reach 250 GB in a month, for example, a
customer would have to do any 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)

[/i]

I find it hard to believe that anyone sending or downloading that much info is doing it for personal use. This sounds like commercial use to me. Are users at that amount of bandwidth monthly just lying to get around paying some sort of commercial rate for internet use, if there is such a thing?

WoW Bandwidth Usage - According to this article, if you ran WoW at peak bandwidth 24x7, you would use about 70GB per month.  For the average user, however, they figure 600MB per month.

This is just another example of why Comcast will NEVER touch my home again for TV or Broadband.  I will pay more per month for DSL before Comcast will ever provide me with service again.  I currently use DSL with AT&T U-verse and have had no speed issues or any problems and it is only 6meg download speeds but still faster that comcast's 10meg. 

Death to the cable companies!!!