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Comcast: Bloggers keep us honest

After months of lying and evading our questions, Comcast seems to have developed a love affair with the blogosphere. Is this an early Valentine's Day present for bloggers, or is the company up to its usual tricks?

Comcast has gotten into a bit of hot water with the Federal Communications Comission over its widely criticized anti-BitTorrent filtering. The FCC Chairman Kevin Martin announced the agency's plans to investigate Comcast last month, stating that "the question is going to arise: Are they reasonable network practices?" He added that "when they have reasonable network practices, they should … Read more

Vonage customers bolting for the exit. Try Skype next time

Vonage narrowed its loss this past quarter, but its customers are cutting their own losses with the struggling VOIP provider. I should know. I dumped Vonage two months ago and will never go back. Its service was terrible, both the customer support and the technology.

I'm with Comcast now for its Digital Voice offering and it's better (which is perhaps not surprising since Comcast intentionally hurts rival services on its network to preserve its own services). My problem now is that the Comcast VOIP boxes causes my wireless router to reset several times per day. Very, very aggravating.

The most surprising thing in all of this is how much better Skype is than either Vonage or Comcast Digital Voice.… Read more

Verizon: No 'need' to degrade P2P traffic...yet

WASHINGTON--Verizon Communications doesn't currently block or slow down peer-to-peer file-sharing applications like BitTorrent on its broadband network, but it can't rule out doing so in the future, a company vice president said Monday.

The comments by Verizon executive vice president Tom Tauke arrive as Comcast has taken heat for throttling BitTorrent traffic in the name of "reasonable network management" and as the Federal Communications Commission is studying whether Internet service providers should be permitted to manipulate P2P traffic. Consumer interest groups have asked the FCC to declare that "degrading peer-to-peer traffic" violates the FCC'… Read more

Where this weekend we're going waterboarding!

EPISODE 32

Today we talk about how Monster cables are overpriced (duh), how much Paris Hilton sucks, and how to "hack" T-Mobile. Plus, Comcast is covering its ass by amending the company's Terms of Service to allow for throttling of BitTorrent traffic.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

VOD services get new releases when they're still new

Renting movies on DVD could soon be a thing of the past, as cable operators experiment with new ways to get movies and even TV shows to viewers quicker, using their video-on-demand platforms.

On Monday, Comcast announced that it would provide some Hollywood hit movies on its video-on-demand, or VOD, service the same day they're offered on DVD. It also announced that some new television series will premiere on its VOD service at least one week before airing on regular TV.

Time Warner Cable started experimenting with a similar program in March 2007 in Austin, Texas, and Columbus, Ohio. … Read more

Comcast's Fancast: For those of us who are obsessed with media

While the Writers Guild of America is on strike, Hollywood is giving us plenty of opportunities to catch up on content that we haven't seen. Fancast features full episodes of TV shows, TV listings, and news on TV, movies, and celebrities. Comcast's Fancast may look like the latest entrant into the web video scene, but the truth is that it packs a much bigger punch.

Much of the content for full episodes on Fancast is provided by Hulu, with additional content from CBS, MTV, and BET thrown in for good measure. The viewing experience is what you have … Read more