Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

The state of Florida had fined Comcast a mere $150,000 in a settlement with the Attorney General after customers complained about having their service cut off for consuming too much bandwidth. The problem was Comcast refused to tell their customers just how much was too much.  $100,000 of the fine will fund future consumer investigations and $50,000 will go toward the cost of the AG’s investigation of Comcast.

The day before the settlement was announced, Comcast announced that starting October 1st a data cap of 250GB would be put in place for residential customers. They insisted that the cap was more than generous, and compared to the recent 5GB caps put in place by mobile broadband providers such as Sprint, it certainly is. Comcast said to go over the cap a customer would have to send 50 million emails, download over 62,000 songs, or upload 25,000 high resolution photos.

MORE »

Sections: Web

After several cries and complaints, Sprint has finally explained its decision to cap its “unlimited” data usage plan to 5GB a month, plus 300MB a month of off-network roaming. According to Sprint, the new limit is plenty enough, since it only affects 0.5% of customers. Sprint also notes that the limit applies to both existing and current consumer and individual accounts, but not corporate, business, public sector, or government contracts. The company states that the Simply Unlimited plan is exempt from the new rule—as the limit only applies to data cards and phone-as-modem plans. Interestingly, Sprint is permitting customers to go over the limit only if they do not exceed the limit in two out of three consecutive months—otherwise, termination is possible. However, Sprint is being gracious enough to inform users of the new limits prior to termination, giving customers a chance to change their usage habits. To aid monitoring data usage, the company will allow customers to check their data usage via Sprint.com starting June 8.

If 99.5% of customers are not going over the 5GB limit, than why is Sprint enforcing it? Granted 5GB of bandwidth should be plenty for most users, is it really worth losing the 0.5% of its “hardcore” customer base? Wouldn’t keeping the 0.5% and removing the limit give Sprint the competitive edge its needs, by being the only wireless provider to offer a true “unlimited” data plan?

Via [MobileCrunch]

• HTC Touch Pro now available with Alltel
• Verizon employees suspended for accessing Obama’s call records
• Rumor: Palm Treo Pro coming to Sprint this January

Is GoDaddy playing censorship God again or did the police ranking site RateMyCop actually really hit its bandwidth limit? RateMyCop has been gaining popularity lately because it allows visitors to post comments and ratings on police officers. It would have been alright if the site was not disclosing officer names and badge numbers, but unfortunately it does.

MORE »

Sections: Web, Web Apps, Websites

Nortel is bringing in a new optical technology that will speed up telecommunication companies network speeds. The optical technology will improve network speeds up to 40G-bps, four times faster than today’s standard network speed provided by telecommunications company.

Nortel is introducing the new technology to help telecommunications company provide the network speed that users currently demand. This is in the light of the boom in Internet video, high-definition programming and web mobility. With more devices and gadgets connecting to the internet through telecommunications network, Nortel is preparing the companies’ infrastructure for future increase in bandwidth demand. Increasing network speed to 40G-bps will also increase network capacity ten times more than it is right now, up to 100G-bps increase.

MORE »