Comcast cable internet users across the country can now keep track of their data usage to make sure they don't go over their 250GB a month data allowance, thanks to bandwidth meters deployed to customers nationwide Thursday.

Comcast will send users an e-mail with a link to the meter, which can be found on their Comcast.net user page. As of Thursday, the meter is now available more than 25 states including all or parts of: Oregon, Washington, Maine, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Connecticut, Vermont, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri , Colorado, Utah, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

Comcast, which was dinged by the FCC for throttling peer-to-peer traffic, instituted its 250GB per month cap in August 2008 – as a way for it to cut down on its heaviest bandwidth users without picking on specific kinds of net usage. It still sells its internet based on a connection's speed, not the amount of data used.

Time Warner Cable, among others, have tried testing metered broadband pricing plans, where users paying for the amount of data rather than the throughput. Time Warner canceled its tests after massive user outrage, and a revolt that eventually got New York's senior senator involved in the backlash. Satellite internet providers, as well as most mobile broadband providers, also charge overage fees or penalize users when they go over 5GB per month.

By contrast, Comcast's cap is high enough that few users will ever reach, mainly those who download large torrents or stream many movies or share their connections with others. A typical movie on a peer-to-peer network is about 1 GB.

It remains unclear whether metered broadband – rather than cheap and unlimited service – is the wave of the future, but Comcast cares enough to institute them. Certainly, if many people start getting cut off or charged extra based on these meters, you can expect that you'll have a chorus of geeks calling for third-party certification (if not an outright ban) on the meters.

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