Watch TV online through Comcast

Last June, the cable/sat industry announced plans for TV Everywhere, a way to bridge your subscription television content to your internet-connected devices. Comcast has just announced that their version of TV Everywhere, called On Demand Online, arrives next month.

Currently in beta with 5,000 subscribers, here's what we know:

• It's free with a subscription
• You authenticate up to 3 devices through Comcast.net or Fancast.com
• Video playback on Move Networks player
• Video on Demand content, though no word on HD content
• Streaming will count against Comcast's 250GB monthly bandwidth caps

Comcast's Usage Cap: What Does It Mean?

Comcast has posted a change to its broadband user policy today. It’s now limiting subscribers to 250 Gigabytes of monthly usage, which can include e-mailing friends or uploading photos.

Near term, the limit may not do much to curtain the average consumer’s Web usage. After all, 250 Gigabytes is a lot: You could download 100 HD movies over the Web, and still have some of that capacity left. Chances are, 99% of consumers will not even notice the change — for now.

But the decision carries weighty implications for the future. As Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett pointed out in his Aug. 29 note, “While the usage level specified is high, it is now finite…. A line has been crossed.” This is the end of unlimited broadband use as we know it. The end of an era.