It’s one thing to hack your cable modem for your own personal edification, but it’s another matter to turn around and sell hacked cable modems to people. I mean, that’s just common sense, right? Smoke all the dope you want, just don’t sell it to kids on the street. (You’ll note I used the word “dope” like a 70-year-old man.) Some guy in Massachusetts found out the hard way, and he now faces up to 20 years in prison and fines up to $250,000.

Do you have a Comcast DVR? I do. I also have a TiVo, which has had remote scheduling since 2005. I can almost schedule recordings remotely to my Comcast DVR. Not yet, but almost – it’s not available in Boston yet, apparently. If you have a Comcast DVR, check out www.comcast.net/mydvr/ to see if the service has been switched on in your area.

Whoever says the legal system in this country is broken, well, you’re right. Comcast was caught tampering with its customers’ packets two years ago. It bitched and moaned like nobody’s business, earning itself no friends. The Federal Communications Commission sanctioned the gigantic corporation in what amounted to a slap on the wrist. Big deal. A class action lawsuit was filed, which was just settled for $16 million. Comcast raked in $34.3 billion in revenue in 2008, meaning that this settlement amounts to four hours of revenue. That’s right: four hours. Take that, corporate America!

I just had a visit from a courteous and helpful (really) Comcast guy that was quite illuminating. You see, a few months ago I had a new cable modem installed, since my old one was freezing up every few minutes. The guy who came then happened to have an extra modem in his van of the correct spec and installed it right away. Everything was fine until a week or two ago, when I started losing connection in the morning consistently and finding the internet moving at an unbelievably slow pace — we’re talking 1KB/s here, and I pay for the fattest pipe Comcast offers in the area.

So I called it in, and today the guy came and told me that the Terayon modem I’d just recently had installed was a piece of garbage. Uh, okay?

My God in Heaven! It’s been about four hours since the FCC announced its intention to add two more pillars to its idea of Net Neutrality: one, ISPs should not be allowed to wily nilly permit/disallow traffic on their networks (non-discrimination); and two, traffic management should be done is as transparent a manner as possible, so you don’t wind up with people discovering that their software is being tampered with, without their knowledge or consent, after the fact. I don’t know about yous guys (not a typo), but that seems pretty reasonable to me. And if you disagree, then you’re probably a high-ranking executive at Comcast.

Apparently Comcast is in dire financial straights. If America’s largest cable provider doesn’t raise the cable modem rental fee to $5 from $3, it will not be able to roll out the faster Internet service, DOCSIS 3.0, and the executives won’t be able to get new trousers. Sure, the provider had enough cash to build a massive skyscraper and an impressive HD video wall in Philadelphia, but if you want faster Internet, some folks are going to have to pay more. It’s probably a good idea to point out that you can save a lot of money by purchasing your own cable modem.

Do you have Comcast stock? Are you concerned with all the money the company has in its coffers? Yes, that sounds ludicrous, being concerned that a company has a lot of money on hand, but the fear is that Comcast could be ramping up for a big media buy, something no one wants to see.

There’s two ways to look at the story that many of the country’s biggest ISPs have refused government stimulus money for broadband infrastructure investment. One, the ISPs patently don’t need the money, and are more than capable of delivering broadband to as many Americans as possible with their own capital. Two, the ISPs could use the money, but they’d prefer not to accept it lest they be beholden to all sorts of government-imposed restrictions, one of which relates to net neutrality.

Comcast has just jumped on the iPhone bandwagon with the “Comcast Mobile App” — now available for free download from the iTunes App Store.

Well, I don’t think it’s a streach anymore to say that Comcast’s latest venture into online video is a off to a good start. CBS is the latest network to join the impressive lineup which also includes HBO and Cinemax as of yesterday. This netwoks is a big step for Comcast On Demand Online as CBS is the only major network not available on the free to everyone site, Hulu. But remember, Comcast On Demand Online will only be available to Comcast subs who currently pay for the stations. (e.g. if you can’t watch HBO on your TV, you can’t watch it online)

Cable providers Comcast and Time Warner might be late to the Internet video party, but that doesn’t mean they are going to let us enjoy content for free that they pay for. Oh no, the TV Everywhere Model is designed to give Comcast and Time Warner paying subscribers access to content and block-out everyone else. And this system might find its way into Hulu.

You can’t blame the cable operators for their plans. They have to pay good money for access to cable stations. Then they, of course, pass along the cost to subs via a monthly bill. The thought is that those people that pay for the content should be able to watch all of it on both their TVs and computers.

Of course the other side is that if you don’t pay for those services, then you’ll be shut out. This authentication system will be used initially on sites like Comcast’s video site, Fancast, but there is always the possibility that it could eventually make its way on to Hulu.

Bad news for DirecTV subs. If you have been waiting, and waiting to upgade your old TiVo Series 2-ish DirecTV DVR, you are going to have to wait a bit longer. It was reveled in the quarterly earnings call that the DVR isn’t going to be available this year, rather sometime in 2010.

You may recall that exactly one week ago, your old buddy Doug got all bonered up about NFL Network and Comcast finally reaching an amicable agreement. In particular, it was starting to sound like Comcast subscribers would not only get NFL network at no extra charge, but that we’d also get the very-excellent Red Zone Channel for free as well. I mentioned that it “seems way too good to be true” and, as it turns out, it looks like it is indeed too good to be true.

Is this a trick? IT FEELS LIKE A TRICK! I’m either dead or dreaming because not only did Comcast and NFL Network just reach an agreement to make NFL Network part of Comcast’s Digital Classic package, but Comcast subscribers will also get access to the Red Zone Channel that’s usually shown only on DirecTV as part of the insanely expensive Sunday Ticket package.

Everyone’s favorite content provider to hate is claiming they are now a major player in the home phone game taking the number three spot after AT&T and Verizon. Its digital home phone service now has 6.47 million subscribers, overtaking Qwest’s 5.96 million subs. We all know how Comcast got so many subscribers too, right?

Well, first there is the triple play with intro pricing that’s too good to turn down. It also helps that every call to Comcast involves a discussion about the service. But, folks, once that trial period is finished you may wanna look elsewhere for better pricing after the intro ends and your price shoots up to $39.99 a month.