Secondary Email Accounts in SmartZone

I wrote in a previous post that I was a little disappointed that in Comcast's new SmartZone email software you can no longer view email from a secondary account. My workaround was to forward all email from my secondary accounts to my primary account. It works well for me but I got some comments on the blog post that it was an ideal solution for everyone.

Interestingly I got an email from Comcast the other day entitled "Answering your questions about the SmartZone Communications Center. One of the FAQs in the email was how to see all of my Comcast email in one place. The solution is to add the secondary email accounts as External POP accounts using the below steps:

1. Go to the Preferences tab
2. Select the Email Manager sub tab
3. Select Add External Account
4. Enter Unique Account Name to identify the account (e.g. Sandra-Sec1-Ext)
5. Enter the Secondary account's email address (e.g. Sandra-Sec1@comcast.net)
6. Select POP3
7. Enter Email Server: mail.comcast.net
8. Enter password
9. Click Test Settings to make sure the external account setup is correct
10. Click Save

I went through the above steps with one of my secondary accounts and it does work although not exactly how I expected. It adds the account as a new folder within the folders list. You can see all of the emails in that account but when you send an email from that secondary account comes from your primary account. So I guess this solution is a little better but not quite as good as webmail where you could access all of your accounts and send email from those accounts separately. I do look forward to a future SmartZone release where I can access all of my accounts as I did in Webmail.

Still to me is a minor inconvenience for all of the new features that SmartZone has included. I have had much more time to use SmartZone since my original post and the more I get used to it the more I like it. Comcast can't make everyone happy but I think once customers get used to SmartZone they will like it as well. I think Comcast is trying hard to address customer concerns and questions by sending out emails, FAQs and Tutorials to attempt to resolve customer issues.

SmartZone

This morning I was upgraded to Comcast's new email software called SmartZone and I have to say I really like it. I first heard about SmartZone back in November when I got an email from Comcast informing me that in a couple days I would be upgraded. A couple days, then weeks passed and no SmartZone. Around the end of November I got another email from Comcast staying that my upgrade was pending. Not sure what "pending" actually meant I went to the Comcast Help Forums and found that the servers where having some capacity issues and that they were suspending all upgrades until after the 1st of the new year.

So now here it is 3 months later and I am finally upgraded so I figured I would talk about what I like and don't like about SmartZone

What I like:

• The interface is designed to work like Microsoft Outlook. So there is now all of that cool drag and drop and right-click functionality. Very intuitive and easy to use
• I can still access my old address book and saved email folders.
• My email box in now increased to 10 Gigabytes in space.

What I don't like:

• I can no longer access secondary email accounts from the main page of my primary account. I have heard they are bringing back this functionality in a future release but it is not really that big a deal for me. I just turned forwarding on in my secondary account and have emails forwarded to my main account.
• There seems to be a bit more advertising on the interface. I remember a little ad within the old interface but there seems to me more of it with SmartZone.
• When I was logged on this morning the interface seemed to be a little slow. It seems fine now so I am now sure if it was a connection issue or an issue with the Comcast servers.

I think just like any new software it is going to take a little while to get used to SmartZone. Some things work a little differently like needing to double-click an email rather that single-click to open. Of course with all of the new functionality I am sure that SmartZone is going to be really slow on older computers. My two home PCs about a year old and my work PC is newish as well so I have seen no performance issues. Luckily, Comcast has released a SmartZone Lite version of the software for this very issue. I haven't used it yet but it can be accessed under preferences.

So overall I am very happy with SmartZone. After reading the comments in the Comcast Support forum I was expecting issues but for me the upgrade has been pretty painless. Working in the software industry myself I know how hard it is to keep everybody happy when you release new software but I think Comcast has done a pretty good job with this one.

Anyroom OnDemand

I was watching TV this morning and the below commercial came on advertising a new Comcast feature called Anyroom OnDemand

The gist of it is if you are watching an OnDemand program in one room you can stop it and continue watching the show where you left off in another room. I am not sure how long this has been available as this was the first time I have seen the commercial but my wife said she has seen it a few times.

Wanting to learn more about Anyroom OnDemand I went to the website (http://www.comcast.com/anyroom/) at the end of the commercial. The website basically explains how it works and says all you need to get the feature is to subscribe to digital cable. But there was a buy button at the bottom of the screen so I was not sure if there was an extra charge. I was also a little unsure that it would work with my setup as I have a standard DCT700 box upstairs and a DCH3416 with HD and TIVO downstairs. The DCH3416 has a different type of software installed so I was doubtful that it would actually work. Only one way to find out....

I went to my upstairs TV and started to watch one of the free movies and then made sure it went to my saved programs. Then I went downstairs checked my saved programs and there it was, I selected the program and it started playing where it left off. Pretty cool!!!

Not sure how much I will actually use this feature but it is nice to know that it is there and is free. My only complaint is that Comcast did not notify me of this new feature. I am on all of their new product release email lists and was not aware of it until now. Seems like it would be cheaper to send out an email to customers rather than buy commercial time.

Issue with Channel 845 on the Comcast TIVO Box Fixed

The issue that I have been experiencing with my Comcast / TIVO box skipping channel 845 and going to channel 245 appears to be fixed. I called Comcast back in August about the issue and was told that they would be sending out an update to the Guide software on August 26th that would fix the issue. August 26th came and went and the issue was not corrected.

I kind of forgot about the issue for a while until last week when my OnDemand and TIVO stopped working. I got on the phone with Comcast again and while my box was rebooting I mentioned the channel 845 issue. The support guy I was talking to was one of the TIVO support guys and I always like talking to them as they seem to be a bit more knowledgeable. He told me that he had not heard about the issue but would ask around and give me a call back the following evening.

I never got a call the following evening and again I kind of forgot about the issue until this week when I was scrolling through my HD channels and the channel 845 issue has disappeared. At this point I am not sure if the support guy did something to fix it or there was another guide software update sent that fixed. At this point I don't really care, I am just glad it is fixed.

Comcast Adds More High Definition Channels in Boston?

There was some news floating around the Internet this week that Comcast will be adding a bunch of new High Definition Channels in Boston. The list is as Follows...

Encore HD (785)
Fox Business HD (789)
Hallmark Movie HD (790)
Toon Disney HD (792)
Fuse HD (793)
Bravo HD (794)
CNBC HD (795)
ESPNews HD (796)
Biography Channel HD (797)
Independent Film HD (798)
Women's Entertainment HD (799)
MGM HD (819), FX HD (830)
FOX News HD (841)
Starz Edge HD (873)
Starz Kids HD (874)
Starz Comedy HD (876)
Big Ten Netowrk HD (885)

As of October 26, 2008 these channels have not been added in the suburbs north of Boston, not sure if they have just added them in the city. Something to look forward to at least.

More on Comcast Bandwidth Limits

A few months back there were some press releases that Comcast was going to start limiting the monthly bandwidth of their users to 250 GB per month. This week Comcast sent out an email to all of their customers informing them that the limits will be implemented on October 1, 2008. The contents of that email is below:

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Customer,
We appreciate your business and strive to provide you with the best online experience possible. One of the ways we do this is through our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). The AUP outlines acceptable use of our service as well as steps we take to protect our customers from things that can negatively impact their experience online. This policy has been in place for many years and we update it periodically to keep it current with our customers' use of our service.On October 1, 2008, we will post an updated AUP that will go into effect at that time.In the updated AUP, we clarify that monthly data (or bandwidth) usage of more than 250 Gigabytes (GB) is the specific threshold that defines excessive use of our service. We have an excessive use policy because a fraction of one percent of our customers use such a disproportionate amount of bandwidth every month that they may degrade the online experience of other customers.250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of bandwidth and it's very likely that your monthly data usage doesn't even come close to that amount. In fact, the threshold is approximately 100 times greater than the typical or median residential customer usage, which is 2 to 3 GB/month. To put it in perspective, to reach 250 GB of data usage in one month a customer would have to do any one of the following:* Send more than 50 million plain text emails (at 5 KB/email);* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song); or* Download 125 standard definition movies (at 2 GB/movie).And online gamers should know that even the heaviest multi- or single-player gaming activity would not typically come close to this threshold over the course of a month.In addition to modifying the excessive use policy, the updated AUP contains other clarifications of terms concerning reporting violations, newsgroups, and network management. To read some helpful FAQs, please visit http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use.Thank you again for choosing Comcast as your high-speed Internet provider.

Interestingly this week Comcast also sent out an email regarding a new feature called FanCast where you can watch TV shows from most of the major networks as well as movies. In their listing I noticed many of the shows that started recently such as Heros and The Office. Most of the movies they had available were pretty obscure and seem to have commercials every 15 minutes or so so I can't really see myself watching them. It does seem contrary to their new bandwidth limits to offer all of these new TV shows and movies.

I got another email from Comcast this week offering an upgrade in Internet Speed to 16 Mbps for and extra $10 month. I wonder if this service is what they will offer the high bandwidth users when they exceed the 250 GB threshold. The link to the offer is here. It says nothing about bandwidth limits but I would assume if you are paying more they will also raise the limits.

Comcast Limits Monthly Bandwidth Usage

There have been rumors floating around for a while that Comcast has been sending letters to high bandwidth usage customers warning them that if they do no curb their usage their accounts will be suspended. The problem is these customers had no idea how much usage was too much and no way to track how much bandwidth they are using.

This week Comcast announced here that as of October 1, 2008 they will be amending their acceptable usage policy to establish a maximum monthly usage threshold for all users. They are setting this threshold at 250 Gigabytes per month. As they point out in the article 250 Gigs is quite a bit of bandwidth and their average customer uses around 2 -3 Gigs per month. It is estimated that the limits will only affect 0.1% of Comcast's customers. As the Comcast announcement points out at 4MB per song the thresholds will allow you to download 62,500 songs. I assume the customers that are most affected are the ones downloading lots of movies.

Some have surmised that Comcast is putting the threshold in place because if customers are downloading movies for free then they are not buying them though the Comcast OnDemand service. While I guess that is possible I think it is more likely they are trying to prevent a few users to slow down the network for everyone.

I think this is a trend that we will be seeing not only with our ISPs but also with our workplaces. I work as a software consultant and one of my clients has recently implemented software that will allow them to (among other things) track employees who are using the most bandwidth. With more software applications moving to the web companies can't afford to have their networks slowed down by users streaming music or videos on their lunch break.

It seems like the plan is for Comcast to allow customers one month over 250 Gig and then they may send the a letter warning them to curb their usage but it does not really say what will happen if they don't. I don't think Comcast is going to risk losing a customer like me who purchases cable, Internet and phone. Overall I am not too concerned about the new limits, I don't download lots of movies so I am pretty sure I am well below the threshold. The few thousand customers that are affected are probably downloading movies illegally anyway so Comcast is probably glad to get rid of them as customers.