A reliable source at Comcast has provided me with the March launch schedule for the company's speed increases that have been slowly deploying nationwide. As noted last month, Comcast's Blast tier is going from 25/4 Mbps to 50/10 Mbps, their Extreme tier will be going from 50/10 Mbps to 105/20, and their Performance tier will be going from 12/2 Mbps to 25/4 Mbps for all users.

Many customers on the East Coast and scattered other cherry picked regions across the country have been enjoying these increased speeds for some time, but now a source has provided some additional solid detail for those of you waiting for the upgrade. According to the source these are the loose launch dates:

•Most Chicago users should have started seeing the speeds as of yesterday.

•Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky customers who weren't pat of earlier, selective deployments should start seeing the speeds tomorrow, March 6.

•South Florida should start seeing the speeds on March 21.

•Georgia and North Florida should start seeing the speed increases on March 27.

Note that with the shift to faster speeds, Comcast has been getting rid of PowerBoost, which used to provide a brief additional burst of speed at the beginning of a download. With speeds getting so fast outright, PowerBoost has, at least on the downstream side, become irrelevant.

Many of these markets will be seeing Comcast's 300 Mbps tier, though according to the source the tier is more about bragging rights than anything else -- and isn't heavily marketed to consumers. Many of these same markets won't be seeing the Performance tier boost from 12/2 Mbps to 25/4 Mbps until April or May.

• Fiber to drive global broadband revenue growth to 2018 [telecoms.com]
• No cash for broadband: Europe's super-fast future torpedoed by budget cuts [zdnet.com]
• Hold off updating your iPhone 4S to iOS 6.1, European carriers warn customers [gigaom.com]
• AT&T: We didn't execute well on T-Mobile deal [fiercewireless.com]
• United Airlines adds Wi-Fi for overseas flights [latimes.com]
• Cellular carriers seek smooth handoffs from LTE to 3G [pcworld.com]
• Google: Self-driving cars in 3-5 years. Feds: Not so fast [extremetech.com]
• At least two-thirds mobile traffic will be video by 2017, Total mobe data shifted doubled during 2012 - Cisco report [theregister.co.uk]
• IP Address Snapshots Not Sufficient Evidence To File Infringement Suit; Prenda Lawyer Faces Sanctions [techdirt.com]
• NTIA will hand out $121.5M to aid FirstNet effort [fiercebroadbandwireless.com]
• Vehicles and mobility are converging but fragmentation, lack of standards may hinder progress [fiercewireless.com]

*For more interesting links to broadband and related tech news from DSLReports.com & other sites throughout the day, follow me on Twitter @ChrisBBReports!*

Broadband Reports has confirmed that Clearwire is testing new tiered pricing plans in several new markets. Clearwire's new trial pricing plans offer users 2 GB of usage for $20, 40 GB of usage for $40, or an unlimited offering for $60.

Update: Charter has confirmed they're not only killing off all online social media help, but they're pulling their technicians from our private, direct forum, where countless Broadband Reports readers have gotten additional private assistance above and beyond Charter's traditional (and traditionally very poorly ranked) tech support. A source tells Broadband Reports that Charter will be doing away with the company's entire social media department (offering Twitter, Facebook and online forum support) as part of broader efforts to cut costs.

Time Warner Cable's "six strikes" anti-piracy measures won't include the filtering of any websites, Broadband Reports has learned. The six strikes plan, scheduled to launch later this year, will vary from ISP to ISP -- with Verizon last week acknowledging they'll be throttling repeat offenders to an as-yet-unspecified speed.

It appears that Comcast is tinkering with the idea of offering higher caps with higher tiers of service, and will again shake up their speed options sometime in the next year for the majority of users. A reliable source tells Broadband Reports that it does appear that Comcast is going to go forward with the model they're currently testing in Nashville, which implements a 300 GB cap with users paying $10 per each additional 50 GB in overages.

A user of the Canadian cable company Videotron posts to our forums claiming that his WEP-secured router was hacked, resulting in a third party using his bandwidth. Because Videotron (like most Canadian ISPs) imposes caps and charges overages, the user says the intrusion resulted in a rather steep broadband bill in upwards of $600.

Yesterday we noted that our forums were filled with rumors that Mediacom would be the latest ISP to start charging users usage overages, despite the ever-dropping cost of delivering fixed line bandwidth to consumers. Mediacom has since confirmed the plans, a tech in our forums noting that the changes will begin August 1, after which point new users -- or users who move to one of Mediacom's new usage plans, will pay $10 for 50 GB of data if they cross their caps.

Last month Verizon raised the bar for residential broadband (and high prices) when they announced their new Quantum FiOS tiers, which included a new top shelf 300 Mbps downstream, 65 Mbps upstream tier for $205 a month. Not to be outdone, sources tell Broadband Reports that Comcast is planning to offer a 305 Mbps downstream tier sometime before the end of the year in FiOS markets.

Verizon has confirmed our exclusive insider information from earlier this month, officially announcing some major speed upgrades for the company's FiOS fiber to the home service. According to Verizon, they're significantly ramping up the speeds of several FiOS tiers as well as introducing a new 300 Mbps FiOS tier.

We've been nudged by a reliable source with supporting evidence who tells us Verizon will be raising the speed of several of their FiOS broadband tiers very soon. According to the source, Verizon's symmetrical 25 Mbps tier will soon be changed to 50 Mbps downstream and 25 Mbps upstream.

As we recently noted, Cox Communications appears to be the latest ISP to prepare for metered billing as they slowly deploy a new usage meter across markets. While they've made nothing official yet, a user offers up the screenshot below from the company's own usage tool that indicates Cox will ultimately begin billing users for passing their cap.

If you saw my article on DIY Linux routers, you might want some of those advanced features and extra stability it provides, but don’t want to jump to a full-blown dedicated Linux router, or maybe you just want something that uses a little less power. At any rate, replacing the stock firmware of your consumer router with a third party one will give you more control over your network through advanced settings while also providing more stability than the stock firmware.

• Why Europe Is Falling Behind U.S. On Broadband [forbes.com]
• FCC takes up USF phone line subsidies [washingtonpost.com]
• Brazil Drafts An 'Anti-ACTA': A Civil Rights-Based Framework For The Internet [techdirt.com]
• Taxing secondhand-game buyers: Sony says all new PS3 titles will require PSN Pass for online play [reghardware.com]
• Cox Proffers Free (McAfee) Security Software, Online Backup For Broadband Subs [multichannel.com]
• Bill introduced that would ban wireless carriers from using contract clauses to strip users of rights to sue [washingtonpost.com]
• GPS Inventor Joins EFF in Fight Against Warrantless GPS Tracking [eff.org]
• Surprise! Leaked Sales Numbers Suggest Amazon Kindle Fire On Track To Outsell iPad [cultofandroid.com]
• Who Needs Netflix? Paramount Streams Latest 'Transformers' Directly to Consumers [adage.com]
• Wireless group seeks to stop health disclosure ordinance [chicagotribune.com]
• Apple may face suit over house search for unreleased iPhone [cnet.com]
• Microsoft finally axes Zune [MSNBC.com]
• Apple's iOS 5 available on Oct. 12, brings 200 new features [MSNBC.com]
• Wireless Carriers To Fight Over iPhone 4S Buyers [forbes.com]
• World's first tunable broadband RF device emerges [physorg.com]

Several insiders have reached out to us to note that Cablevision will be offering a significant new Optimum Online speed tier starting on Monday. Dubbed "Boost Plus," the service will offer subscribers downstream speeds of 50 Mbps and upstream speeds of 8 Mbps.

Broadband Reports was the first to learn, and has confirmed with AT&T, that the company will be implementing a new 150GB monthly usage cap for all DSL customers and a new 250 GB cap on all U-Verse users starting on May 2. From March 18 to March 31, AT&T users are going to be receiving notices informing them of the change in the company's terms of service.

Harbinger Capital Partners' Lightsquared network was originally intended to shake up the competitive landscape by offering new players wholesale access to an entirely new LTE network. Last July it was announced that Nokia won the $7 billion contract to build the LTE network, though a source with knowledge of Lightsquared's plans tells Broadband Reports that things have changed significantly since then, and that not only is Nokia possibly out of favor as the primary builder -- but that Lightsquared and Sprint are working in conjunction on future LTE plans, with Sprint's recently-announced base station retrofit now the cornerstone of Lightsquared's nationwide LTE ambitions.

Yesterday we noted that Comcast had started sending notifications to some users in their bills informing them that the company would soon be offering 105 Mbps downstream 10 Mbps upstream service. The service will launch for some users starting on June 1, and will cost $200 a month -- plus a $250 installation fee.

Back in 2008, Charter CTO Marwan Fawaz told attendees of the CableNEXT conference in Santa Clara that "eventually, we will go to a usage-based solution." In February of last year, we reported how Charter planned to impose a 100GB cap upon any Charter connection of 15Mbps or less, and a 250GB usage cap for broadband tiers "over 15 Mbps up to 25 Mbps." Charter's Eric Ketzer subsequently confirmed the plans, while noting that their $150, 60 Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 tier wouldn't have a cap.

We have no plans to introduce metered billing...we have not enforced and do not have plans to enforce (caps). -Charter

But instead of new caps, Charter fell into bankruptcy. Still, even as recently as last November now-departed CEO Neil Smit stated that Charter would be considering "consumption based billing" once they emerged.

However, there have been no announcements concerning a migration to metered billing, nor has the company been enforcing their caps, according to users in our forums.

A Comcast insider tells Broadband Reports that the company will soon be shaking up their broadband tiers, which are currently 12/2, 16/2, 22/5, 50/10 (and 100 Mbps in Minneapolis). According to the source, Comcast will be eliminating the 22/5 Mbps tier.