Oregon Public Broadcasting

Comcast launched a pilot program for Portland customers this week. As Kristian Foden-Vencil reports, it allows people to find out how much internet bandwith they're using.

Last year, Comcast imposed a data-use ceiling on its customers -- 250 gigabytes of information a month. That's the equivalent of downloading 62,000 songs -- or 125 DVD quality movies.

The average customer uses one or two percent of that -- but until now, it was impossible for them to know if they were close to the ceiling.

Comcast spokesman, Charlie Douglas, says Portland is the first city in the nation to test the service.

Charlie Douglas: "There's the right combination of the technical team there for Comcast. We've tested a lot of things in Portland. It's a great consumer group, technically very savvy and all the timing worked out for it to be there."

Douglas says consumers who reach the ceiling often find they have a bot in their computer -- sending out spam, or that their wi-fi hub is unprotected and being used by someone else.

If the company warns a customer they're over the ceiling and data use isn't reduced, Comcast can cut that customer off for a year.