Recent Headlines
October 2, 2009
Tweet Be Sure to Read Part One: Astroturf Overload — Broadband for America = One Giant Industry Front Group for an important introduction to what this super-sized industry front group is all about. Members of Broadband for America Red: A company or group actively engaging in anti-consumer lobbying, opposes Net Neutrality, supports Internet Overcharging, belongs […]
October 2, 2009
Tweet Astroturf: One of the underhanded tactics increasingly being used by telecom companies is “Astroturf lobbying” – creating front groups that try to mimic true grassroots, but that are all about corporate money, not citizen power. Astroturf lobbying is hardly a new approach. Senator Lloyd Bentsen is credited with coining the term in the 1980s […]
September 27, 2009
Tweet Hong Kong remains bullish on broadband. Despite the economic downturn, City Telecom continues to invest millions in constructing one of Hong Kong’s largest fiber optic broadband networks, providing fiber to the home connections to residents. City Telecom’s HK Broadband service relies on an all-fiber optic network, and has been dubbed “the Verizon FiOS of […]
September 23, 2009
Tweet BendBroadband, a small provider serving central Oregon, breathlessly announced the imminent launch of new higher speed broadband service for its customers after completing an upgrade to DOCSIS 3. Along with the launch announcement came a new logo of a sprinting dog the company attaches its new tagline to: “We’re the local dog. We better […]
September 23, 2009
Tweet Stop the Cap! reader Rick has been educating me about some of the new-found aggression by Shaw Communications, one of western Canada’s largest telecommunications companies, in expanding its business reach across Canada. Woe to those who get in the way. Novus Entertainment is already familiar with this story. As Stop the Cap! reported previously, […]
September 22, 2009
Tweet The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission, the Canadian equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, may be forced to consider American broadband policy before defining Net Neutrality and its role in Canadian broadband, according to an article published today in The Globe & Mail. [FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's] proposal – to codify and enforce […]
September 21, 2009
Tweet In March 2000, two cable magnates sat down for the cable industry equivalent of My Dinner With Andre. Fine wine, beautiful table linens, an exquisite meal, and a Monopoly board with pieces swapped back and forth representing hundreds of thousands of Canadian consumers. Ted Rogers and Jim Shaw drew a line on the western […]
September 11, 2009
Tweet Just like FairPoint Communications, the Towering Inferno of phone companies haunting New England, Frontier Communications is making a whole lot of promises to state regulators and consumers, if they’ll only support the deal to transfer ownership of phone service from Verizon to them. This time, Frontier is issuing a self-serving press release touting their […]
September 7, 2009
Tweet I see it took all of five minutes for George Ou and his friends at Digital Society to be swayed by the tunnel vision myopia of last week’s latest effort to justify Internet Overcharging schemes. Until recently, I’ve always rationalized my distain for smaller usage caps by ignoring the fact that I’m being subsidized […]
September 1, 2009
Tweet In 2007, we took our first major trip away from western New York in 20 years and spent two weeks an hour away from Calgary, Alberta. After two weeks in Kananaskis Country, Banff, Calgary, and other spots all over southern Alberta, we came away with the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Good […]
August 31, 2009
Tweet A federal appeals court in Washington has struck down, for a second time, a rulemaking by the Federal Communications Commission to limit the size of the nation’s largest cable operators to 30% of the nation’s pay television marketplace, calling the rule “arbitrary and capricious.” The 30% rule, designed to keep no single company from […]
August 27, 2009
Tweet Less than half of Americans surveyed by PC Magazine report they are very satisfied with the broadband speed delivered by their Internet service provider. PC Magazine released a comprehensive study this month on speed, provider satisfaction, and consumer opinions about the state of broadband in their community. The publisher sampled more than 17,000 participants, […]
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I will be there and here is a report from WGHP.
[quote]Protest Over Tiered Internet Pricing Planned for Saturday
Staff Writer
April 15, 2009
Customers upset with Time Warner Cable’s plan to test a new Internet pricing system in Greensboro are staging a protest Saturday at the company’s office on Spring Garden St.
Time Warner plans to begin testing a new tiered pricing plan for Internet users in August. The plan would charge customers based on how many gigabytes of bandwidth they use each month.
The company says the pricing change is an attempt to keep up with the growing demand for online video, movies and music.
The protest runs from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Saturday.
Organizers are using Facebook and Craigslist to gain support and spread word.
Melissa Buscher, a spokesperson for Time Warner Cable, said customers do not have to protest in order to get the company’s attention. Buscher said Time Warner is “having ongoing conversations with (their) customers and (the company is) modifying the plan to meet customers’ needs.” [/quote]
http://www.myfox8.com/wghp-internet-protest-090415,0,7146714.story
Bzzzzzzzt! Wrong answer. “…modifying the plan…”
Correct answer: “…ending the plan…”
How is bad PR having a “conversation” with customers?
As is the case here, it’s a one way conversation. You pick up what they put down. Alex over on his Twitter channel seems to be gradually moving more and more to just coming out and saying it himself.
They are not interested in your opinion on this issue, because they would have ended the experiment last week if they were actually listening to what customers want.
I will be there. I just hope a lot of people show up.
GFY (good for you) Time Warner!
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/nocap/petition.html
Sign this petition, it may help.