Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY)

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will be in Rochester Thursday afternoon to help add his voice to the growing opposition to Time Warner’s bandwidth usage caps.  StoptheCap! has been working with the senator’s office throughout the day today to help coordinate the visit, which will take place in Irondequoit at the home of just one resident who will be directly impacted by Time Warner’s plans.

Time Warner’s bandwidth cap experiment coming just a few months after the company’s last rate increase would dramatically hurt many local residents already reeling from a poor economy.  Time Warner is seriously suggesting that consumers now paying $39.95 per month for broadband service should now be faced with the prospect of paying three times as much, $150 per month, for an equivalent level of service.

Senator Schumer said he doesn’t want Rochester used as a guinea pig for Time Warner, and intends to do all in his power to put a stop to it.

StoptheCap! is delighted to be working with Senator Schumer, who has a long track record of advocating for consumers and standing up for the residents of New York State.

Senator Schumer’s strong voice will be heard across the country, as well as Washington, and will send a clear message that consumers in New York, as well as other states where Time Warner is forcing residents to participate in its “tests,” will not stand idly by and allow Internet plans offering paltry tiers at top dollar pricing to simply pass without the strongest possible protest.

What starts in Beaumont, San Antonio, Austin, Rochester, and the Triad of North Carolina will either be stopped by consumers who reject these egregious bandwidth caps, or Time Warner customers nationwide will almost certainly find them coming to their homes in the future.

StoptheCap! will, of course, have full coverage of the senator’s visit, and will remain in close contact with his office in the days ahead.

In June 2008, Time Warner spokesman Alex Dudley was interviewed for Gigaom, an online publication.  In that interview, he stated that the bandwidth capping trials in Beaumont, Texas were just an experiment and if consumers don’t want it, the company will back away from it.

“You need to understand that the networks are going to be managed and we need to make profit,” he said. “We are trying to find a balance here, and it is too soon to say that we are throwing baby out of the bathwater.”

Dudley was, however, quick to point out that TWC’s experiment in Texas was just that – a test. If consumers don’t want it, the company is going to back away from it. “I think this is a trial and we are going to learn from this trial,” he said.

We honestly don’t know what else Mr. Dudley needs to hear to understand consumers don’t want it.  The company has now attracted a firestorm of negative publicity, the attention of one area congressman, a United States senator, and will almost certainly get an earful when town supervisors from across the county have a chance to weigh in this Friday.  Mr. Dudley, consumers don’t want it. We are not interested in, or appeased by, increases in the caps.  We do not want caps, period.  No consumer should ever have to worry whether or not they will face punitive overlimit fees from a product that Time Warner’s own financial results from 2008 stated, quite plainly, was highly profitable and increasingly so as bandwidth costs continue to decline.

We encourage Time Warner to end its “experiment” today for the good of its customers.  There is still time to forgive and forget.  But time is running out.