SubscribeTime Warner’s bandwidth capping experiment covers more than just metro Rochester, according to an article in The Batavian published this week:
We just received this message from Lara Pritchard, public affairs manager for Time Warner Cable, WNY Division:
Our trial for monitoring internet usage will rollout across our entire Rochester footprint. Batavia customers will also be enrolled to work with us and provide feedback on their usage/plans.
Time Warner’s Rochester division has several cable systems associated with it, several acquired originally from other providers years ago. Batavia is part of Time Warner’s “Genesee & Wyoming (Counties)” system and will be part of the usage cap experiment. Batavia is a small city of approximately 16,000 just about halfway between the New York cities of Buffalo and Rochester. It is the heart of Genesee county.
Batavia residents are within Verizon territory, but Verizon FiOS is not yet available in the area. It is expected to arrive “soon” according to flyers seen around the area. Verizon FiOS is the only high speed competitor that can provide similar speeds to Time Warner’s Road Runner service. Verizon offers a DSL service in Batavia and surrounding areas, but at somewhat slower speeds, and usually requires a contract commitment. Clearwire is not available in Batavia according to the company website.
Batavia residents were unimpressed to learn they were also included in the trial, something many were unaware of:
Richard wrote: “If TW goes ahead with this I think that they will lose a lot of customers and I will be sure to do my part to make that so. I have seen that FiOS is coming to Batavia and I think that it should help with TW price gouging…. I do find it fascinating that they are only doing this “experiment” in places that there are no other providers for most people.”
Karen writes: “What ways will Time Warner think of next to soak the consumer. Their rates for service have gone up and up a number of times since first we let them monopolize Genesee County. Now our freedom to surf the internet, and the duration of time has a price tag too? In my opinion, Time Warner sees nothing but $$$$$$$ and they need to be stopped.”
Other stories of interest:
- KOOP-FM Austin Program About Time Warner Usage Caps – Archived Show Coming Soon
- Rochester Democrat & Chronicle Blisters Time Warner Over Internet Caps
- Rochester Television Stations Break News About Road Runner Usage Caps
- Lots of Great Ideas – Keep Them Coming!
- BREAKING NEWS: Frontier Officially Abandons Caps; Will Go On Marketing Attack to Sign New Customers
I figured that other shoe was going to drop. I live in Wyoming County so I will be sure to tell my parents to check out DSL very soon due to this. I was trying to convince my dad to go back to Cable instead of Direct Tv but now I will tell him to stay.
I have Dish network and roadrunner. I use strictly VoIP phone service, and was considering using a cheap cable plan to get a couple stations I can’t get from the DTV broadcasts. NOT ANYMORE!
I’ve informed a few fortune 500 companies in the area that I know to use teleworkers, and they were rather unhappy with the plan. They are informing their employees.
Hear me out, Time Warner: I DO NOT opt in to this trial you state you’ll enroll me in! If you impose usage caps on me, I’ll drop you like a hot potato, and take as many people as I can with me! I PROMISE!
I live off-campus at University at Buffalo, and at the house, we can get TW’s Road Runner and Verizon’s FiOS and DSL. The house has 5 college student occupants. Originally, we did have Road Runner, and our bandwidth usage exceeded 100GB a month, considering XBOX live, University VPN access, streaming lectures, and just general internet usage. The reason we dropped Road Runner for FiOS was regional saturation of the network at peak hours. The speeds would drop well bellow 5Mbps and splitting 1Mb per person for $50 bucks was not enough at peak hours. We switched to FiOS and for $50, we got 20mbps, ALL THE TIME! No peak saturation, no slowdowns. 4Mbps per person is plenty.
We do have Time Warner Cable for TV, but since switch to SDV, most HD channels get extremely choppy after 10 minutes, showing lack of bandwidth on the cable side too (only a matter of time they meter my HD watching). We are college students! We cannot afford $150 a month for Internet itself. Over 12 months, that is $1800, a semester worth of tuition. Might as well cancel our sub and start a scholarship fund.
Here’s the conclusion.
Lots of people off-campus have Road Runner, shown by slowdowns.
College students use a lot of bandwidth, obviously.
IF Time Warner was to cap their bandwidth in the Buffalo Area, Time Warner would have 0, and i mean 0! customers.
It is certainly obvious they are doing this in areas of no major competition.
FiOS would obliterate all of their subs, at least with the students.
And just because this bothers me so much, as soon as FiOS TV rolls around, they lose our $100.
Time Warner! Invest in your infrastructure! Use the profits you already get and build! Better network, better service, better profits. What the @#$% do you not get?!
I completely Agree. They will be losing our business soon, I can’t wait to get FIOS! See ya TW.
One thing I thought of the other day. When you are talking to TW representatives, if they are reading from a script, that with all the customers they are losing that their jobs may become expendable. With less customers they won’t need nearly as many customer service people on the phones or chat.
“With less customers they won’t need nearly as many customer service people on the phones or chat.”
What a loss for China and India… j/k…although that online help chat is mighty suspect…
Although there is an opening at Time Warner (in Rochester) for…get this…Fraud and Theft Investigator!
https://sjobs.brassring.com/en/asp/tg/cim_jobdetail.asp?partnerid=25160&siteid=36&AReq=112122BR&Codes=NDEM&SID=&codes=NIND
One of their job duties: “Assist customer care personnel with product abuse cases involving TWC customers.”
So they can investigate the caps abuse for us then?
I can’t wait to get Fios when it comes to genesee county! I have had internet at the last 3 apartments i rented from. i was at these places for around 2 years each and i had time warner cable each time. The thing i noticed was, when i first got the cable installed, i would have blazing fast internet, but after about 2 years it would drop way down to about 4 mbs peak TO THIER SERVER.They seem to lower your speed the longer you are a customer. The speed also drops down in the afternoon and night time when most people are using the internet. And now they are imposing a cap. Dont even get me started on the choppy HD tv channels!