Recent Headlines
October 2, 2009
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 to an astroturf [...]
October 2, 2009
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 to [...]
September 27, 2009
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
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 be [...]
September 23, 2009
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, Shaw launched [...]
September 22, 2009
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 some general [...]
September 21, 2009
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 Ontario [...]
September 11, 2009
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 investment of [...]
September 7, 2009
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 by the [...]
September 1, 2009
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
Alberta is like [...]
August 31, 2009
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 controlling more [...]
August 27, 2009
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, checking their actual [...]
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It’s not victory until we stop this from coming back. Thanks to Senator Schumer; but we should continue to fight on the larger issue. Time Warner’s monopoly needs to be regulated or destroyed. One way or the other. We can’t let this problem come back.
I hope Massa continues the legislation so they can’t double back later!
Suspending it does not mean they will not seek to do it later. Victory for now yes, give up the fight? Not so much!
I always knew we would win.
However, the greedy bastards at the top of Time Warner can NEVER be trusted, so please let us all keep our eyes and ears open.
Wait. What?!!!
I think this is a small victory for net neutrality, but I agree with Dan that the larger issue still remains. Keep up the good work fellow citizens.
Please confirm this is all markets, the only link I’ve found is from WHEC, which confirms this only for Rochester: http://www.whec.com/news/stories/S882395.shtml?cat=566
Great news, for now……. this issue will not disappear unless either legislation is introduced or these monopolies are broken up and people at least have an option for other providers. I guess TW finally got the message, now all we need is al’la carte Cable TV!
Stopthecap.com readers are pretty smart folks. While this is great news I fear it is only a temporary fix. I agree with Dan – we need to keep up the fight untill TWC is regulated or destroyed. Otherwise they will just wait till things die down and try again or come up with some other equally crappy method of stealing. They’ve caused Phillip and a lot of other people to invest time, money, and energy – they are now in those people’s debt.
As happy as I am right now, I want to make sure they never try this again, I am still staying with Earthlink TWC has upset me to much and I am not going back.
Cheers for the victory tho lads *raises a pint
Yes we need to keep the pressure on them to let them know we will not tolerate this now or later.
Steve, The only other source I’ve seen is also from Rochester.
http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story/Time-Warner-Cable-Drops-New-Internet-Price-Plan/GAVd2LxnpE6vGyRySlvCOw.cspx
Personally I am pleased. But what about the other markets? The fight for them must continue. This blatant attack on competing services, must be prevented permanently. Let’s push for Mr. Massa and Mr. Schumer to generate real reform on this issue through consumer protection legislation.