SubscribeIn a morning conference call with investors, Time Warner Cable management announced they would be initiating an upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0, the next generation in cable broadband technology, in just a single city in 2009: New York.
The work has already begun in Manhattan, where CMTS deployment will commence by the summer. Initial testing has produced results up to 138Mbps down/18Mbps up. However, company officials stress they have no plans to offer that level of speed, at least initially. The upgrade should be available to customers by the end of 2009.
Time Warner continues to downplay the importance of DOCSIS 3.0 with investors, telling them this morning the company has seen little interest from customers in additional broadband speed, making the upgrade a low priority. However, even though the company has no specific rollout schedule, it does propose to upgrade in the coming years on a market by market basis, with announcements preceding deployment in each area.
This is in marked contrast to public statements Time Warner’s corporate communications department had been making in markets where usage based pricing trials were to begin this summer. Repeated statements from company officials warning of “Internet brownouts” and “capacity problems” were used as justifications to institute caps on usage with significant overlimit penalties as high as $2/GB. Officials claimed just two weeks ago that the revenue earned from heavier users charged a higher price would be used to deploy “necessary DOCSIS upgrades.” That is a message not given to investors. Additionally, company officials never mentioned the need for usage based pricing throughout the one hour conference call, except in response to a question from a caller. Company officials downplayed the usage based billing controversy as a “market trial that had pushback,” but also warned that additional tests to change the current broadband business model would be forthcoming.
Other stories of interest:
- Time Warner Cable Reports Healthy Growth in Broadband in 1st Quarter 2009
- Time Warner: No Tiers, No DOCSIS 3 — Customers: Shucky Darn
- Breaking News: The Shock & Stupidity of Time Warner: Profiteering Gone Wild
- BREAKING NEWS: Frontier Officially Abandons Caps; Will Go On Marketing Attack to Sign New Customers
- BREAKING NEWS: Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) Condemns Time Warner Internet Cap; Will Take Lead Role in Opposition
I thought Texas, the Triad and Rochester, NY were where Time Warner liked to run “tests”. Oh well.
Shocker here… where they have competition they roll out something that would allow them to continue to compete… Where there is no competition they still have to ‘test’ the viability of rolling it out.
I guess this will help out the people in NYC who are always seeing slow speeds at night due to node congestion. Let’s see how this goes.
Seems like Time Warner is turning things around again I guess.
“Little interest”
What world are the executives at TW living in?! ALL their competitors offer higher speeds and TW executives are the only ones who don’t see a need in additional broadband speed. They are so clueless of what a consumer wants!
Except those executives all live … in New York City, which is getting the upgrade!