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WHAM Rochester: Time Warner Eyes Return of Tiered Pricing Plan

Phillip Dampier April 30, 2009 Video 15 Comments

More from the Re-Education camp.  They want to take some time and let us understand their plans, so that we can reject them out of hand all over again later this year.  Except next time, the protests and push back will be even greater than it was this spring.  That’s because we’ll also be educating customers about what tiered pricing will mean for their bill, both now and into the expansive future for the Internet.  Time Warner forgets Rochester Telephone’s disastrous attempt to get rid of flat rate home phone calling back in the 1970s and the firestorm that caused.  This is going to become more or less the same thing.  Even people without computers who don’t understand the Internet do understand one thing: they don’t trust Time Warner as far as they can throw them.  The company already forces channels on customers they don’t want, but have to pay for, and they also know this universal fact of life: cable bills always go up, never down.

So when Time Warner comes a’knocking and says they have a plan to save you money, people will slam the door in their face. Their claims that “they” found a lot of customers could “right-size” their plans when people realized they weren’t using that much is amusing, especially in Rochester where you can find the Road Runner Lite plan on the back of milk cartons bannered “Missing.”  That’s because the company makes it next to impossible for those light users to find the Road Runner Lite plan they already offer.  And when customers learn they can save money and never fear paying overlimit fees on their Internet under the existing plan, you can be sure they won’t be snake oiled into accepting the new one that has overlimit penalties that would make Bank of America blush.

Frontier isn’t fooled either.  Ann Burr, Chairman and General Manager, Frontier Communications of Rochester, might have a problem saying “inconsistency,” but her company is making hay out of the PR nightmare Time Warner put itself in, signing up new customers.

Fun Trivia: Ann Burr should know.  She used to be president of Time Warner’s Rochester division!

thumbs-up12“We have a listening process,” says Time Warner spokeswoman Robin Wolfgang.  Yes, and here it is — Customer: “I want to keep the same plan I have right now and not pay three times more for the exact same Internet service I have today.”  Time Warner: “No.”  That about sums it up.
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Rob
Rob
14 years ago

Quote, “We didn’t think our customers were educated very well”.

What a bunch of arrogant jerks. I hate Time Warner. We need Verizon FIOS in this community.

Their usage cap is nothing more than a huge price increase disguised and wrapped in Time Warner marketing propaganda.

How does $150 a month for no usage caps save money?

preventCAPS
preventCAPS
14 years ago

Instead of time re-educating the consumers/public, TWC should invest in re-educating their executives.

I really hope to see an executive release a humbling statement addressing the mistake and stating caps are dead, forever. But I don’t trust TWC would do that. Instead, I think that they will try to wear us down, mark us as a vocal minority, and proceede with a new coat of paint and doom the internet as we know it.

One of two must be abandonded – Consumption based billing or my TWC services. TWC, you get to choose.

Arthur
Arthur
14 years ago

First a general comment regarding the media clips. Would it be possible to label these with the date that they aired?

I think one thing that we should try to do about the misinformation that Time Warner is to publish the actual pricing and availability of Road Runner (Lite, Basic, Standard, Turbo). Make people aware that if they don’t use the internet a lot (or don’t need it really fast) that they can save some money without usage caps.

I think we should also try to find out when Time Warner’s current franchise agreement has to be renewed.

Uncle Ken
Uncle Ken
14 years ago

The videos are now rather dated mostly old data already known. The game changes just about every hour? Every day? Another protest here is needed now. It has to be much bigger with more speakers, more media coverage, and more elected officials. There seems to be a pull out in some sections but when they get that new $200 TWC bill they may think twice but by then it’s too late. Local media’s 10 second clips just do not cut it so it needs independent video coverage as well. Watching old video from 10 stations each with their own options… Read more »

Jim
Jim
14 years ago

This is hilarious. TV Anywhere…i.e. TW says, we’ll let you download CABLE via the Internet. Does anything smell like net neutrality exploding over this one. How in the world would CAPS interface with what I’ve snipped below. http://www.itvt.com/story/4307/time-warners-bewkes-says-company-working-several-distributors-tv-everywhere During Time Warner’s Q1 earnings call, Wednesday, the company’s chairman and CEO, Jeff Bewkes, provided an update on “TV Everywhere,” its initiative to make programming that pay-TV customers have already paid for through their cable, satellite or IPTV subscriptions available to those customers on broadband and mobile platforms. “The idea is simple,” Bewkes explained. “If you subscribe to a TV channel at… Read more »

jr
jr
14 years ago

People need to tell everyone they know about this blog. TW has unlimited ad money and an unlimited supply of reporters willing to Pravdaize at the drop of a dime. “Swine Flu was caused by you using Road Runner too much”-Lauren MacDonough

meghan
meghan
14 years ago
Reply to  jr

“Swine Flu was caused by you using Road Runner too much”- Lauren MacDonough

Sigh. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Thanks for that JR, made my day.

Smith6612
Smith6612
14 years ago
Reply to  meghan

Swine Flu caused by using the Internet? HAHAHAHAHAHA that’s too funny. The Internet helps stop the spread of Swine Flu in a sense if used at home.

Tim
Tim
14 years ago

I like the lady in the the news clip for TWC saying, “People don’t realize that 5GB is a lot…”. LOL, not nowadays it isn’t. Downloading 1 Netflix movie will blow that cap just about. That lady is funny… 🙂

yorg
yorg
14 years ago
Reply to  Tim

It’s less than a Steam game.

Smith6612
Smith6612
14 years ago
Reply to  yorg

Tell me about it. I just finished reinstalling Left 4 Dead on my machine. It was a 4GB download, enough to blow right past a 5GB Cap if you count all of Steam’s Overhead as well as general web use and gaming.

Uncle Ken
Uncle Ken
14 years ago

Thanks everybody the word needs to get out to everybody. A $300 cable bill they are not going to collect ever. No body has it. The new protest does not need 30 people rather 30,000 people. That will get national attention. This virus needs to be killed. As a regular person you can ask for a hearing in congress. Better have a new suit and tie but you can do it.

sconsetmonkey
sconsetmonkey
14 years ago

FLASH MOB

techzen
techzen
14 years ago

If there was some sort of protests in charlotte, I’d go every single day.

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