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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Wait what? Is this article not complete, or am I missing a joke here or something? How much of that $5 does Blizzard get per month, or EA. Why in the hell would I pay for the “privilege” to use eBay/Paypal. Want to charge me to use online banking from my bank as well? I sure as hell won’t pay for that TWICE!
It’s someone’s whacked out view of what the Internet would be without net neutrality.
In reality, companies like Comcast peer with most websites you access on a daily basis, or their parent networks. One notable exception: Google.
Actually, I don’t think it is “whacked” out. All you need to do is look at wireless carriers and how they nickel and dime you on everything. I know VZW, they nickel and dime you for turning on your phone. My phone can’t even burp without Verizon trying to charge me for something. So no, this isn’t too far from reality. Matter of fact, I think this is what these ISP’s want. Their TV biz is on the decline so why not nickel and dime you for the internet?
If you’re on a data-only plan you get all your data included, up to a certain GB cap. My Sprint plan is all-inclusive. Basically if you’re on a nickel-and-dime plan (text or data mainly) you’re on the wrong plan. Voice and text have become commodities at the unlimited level.
It is all in fun, but honestly, it reads like a cable/satellite package or a wireless phone plan.
While maybe over the top, I worry that this type of thing will happen with caps. Just that you can purchase tiers of websites that will not count against your cap when purchased – or – certain partners will not count against your cap while other like sites will.
Well, as I’ve voiced before doing this is a bad move. I’m going to be writing up a blog entry expressing my feelings on this subject shortly anyways. I don’t need to wind up having my Internet bill looking like my Satellite bill which is quite hefty.
Verizon Wireless… :rofl: Yeah they are pretty dumb. But Since this site should be family friendly I won’t get into what I have told them in the past about their bills and charges. So this is a mock up of what TeleComms think they can do. Well I doubt those businesses that will lose customers like Paypal/eBay, and those others would fight this before it comes to fruition, as well any politician that wants to be re-elected…EVER, or ever employed again for that matter. It does kidn of make the statement about TeleComms and how in USA we are living in a sort of “Lord of the Flies” society, and we need top prevent it before we fully reach that state of affairs.
It’s a piece of satire wedding the cable industry’s love for mini-packs and bundles with a non-Net Neutral, Internet Overcharging broadband industry, with the end result being third party websites carrying arbitrary subscription fees made up and pocketed by broadband providers.
Consider it our equivalent of an editorial cartoon.
You did it so well Phil, that I thought it was real with all the other crazy stuff TeleComms are doing these days! But it is funny now that I know it isn’t real, but you really shouldn’t give them any more ideas.
I considered it a possible future. As I read the pictures I saw
some very powerful companies that would never let this happen.
I would think one would see internet WW3. This was a good wake
up call.
May I just add, apparently the RIAA is in favor of Net Neutrality now. I wonder about the MPAA if they are up to it or not. Get them on board and you pretty much have the entire entertainment industry.