“The company continues to face significant challenges in its mainstay cable television business, losing 84,000 cable televison package customers in the last quarter, a result of the loss of home ownership during the economic crisis according to Britt, and a general downturn in the economy.”

Then who are the people getting broadband internet if nobody has a home left to even get TV service in?

How many of those 117,000 new Road Runner customers are business class customers that actually run businesses, that have no need for a TV service which helps to unbalance the numbers

No Britt, your company is challenged by the ineptitude of its employees. When a person calls to report an error with one of their VOD channels, and the CSR responds that “we don’t have any VOD channel”, these are the challenges you need to face and correct by hiring competent people that understand your system, as well as placing a TV in front of each CSR that takes calls on TV services so they don’t complain to the customer that they have to get up and walk to another room to check what you are calling to complain about, because not every CSR that handles calls on TV services can look at a TV while talking to the customer to verify there IS an error on TWC’s end, rather than automatically claiming a service call is needed because it is something wrong with your TV.

I just want to slap his $14 million in stock options and $1 million salary per year self around with a wet spaghetti noodle until it knocks some sense into him. (No sauce on the noodle in case he is allergic to one of the spices, of course.)

While I was kidding about making you the CEO, after hearing you talk about how to make customers happy AND make more money at the same time, I am sure you could be the CEO of any broadband company and run it better than Britt could ever dream. What is it that makes these guys forget that they need to make customers happy to make the most money? (ARRGGH BRITT!!!) I wonder if Britt would ever let someone cap his family’s broadband..

My theory is that TWC’s boundless greed will lead them to price/cap by smaller regions. So in Austin you might stay uncapped but outside they might still do it. I don’t know anything about the legality of something like that but I think if ever a law stands in the way of TWC, TWC is giving lawyers and lawmakers bags of money to find a way get around it, or get it out of their way.

Britt just won’t stop talking about those caps, I am hoping its just to save face from the backlash he received when introducing it, but I doubt it.

Here in Rochester, no DOCSIS 3 in our near future because the competition is Frontier and their silly 1990s ADSL.

Frontier would be a bigger player if they started moving ADSL2+ or VDSL (like AT&T U-verse) service and start the competition battle up again. TWC locally doesn’t even bash Frontier much anymore because they are increasingly not a big player. Remember, TWC picks up most of their new Road Runner customers from people fleeing DSL.

Frontier won’t spend the $$$ to do it, however.

I just believe you can build the next generation of broadband networks on the financial backs of those who are just waiting to throw money your way, and are happy as hell to spend $100 a month on 50/5 or 50/20 or whatever similar premium tiers a company comes up with.

I don’t even have a problem with telling people running Bit Torrent 24/7 maxed out to please knock it off. You can do that informally with customers and many will happily comply and run applications during off-peak usage times when they aren’t bothering anyone.

Instead, we get these overcharging schemes that hit EVERYONE from the lightest to heaviest users with allowances and overlimit fees.

I love Cablevision’s approach — no limits because they see broadband as a drug and want to keep customers addicted with as much speed and service their financial condition can handle. Everyone is happy.

Other companies like Frontier and the others testing these schemes are trying to get into the rationing business — feed people a limited amount and then sell them overpriced add-on “usage packs” and/or “insurance” to protect them from overlimit fees.

It’s like the credit card and banking industry: invent new unjustified fees and slap customers silly with them.

In the end, you just end up with less demand because people are scared to use their connections, and that keeps the upgrade requirement at bay.

Broadband is the one bright spot for the cable industry and is insanely profitable. You can make it more profitable without irritating your customers.

Wherever the competition comes from (munis, cooperatives, privately owned or publicly held companies), it’s good for the customer.

New CEO: PHILLIP DAMPIER, MIGHTY CRUSADER OF THE INTERNET (sorry, you have no choice). Our knight in shining armor is armed only with intelligence and reason, the very weapons our foes lack. He shall lead us all to a brighter future

It’s not controversial… it’s a matter of keeping me and others TWC consumers which should translate into a matter of life and death for TWC.