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Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt told Wall Street the company is backing AT&T’s decision to cease unlimited access to its wireless data services.
“In most businesses when usage goes up, that’s a good thing because people pay more,” Glenn Britt, Time Warner Cable’s chief executive officer, said at a Sanford C. Bernstein Wall Street investor conference Friday in New York. “It’s going to get the industry better aligned with consumer behavior.”
But Britt also said AT&T’s decision was “more sensible than when we did it,” referring to the company’s April 2009 aborted experiment to charge customers up to three times as much for broadband service with a consumption billing scheme that got a hostile response from consumers.
Britt was speaking about the network capacity constraints that wireless data networks have that do not compare with the much wider pipeline available to wired provides like Time Warner Cable. Britt cited AT&T’s still-exclusive iPhone as being the single most significant factor in AT&T’s decision.
Britt told Business Week that “at the time” consumption “pricing was needed to maintain the expense and expansion of the network.”
But consumer advocates suggested the company targeted its overcharging experiment in cities where customers didn’t have strong competitive alternatives. That was particularly the case in Rochester, N.Y. and Greensboro, N.C., where alternative broadband meant significantly slower telephone company DSL service. In the case of Rochester, that service included a monthly 5GB usage allowance in Frontier Communications’ Acceptable Use Policy.
Without equivalent competing alternatives, broadband consumers would be trapped in a broadband backwater with significantly worse service than neighboring cities.
Despite Britt’s acknowledgment that his company backed off because of strong consumer opposition, he’s still willing to talk about bringing the overcharging scheme back, telling Business Week, “Exactly how it works and what the PR around it will be is something we can talk about.”
[Note: We will have some audio up soon. — Editor]
I can guarantee Mr. Britt and his TWC cronies that the outcry will be twice as loud here in Austin if he tries to bring another overcharging scheme back to this city.
It seems Mr. Britt thinks others are going to go to sleep and rollover on this issue. Nothing could be further than the truth.
TWC is very much still on my radar screen.
Sort of begs the question, how exactly can it be argued that “consumption billing” (euphemistic phrase for “capped Internet”) is good for consumers if TWC seems to be chomping at the bit to implement it?
So consumer bandwidth use grew at a faster pace than the ISP used profits to build adequate infrastructure. Obviously this is the consumer’s fault and they should face the consequences.
So consumer bandwidth use grew at a faster pace than the ISP used profits to build adequate infrastructure. Obviously this is the consumer’s fault and they should face the consequences. EXCUSE ME?? I think it SHOULD be the COMPANY’S RESPONSIBILITY to KEEP UPGRADING THE NETWORK TO MEET CONSUMER DEMAND!! If these Cable & Phone Internet providers are making AS HIGH A PROFIT as they SEEM TO BE, then I think it is THEIR CIVIC DUTY as providers to PROVIDE THE BEST SERVICE POSSIBLE TO THESE CUSTOMERS!! THAT MEANS KEEPING THE NETWORK UPGRADED to MEET THE CUSTOMERS’ DEMANDS!!! I think that… Read more »
Dean,
I was being sarcastic… But I’m glad that you brought up all the points you did. I am sick of being abused by the wireless phone, cable, and broadband providers.
Thank you for saying that. I am LUCKY that, in Storm Lake, Iowa, there is a DSL Internet Service Provider (Qwest), and there are TWO (2) Cable high-speed ISP’s…Knology and Mediacom!! I can tell you that, in a community where there are 2 Cable ISP’s that BOTH offer SIMILAR services and speeds on their Internet services, and also “go out of their way” to offer the BEST Cable TV / High-Speed Internet / Phone services, that the CUSTOMER IS INDEED KING!! 🙂 Sadly, that ISN’T the case in MOST communities here in Iowa, or ANYWHERE ELSE for that matter. In… Read more »
Britt’s yahct burned fuel faster than the TWC profits increased. We must pay more so his bonus can be larger. I feel so bad for his family. I quit them when they started that in Beaumont. Now what is our alternative if they all start doing it?
in the wirless service front i can understand consumption based billing to a great degree radio spectrum is more expensive then spectrum on cable wires
of course i hope that they use the new money to expand wireless services to new areas (sadly i doubt that will happen)
wired services will always pawn wirless due to spectrum youve got spectrum used for everything from ota tv to sattlite to radio to police and emergency communcations
Glenn’s greed is endless