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 […]
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 Hong […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Subscribe
What I find truly amazing is the striking similarities between the leadership of Time Warner and the soon to be bankrupt General Motors.
Both lost touch with their customers, and insisted on producing products and services that nobody wanted, just for short terms gains, which turned out to be more imagined than real.
We will soon see how the story ends for GM, and if TW doesn’t listen, then we will soon see how they will fare too.
Both certainly seem to have fallen into the “Let’s tell the customer what they will get, how much they will pay and they’ll like it.” way of thinking/doing business. Good businesses respond to customers in ways that are beneficial to both. TWC’s current response is not beneficial to anyone except TWC.
“Overwhelmingly we’ve seen positive results”? In ONE small test market? Where the caps were only placed on NEW customers and those who renewed with price locks?
What a freakin’ joke…
Just another pull the wool over over the masses eyes remark. Does anyone believe anything coming out of Alex Dudley’s mouth or Landel Hobbs? Give me a break!
This post really needed the picture of the Iraqi security general saying “there is nothing wrong here”.
It’s as if Google started charging $0.25 per search. Keep shooting yourself in the foot, TWC! I feel so sorry your executives are so incompetent. TWC is going to be the next corporate dinosaur. It’s gonna go a lil bit like this: Lehman, Bear Stearns, AIG, Washington Mutual, and….. TWC! And they’re not even a bank! Imbeciles.
Landel Hobbs = former Iraqi Information Minister
Such a terrible liar. TWC can definitely hire much better quality spinmeisters. Fire Landel Hobbs and hire someone who can lie and make me wonder whether they’re lying or not. Everything this douchebag says I immediately recognize as a lie.
How much more hostile can we possibly be? Do we need to start protests outside of Alex Dudley’s house? Post his address and I’m in.
Hey there is a protest march/rally this Saturday in downtown Rochester, maybe that will be “enough outrage”. If you can make it see this URL :http://futureunderground.net/
The information for the rally is at the bottom of the page.
I’d sincerely love to go, but unfortunately, I’m volunteering. It’s one of those things I cannot get out of, unless sick at death’s door. 🙁 I’ll be more than happy to sign the petition, though. 🙂
The overwhemingly positive thing they have gained from these tests are the dollar signs in their eyes and more money they are taking from each and every customer.
Exactly. That’s what a company always means when they say they saw positive results.
I want to see/hear what the people of Beaumont have had to say. (both good & bad, or don’t care) I’ll bet it’ll be a lot of complaining.
Exactly. Beaumont is a totally different demographic from what I have heard. Its mostly retirees, not young families who will blow through bandwidth caps in no time.
Fight the Power!! Join the protest let our voices be heard THIS Saturday!! Of course unless its pouring out!!
Why would we have to pay more money if we do not go to a tier plan? Was 4 billion last year in profit not enough for being an ISP? Oh poor TimeWarner!!! Boo Hoo!!! At the rates you are charging now, you profit margin is what other companies dream about. It amazes me the FTC has not investigated this “trial” under the Sherman Anti-trust Act. TW has targeted an area where they have a monopoly on services. TimeWarner has the right to protect its interests but when it’s business practices directly sabotage its competition, ie Netflix, iTunes, Hulu.com, streaming… Read more »
“They’ll be modified, or even abandoned, if they meet TOO much hostility, Dudley said.” So basically they’ve admitted that they know this is going to piss off their customers and that only bothers them when too many customers get pissed off and start getting organized like stopthecap.com. Having the balls to try this is bad enough but to come out with such a blatant FU towards their customers is really quite astounding. Has America really fallen so far as that? I was going to wait till the caps hit my area before I dropped them but for them to treat… Read more »
Does anyone know how much resistance were there when they started this crap in Beaumont? I didn’t hear about this in Austin until I read it from Austin-American-Statesman. Do people in Beaumont simply don’t use internet at all or they are just docile and easily manipulated or may be they just moved out from the city? Wasn’t Beaumont good enough for trials? What’s the need to expand the trials? Is it working damn well there or it wasn’t working that they need to try it out on different cities? How many more trials we need??? I drive pass TWC office… Read more »
There may be good news after all… apparently they’re shelving their plans.
http://www.whec.com/article/stories/s882395.shtml?cat=565
Great news. Though I’d prefer if they trash or incinerate or nuke or whatever it needs to make sure this never happen again.
For me, shelving means they may do it again in the future.
It may only be Rochester, though. The only two sources I’ve seen so far (the other is http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story/Time-Warner-Cable-Drops-New-Internet-Price-Plan/GAVd2LxnpE6vGyRySlvCOw.cspx) seem to imply that.
Bravo ! But I still may switch to Earthlink out of spite and for their 6 month offer…
CUBS WIN!! CUBS WIN!!!!!!
I’m still switching to Earthlink…
Here Time Warner… I’ll do some thinking for your CEO… The way you should have done this is to increase the monthly rates (uncapped), and ONLY THEN, after several rate hikes, do you then switch to caps. You’re so stupid. DAMN IT. Example: January…$54.90 …+3 to all plans April……..$57.90 ….+5 to all plans August….$63.90 ….+4 to all plans THEN you say prices have gotten so high, we shouldn’t be charging those who use less so much AND THEN YOU INTRODUCE THE MAGIC CAPS. NO way are people going to agree to a hamburger for $3 when they were getting a… Read more »
“Overwhelmingly we’ve seen positive results” – should that read “Overwhelmingly we’ve seen positive profits”?
I’d be happy to share a lot of hostility. How much does Mr. Dudley want?
The more I read about this, the more it sounds like TWC is just frustrated with their loss of revenue on cable tv services since more users are downloading movies and watching videos online. Why does this company refuse to innovate and compete? – Losing revenue from people unsubscribing to cable? Offer packages with lower prices where people can pick and choose channels they want rather than having them pay upwards of $60 and having a bunch of channels they’re never going to watch. – People downloading and streaming movies from Netflix? Offer services that are similar and just as… Read more »