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Rep. Chris Lee (R-NY)
Rep. Christopher Lee (R-NY) signalled his concern over efforts to involve the federal government in the Time Warner usage cap experiment Wednesday.
Lee spoke at a press conference on an unrelated matter and answered questions about the Time Warner plan. Lee said that he had received communications from constituents in his district, which stretches from Monroe county to the east into the outer suburbs of Buffalo.
The congressman feels that federal government involvement should only come as a last resort. He told City Newspaper that he is aware of the broad concern over the proposal and said that public officials should make sure “consumers are protected and that they pay a fair rate.”
According to Rep. Lee, Time Warner has agreed to hold a public session on the plan, and that he hoped Time Warner would be able to “develop fair-rate plans.”
Lee’s position appears to be contrary to that of Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) who is drafting legislation that would seek to impose an outright ban on broadband usage caps.
Lee’s office can be contacted by e-mail, but the congressman does not accept e-mail from those living outside of his district. Other contact details:
The 26th Congressional District of New York
Rep. Chris Lee
1711 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202.225.5265
Fax: 202.225.5910
325 Essjay Road, Suite 405
Williamsville, NY 14221
Phone: 716.634.2324
Fax: 716.631.7610
1577 West Ridge Road
Greece, NY 14615
Phone: 585.663.5570
Fax: 585.663.5711
I tend to agree with Rep. Lee on this. This is not an issue that we should be taking to the Federal Government. We should be instead focusing our energy on doing everything we can to stop TW from these caps. The government should be left out of all of this. I know I will get flamed for this, but we give the government too much power as it is, giving them more power to regulate how we use the internet is not something I see as good, in fact, that might be their plan all along. If companies are… Read more »
I have absolutely no objection to a free market solution to this issue through additional competition, and any burdensome restrictions preventing competition should be addressed and removed. Unfortunately, there has been a gentleman’s agreement among large cable operators not to overbuild their cable systems into a competitor’s territory, and telephone companies that are not Verizon have generally been content with DSL technology in most of their service areas. I don’t believe there is really a conspiratorial effort here for government to control the Internet. I think consumers finding little relief from the de facto duopolies that exist in most communities… Read more »
The free market can’t handle this, not under the circumstances that exist today and TWC knows that. The test market areas were not chosen on accident or by coincidence. Whether the local monopolies that Time Warner Cable has in areas all across the country should be allowed to exist, I certainly understand the side that says they shouldn’t but at the same time I also understand why these types of services incline to become monopolies and the beneficial sides to allowing them, it is an entirely different argument and only presents a hypothetical alternative to a real world situation. As… Read more »
How would you suggest we, (as the average consumer,) would go about stopping time warner? For some of us the only other option is dial up… which if you have to support your job from home, (the reason I’m not snagging some ZZZ’s right now,) dial up isn’t an option either.
Politicians who are in favor of caps should be investigated to find out if they’ve received money from the bad guys or if they own any pertinent stock.
Another typical Republican. Let’s just keep de-regulating everything, and eventually corporations like Time Warner will eventually be the government. I love a free-market, but in this case, there isn’t one. Time Warner has a monopoly. The government absolutely should do something about local monopolies like them. It’s probably for the local government to do, but if they won’t, then I absolutely support federal intervention. This guy just doesn’t want to anger the people that are lining his pockets. He just doesn’t want to say that he has no problem with this cash-grab. Eric Massa wants to make usage caps illegal.… Read more »
“According to Rep. Lee, Time Warner has agreed to hold a public session on the plan”
We need to find out when this public meeting is STAT!
Anyone who thinks this isn’t a governmental issue is an idiot. The time for this issue to be left in the private sector has long since passed. The only reason Time Warner can operate monopolies like the ones in the test areas for this plan is because of exclusivity rights granted by local governments.
Not that anyone should really be surprised with a Republican taking the side of a corporation over the will of his constituents.
I love individuals whom complain about Government intervention, and then create some ridiculous hypothetical situation that is never going to come to pass as a reason for limiting and or stopping Government intervention. I will say this once and only once. This whimsical government that people rail against is US. We (Everybody Collectively) ARE THE GOVERNMENT. I’m not against a free market, or competition. The problem is this industry is not a free market. There is at best limited competition or effectively NO Competition nationwide. This is the reason and need for regulation of Monopolies. Time Warner is showing us… Read more »
Lee is my representative, and I wrote him urging him to support Massa in his fight against TW’s proposed data caps. While I would prefer a free-market solution to this, it just isn’t possible with the lack of competition in the Rochester market. My only other options are Satellite internet through HughesNet (starting at 1.0 Mbps/128 Kbps for $59.99/month, up to 5.0 Mbps/300 Kbps for $349.99!) or Empire Telephone DSL which only offers 1.5 Mbps/256 Kbps for $39.99/month), or dial-up, which isn’t really even a viable option in 2009. I have no problem paying for Internet access, but this tiered… Read more »
I called Chris Lee’s office yesterday.
I was disappointed he wouldn’t make a stand then
It doesn’t surprise me now that as a republican he supports
a monopoly. TW benefits from our tax dollars
same old story Republicans against the average joe, but for large
corporate types who gouge the public in an area where there is no
competition. same old republican bull. thanks for nothing
Chris Lee strikes me as being disconnected from the facts of this situation. I wonder what his knowledge of all this really is.
Chris is my representative (didn’t vote for him), so I emailed him a few days ago, asking him to support Eric Massa’s bill and explaining some of my concerns with the capping issue. I’m sure he’s busy, but I still haven’t heard back from him. Having read this article about his stance on the issue though, I can’t say that I’m surprised. I used to be a Republican and it’s because of BS like this that I became a Democrat.
I have not read where the average joe has received a reply from any emails sent to our representatives unless they happened to be a Financial Donor. Makes me crazy!
I got a letter back from the NY state attorney with a case number thanking me for my input.
J.C.
A case number? Sounds like an open inquiry at the very least.
The problem is that Time Warner had plenty of opportunities to capitalize on internet video and integrate their services better to prevent that loss of revenue, at the same time add value in having a cable box as well as their Road Runner service. For instance, being able to access your DVR recordings remotely, and being able to manage your DVR remotely, which Direct TV has started offering recently, and similar to what Tivo To Go has offered. Instead, they were late to the game, and now they want to institute a cap. Great job, dickheads. Furthermore, these things were… Read more »
People people. Before you go flaming republicans, you need to understand. What this guy is saying is “How in the world do we regulate this?” Do you really think our government can just tell a company to not use caps? How can we force a company to not do something that it has complete control over? The only thing we can hope for is that competition will fix all of this. Although that didn’t really work in the cell phone market did it? I can get a cell phone plan for 400 minutes from att for $40 a month or… Read more »
You just made my point about competition only working to a certain extent before regulation is required. Don’t even get me started on the cell phone fiasco. This is all a result of smaller government and deregulation. Given free reign, business will try to dictate what is best for the consumer, not the consumer dictating what is best for the consumer.
Dude, our government is HUGE! No more!
Your cell phone explanation is perfect, you understand entirely how the free market just doesn’t solve everything yet you still would rather the government, the ones that can do something about it, not do so. All for the sake of “dudes, like totally, the government is huge!” Yes, it’s huge. Yes, the government over extends its reach at times. There are government programs that everyone knows don’t work but still cost tax payers lots of money every year. There are instances where the government tries to intervene with the private sector and everyone knows it won’t work and then it… Read more »
Hmmm I dont see this as an issue whether or not if the government should get involved in the private affairs of a company other then placing guidelines on a market to protect the people they serve. In the same what would we do if the government did not have guidelines in the medical field for drug testing. What if TWC was drug company that offers all the drugs to the country and decided to have a couple test cities to test a deadly drug that wipes out the cities. We know that is not possible because the government has… Read more »
You must remember who congress people are first…
They might understand that death is a bad thing, but one thing for sure is they don’t understand technology…
They should be listening to their constituents. The people of their districts and states who elected them. They are the collective voices of the masses. They don’t have to understand everything but they should listen to people who do. Like Phil here at stopthecap. No representative can be expected to understand everything but they should be able to listen to the advice of the most educated members of our society to guide them on the decisions they make. Our government is not HUGE! If it was HUGE it would have been bigger than the banks and financial institutions that brought… Read more »