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 […]
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It is “Interesting” that all these TW RR “system problems” and “outages” are occurring now. I had NO trouble with TWC RR Service prior to the recent protests. Seems to me that TWC is attempting to manufacture a “situation” in order to blame it on “excessive broadband usage” to justify their greedy position.
Either that or they are simply punishing us for temprarily thwarting their devious plans…
Either way it STINKS!
WE NEED TO GET COMPETITION IN THIS MARKET! WE NEED VERIZON!
Bob, I do believe that Phil is commenting about connection issues with Roadrunner at his home. Correct me if I am wrong Phil.
Yes, this outage seems to be only affecting me personally (and perhaps some of the neighbors – I don’t know how localized it is). I gave up on conspiracy theories after Chris Carter stole several years of my life watching The X Files, only to see the whole thing collapse in one of the worst events on television ever – the final pointless episode on May 19, 2002. It ended in a cave. I wanted to be buried in one after that. I suspect squirrels with a vendetta, moisture from the season change here in western NY, or some line… Read more »
It has been on and off windy for the last couple of days. Perhaps it was just time for you section. Its the line techs problem now. Let them do their magic as you will comment on the outcome of all this later.
Bob It is Monday. Call Verizon and tell them you will become a loyal customer. It helps to have a fan base before they show up. I called and emailed them weeks ago.
Hey Phil- I am actually having the same problem down in the fingerlakes, steuben county- also Rochester RR. My internet and phone (VOIP) were both out ALL day yesterday- then this morning my phone worked but net would not connect and once it did it was spotty, going in and out. It’s ok now but not a great way to start my day especially since I work from home on my pc. My whole cable (net phone and TV) went out for half a day a month or so ago after a nasty windstorm, but other then that I have… Read more »
alright just read an article that many custs lost service yesterday due to ‘an undetermined problem’. still aggravated with them though.
It would be amusing if the wide outage was caused by TW testing some new software on their router to meter/measure/or throttle.
On the subject of the X-files make sure to check that the packet loss is not from someone trying to do a denial of service attack on your connection. I can only imagine the bill that or a brute force attack would rack up.