I should really start a spreadsheet (or better yet ask one of our readers), to track all of the varying claims and percentages Time Warner officials were using throughout the entire metered broadband debacle.  More numbers have been tossed around in this discussion than on Wall Street.  WHAM-TV had a quick report on their 5:30pm newscast last week, before TW suspended their plans, outlining the v2.0 of the Time Warner usage cap plan.

Internet usage is increasing, costs to provide it are decreasing, and profits are up.  So it’s only fair to increase rates up to 300% for the same service?  It was logic like this that caused the volcanic lava flow of hatred towards the plan in every city that was included in the “experiment.”  And, as I always ask, produce the raw data to show who is affected by what.  Time Warner traditionally bases their estimates on their experiences in Beaumont, Texas where 14% or so of new customers (the plan never was implemented for all customers during the trial) saw significant overlimit fees charged on their bills, averaging close to $20 a month.  That’s nothing to sneeze at.

Rep. Dan Maffei (D-NY)

Rep. Dan Maffei (D-NY), whose 25th Congressional district reaches into the eastern suburbs of Rochester, addressed the issue of Time Warner’s usage cap proposal at a Town Hall meeting earlier in April.  Maffei expressed concern about the “experiment,” recognizing the limited alternative options consumers in his district have for broadband service.  Maffei warned that Time Warner’s cap proposal may create potential difficulties for the company in Washington, as issues affecting the cable television and broadband industry are likely to come before Congress in this session. [Courtesy: Rochester Turning]

25th Congressional District Map

To contact Congressman Maffei:

Syracuse Office

Dan Maffei
P.O. Box 7306
1340 Federal Building
Syracuse, NY  13261
Phone: (315) 423-5657
Fax: (315) 423-5669

Irondequoit Office

Dan Maffei
1280 Titus Avenue
Rochester, NY  14617
Phone: 585-336-7291
Fax: 585-336-7274

I continue to hear from a few of the “competition is breaking out all over” crowd claim that people who can’t get DSL service from Frontier and don’t want Road Runner after “things just aren’t the same with us anymore — the trust is gone,” can jump to Clearwire and they will live happily ever after. Sure, if you are well within their current service area, depicted below for the Rochester market. They aren’t available in any of the other “experiment” markets in western New York. By the way, I am told their speeds currently max out around 2.1Mbps. That’s slower than DSL.  If anyone here uses them and would like to write up a review, please let me know.

Clearwire Coverage Map - Rochester, NY

GigaOM blows the lid off what will likely be an upcoming target of StoptheCap! — the ludicrous and unacceptably botched usage cap trial in Reno, Nevada by AT&T.

It seems that new customers to AT&T’s high speed Internet service aren’t being told their usage is being capped, until the mailman delivers an express letter to your home with the shocking news after you’ve already signed up for service!

Adding insult to injury, their tiers for traditional DSL max out with an 80GB allowance on their “Elite tier,” which only offers up to 6Mbps service.  That might be “elite” in Kenya, but it shouldn’t be in a major American city.  Each additional gigabyte comes at the traditional Pillage Price of $1/GB, which is nearly 1,000% above what it costs them to provide.  And for the woman who brought all this to the attention of GigaOM, there is no competitor currently available for broadband.

The Super Whammo Extreme Maxalot tier of 150GB isn’t even available unless you have access to their U-verse fiber-alternative service.  Also, incompetence seems to be the order of the day over at AT&T:  GigaOM reported that customer service representatives denied there was a usage cap at all when the Lake Tahoe-area resident called to inquire.

AT&T’s letter explaining the limits is reproduced below the fold.  Customers signing up for service at att.com will need to call the Psychic Hotline to discern that there is a cap in place on their service — not one word of it appears on their website as the screen captures GigaOM obtained illustrate.

Of course AT&T is also the home of the “unlimited” AT&T Wireless DataConnect plan that, in the fine print, changes your reality of what the word “unlimited” means to their own, which means “not more than 5GB.”

Sounds like bait and switch to us and the next step should be a contact with the Nevada Attorney General’s office, the Better Business Bureau, local and state officials, and the Congressional delegation for Nevada.  If AT&T wants to treat Reno like a broadband backwater, they couldn’t do a better job of it by also forgetting to tell customers until after they already signed up.

… Continue Reading

KVUE-TV is Austin examined the impact Time Warner’s proposed usage caps would have on younger users, part of the “Internet generation.”  Disproportionately heavier users of the net, these “heavy users” are often the ones who will be the first to lose the innovative net services they have depended on, because of the exhorbitant charges Time Warner was proposing to access them.  But the impact doesn’t stop there.  Innovative broadband applications that become unaffordable to use cause job losses, hurt the economy, and allow the United States to fall behind other countries that charge lower prices for faster Internet access.

A straightforward and honest package from KVUE, focusing on the “younger user” angle, and how usage caps impact them in their daily lives.  “Worried,” is the common reaction among younger users accustomed to flat rate Internet.  Many students spend more time online than they do watching television, a factor that obviously concerns a cable operator that sells packages of video channels they may choose to reject.