Wendy Davis took a look around the domestic broadband marketplace and concluded the same thing we did: they’ll be back for another round of Cap ‘n Tier soon enough.

The company’s own statements make clear it still wants to move towards a metered pricing system. “While we continue to believe that consumption based billing may be the best pricing plan for consumers, we want to do everything we can to inform our customers of our plans and have the benefit of their views as part of our testing process,” Time Warner Chairman Glenn Britt said in a statement last week.

The company also said that it’s going to arrange to give subscribers measurement tools so they’ll be able to see how much bandwidth they’re actually using each month.

Davis also reports on the rally in front of Time Warner’s Rochester, N.Y., offices which attracted about 30 protestors, noting it happened after Time Warner backed off the proposal.

Internet service providers argue that they are facing rising bandwidth demand and that metered pricing is fairer to consumers than the current unlimited use pricing. Perhaps more people would agree if the proposed fees were lower. But so far people have a hard time swallowing $150 a month for unlimited bandwidth — especially when, according to The New York Times, the costs of upgrading equipment is “shrinking steadily.” The paper also reports that Comcast told investors it costs less than $7 a home to double the Internet capacity of a neighborhood.

[Editor’s Note: Time Warner suspended, at least temporarily, the “experiment” in usage caps last week, according to company officials.  This news report was produced and broadcast prior to that announcement.]

Residents across Time Warner’s Triad region in North Carolina continued protesting the company’s proposed broadband usage cap experiment last week, calling it unfair and bordering on monopolistic.  Greensboro’s city council was “on the same page” on the issue of resisting the incumbent cable broadband provider and were seeking competive alternatives, as WGHP reports:

Fox 8 in the Triad covers the story from the perspective of a local government trying to find ways to respond to consumer complaints about Time Warner’s experiment.  Cities struggle to find competitive alternatives, but discover that’s an improbability during the current economic crisis.  This report features a dial-up modem handshake sequence (the noise you hear towards the end of the report.)  Many consumers in this part of North Carolina may be stuck going back to dial-up Internet access if usage caps this draconian return.

John McElhenney, MeterThis.net

One of the reasons why the Internet is much more important than the “go outside and do something else” crowd would have you believe, is the power of netizens to get involved in their government and local communities, and effect change.  The online world is unique for organizing and advocating change.  It requires almost no money to get started, and you are not subject to the corporate media filter, the high cost of publishing and distribution, or the requirement of expensive advertising to become noticed.  The Internet lets you leverage the quality of your information to garner success, instead of having to try and buy it with mass blast advertising.

With just $10 and free software, John McElhenney joined a growing number of online activists voicing their concern with Time Warner Cable’s plans to implement a tier-based billing structure for Internet users in four cities, including San Antonio and Austin.  MeterThis.net has given a local voice to the movement opposing usage caps down in high-tech Austin.  One person can make a difference, as you’ll hear in this report from David Ruif:

I have to hand it to Frontier Communications, the DSL competitor to Time Warner’s cable modem service in Rochester.  They seem to have improved their marketing efforts considerably since last summer, and have handily taken advantage of Time Warner’s nightmarish rationing plan, now temporarily shelved.  Below the fold, check out the full page ad they took out in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.  Our advice: keep the ads running all spring and summer, because it’s highly likely we haven’t heard the last of the cap nonsense from Time Warner.

StoptheCap! has sent Frontier quite a bit of business since the cap announcement was made by Time Warner and customers sought alternatives.  Now, if Frontier management would only stop penning internal memos to their employees as late as a few weeks ago bashing the “opinion leaders” like us they claim “harm their reputation.”  Note to Frontier: When you do dumb-dumb things like define an acceptable amount of broadband usage at 5GB per month, don’t blame us for harming your reputation.  You did that all by yourself.  When you reformed and dumped those caps overboard, as you did recently, you gained a lot of new customers and kept your existing ones.  If, in 2010, you decide to try and bring back caps, just remember what this community did to Time Warner in two weeks, and then get smart and don’t even consider it.  We’re watching.  We’re always watching.

Remember, customers don’t want caps.  Not now.  Not ever.  Period.

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Senator Joe Robach (R-Greece) Repudiates Time Warner's Cap Plan

Senator Joe Robach (R-Greece), whose district includes several suburbs around Rochester, responded to StoptheCap! reader Tom R., expressing his concern about Time Warner implementing a usage cap system in his district.

“I agree that this new plan would produce costly bills and would not meet the needs of the Rochester community,” Robach wrote.

Senator Robach, a Republican member of the New York State Senate, wrote the NY State Public Service Commission and requested a thorough review of Time Warner’s plans.  He noted that Rochester is in a unenviable position of being the only major city in New York state not to be wired with fiber optics to the home, as part of Verizon’s FiOS project.  Rochester is served by an independent telephone company, Frontier Communications.

Robach accused Time Warner of setting their proposed usage caps so low, most customers would exceed their bandwidth allowance, leading to costly overlimit fees.

NY State Senate - 56th District Map

Unfortunately, the Public Service Commission has no regulatory authority over the cable industry’s broadband product, but increasing attention to the issue of cable company market abuse may lead to a more careful review of whether or not communities wish to retain Time Warner as the incumbent cable provider come franchise renewal time.  A community can revoke or choose not to renew a franchise if a cable operator is deemed not to serve the best interests of the community, allowing a different company to potentially provide service.

Robach’s involvement demonstrates a bipartisan commitment to the issue of unfair broadband usage caps, proving once again that this is not a “right or left” issue — but one of common sense.

Time Warner indefinitely shelved the proposal last week at the behest of consumers and elected officials, but StoptheCap! remains convinced the company will attempt to bring it back for another try later this year.

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