Stop the Cap! reader John, who lives in Beaumont, Texas, went shopping for Internet access recently and was sold on broadband from AT&T:

I looked for and did not find any reference to caps, and called the sales department. I was told there were no caps. I signed up and when tech support helped me with the registration, the tech bragged how AT&T had no caps when cable companies (Time Warner) did. The day after I installed, I received the express letter stating there was a cap trial in the Beaumont area. The cap is 80GB for my “Elite” service plan. The overage charge is $1.00 per Gig.

Of course what John, and many other residents in Beaumont may not have realized is that AT&T is continuing to test their Internet Overcharging schemes in Beaumont, Texas and Reno, Nevada.  AT&T’s website and marketing materials are generally targeted to a nationwide customer base, and it’s easy to receive marketing materials that don’t disclose you reside in the two unluckiest cities in America to be an AT&T broadband customer.

If John is subject to any long term service commitments, he should have the right to exit his contract and terminate service without any further obligation.

Time after time, customers learning of Internet Overcharging with unwarranted limits and penalties are left angry and upset.

Michael Lynton, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment who was the subject of our last HissyFitWatch, has decided damage control was the order of the day after being caught making remarks suggesting the Internet had never come to any good and was filled with pirates and freeloaders.  A recap:

“I’m a guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet, period.”

The Internet has “created this notion that anyone can have whatever they want at any given time. It’s as if the stores on Madison Avenue were open 24 hours a day. They feel entitled. They say, ‘Give it to me now,’ and if you don’t give it to them for free, they’ll steal it.”

Just brought to our attention, Lynton decided he’d better clarify those remarks, because the blog world had already spent a week burning him in effigy for making them.  So off to The Huffington Post he went to pen his long-form explanation on May 26th.

In March, an unfinished copy of 20th Century Fox’s film X-Men Origins: Wolverine was stolen from a film lab and uploaded to the Internet, more than a month before its theatrical release. The studio investigated the crime, and efforts were made to limit its availability online. Still, it was illegally downloaded more than four million times.

That kind of wide scale theft was very much on my mind when I was on a panel the other day which opened with a question about the impact of the Internet on the entertainment business, and I responded, “I’m a guy who sees nothing good having come from the Internet. Period.”

But, I actually welcome the Sturm und Drang I’ve stirred, because it gives me an opportunity to make a larger point (one which I also made during that panel discussion, though it was not nearly as viral as the sentence above). And my point is this: the major content businesses of the world and the most talented creators of that content — music, newspapers, movies and books — have all been seriously harmed by the Internet.

Some of that damage has been caused by changing business models (the FTC just announced an inquiry into the impact of new media on the newspaper industry). But the primary culprit is piracy. The Internet has brought people with no regard for the intellectual property of others together with a technology that allows them to easily steal that property and sell or give it away to everyone, with little fear of being caught or prosecuted.

He could have said this at the Whine & Cheese breakfast in Syracuse and it would have provoked the same reaction his original comments had.  Not much to see here beyond another big corporate Hollywood studio executive pleading poverty and ruin because one of the industry’s own employees made off with a film print to score big bucks and eventually the copy drifted into Pirate Bay.  Nobody need call CSI to determine the cause of injury in this case.  Even the most casual observer can see most of these wounds are self-inflicted.

… Continue Reading

Live Coverage of SaveOurNet.ca‘s National Open Internet Town Hall, netcasting from Toronto has now concluded.  Unfortunately, connectivity issues at the hotel plagued the live streaming event, and a good deal of it was not available on the live stream.  A recording of the presentation should be forthcoming shortly, and will be embedded in this space, when available.

“One customer may have to move his business [from New Hampshire] to Massachusetts because he can’t get [phone] service in his store.” — WMUR Manchester (3/13/09)

Third world phone service?  Now into spring, the saga of FairPoint continues with no end in sight.  Customer complaints achieve alarming proportions in all three New England states where FairPoint Communications assumed control of customers discarded by Verizon.

Across Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, local media present disturbingly similar stories of customers left weeks without service, unable to reach customer service representatives.  Palpable frustration over what seems to be an endless litany of excuses about why things have gone wrong, and how things are “getting better” start to ring hollow.

Now there is a new complication.  Questions about FairPoint’s financial health are now openly pondered by the media, as FairPoint asks for a three month delay in paying back its debt.  The Associated Press reports FairPoint is struggling.  Even before the transition problems erupted, the company lost 12% of its New England customers in 2008.  The Maine Public Utilities Commission received 1,200 complaints about the company and the company’s stock price was rapidly declining.

[flv width=”480″ height=”360″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WMUR Manchester Fairpoint Says Payment Delay Request Not Due To Customer Problems 3-13-09.flv[/flv]

Of course, no nightmare with a phone company is ever complete without them botching your bill.  FairPoint doesn’t disappoint, and as customers begin to receive their monthly statements from the new “transitioned” FairPoint, all too often they were wrong.  Customer payments were applied late or not at all, late fees charged even to customers on “autopay” plans, and new charges billed for lines that were disconnected.  Even customers on their way out the door were snared, as WMUR discovered from one Manchester resident who swore “I’ll never go back to FairPoint.”

Kate Bailey from the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission: “The level of service that FairPoint is providing to its customers is unacceptable right now.”

… Continue Reading

The Federal Communications Commission is accepting comments from citizens until July 8, 2009 as they craft a national broadband plan.  Free Press’ Save the Internet campaign has made sending our comments a lot easier for you and I.  They’ve created an online form that directly interfaces with the FCC’s formal comment submission system.  They have pre-filled a sample message to send to the Commission for consideration, but I strongly recommend you write one of your own.  Net Neutrality is a critically important issue for Stop the Cap!, but there is room to also share your thoughts on usage caps, metered pricing, competition and oversight — all of the issues we focus on regularly here.

They are already hearing from special interests and lobbyists attempting to influence the Commission into creating a broadband policy that caters to the whims of commercial interests.  It is paramount that the Internet first and foremost serve the interests of the people.

For the first time in a long time, every citizen can have a voice heard by anyone who wants to listen.  The impact and importance of that voice is judged on the merit of the message, not on how much money, power or influence that person has to present it.  Net Neutrality rules enforced as part of a national broadband policy protects your voice, your ideas, and your participation in our democracy.  Some commercial interests seek a net where their voices can travel faster, their partners get preferential treatment, and everyone else risks being throttled, capped, metered, or impeded.

Gordon F. Snyder, Director of the National Center for Information and Communications Technologies

Without Net Neutrality protections, the Internet may find itself resembling broadcasting in this country, where a few powerful interests control the medium, the message, and the content.  No company should be making these choices for you, either through speed throttling or imposing limits or meters on those products and services that aren’t owned, controlled, or partnered with that provider.  Your ISP should not have the right to impose a broadband strategy that is designed to protect the business model of another product or service they happen to offer, such is the case with online video.

Tell the FCC you don’t want to settle for a national broadband policy that doesn’t make America #1.  That means:

• The fastest possible speeds, not rationed “fast enough for most people to check e-mail and web pages broadband.”
• An end to policies that allow providers to artificially limit consumption through throttles, usage caps, and forced metered pricing at enormous markups.
• Protections against manipulating broadband policies to protect providers’ other business interests, such as streaming online video competing with traditional cable television business models.
• Policies that encourage competition among providers, even if it means establishing “common carrier” status to permit competitor access to wired infrastructure under fair terms.
• A policy that recognizes the rapid development of broadband technology and expects providers to grow with the times to accommodate new platforms, technologies, and applications.
• A policy that embraces municipal, public, and/or non-profit organizations that wish to establish advanced networks as they see fit, without having to face lawsuits and delay tactics from commercial interests.
• Recognition that there cannot be two broadband platforms in this country – one slow lane for rural and under-competitive markets and one fast lane for urban areas.  Equal access.  Equal speeds.  Fair pricing.

Gordon F. Snyder, Director of the National Center for Information and Communications Technologies, provides additional insight in his blog, and should be considered when writing your suggestions to the FCC:

… Continue Reading