The unstated reality of Internet traffic growth usually leaves out what impact streaming pornographic videos can have on network traffic, and for consumers, their broadband usage allowance. We are about to find out with last week’s arrival of Pornhub Premium (noted by DSL Reports), a new on-demand Internet streaming service its owners believe will quickly become the “Netflix of porn.”

Pornhub Premium ($9.99/mo) “offers an all new ad-free experience to its users, complete with faster playback and higher quality streaming on the millions of videos currently on Pornhub as well as the largest collection of exclusive full length HD adult titles available in crisp 1080p resolution.” Customers get a free seven-day trial before the charges begin. They can use it to test what kind of impact HD video will have on their usage allowance. It could prove considerable for frequent return visitors.

“Simply put, Pornhub Premium, is setting the new standard. Users will benefit from enhanced access to all of the content they already enjoy on Pornhub.com – with improved streaming quality – as well as over 100,000 full-length premium exclusive scenes at the touch of a finger or click of the mouse,” said Corey Price, vice president, Pornhub. “We’re looking to take the crown as the ‘Netflix of porn,’ and with the colossal amount of content we’ll be providing – and adding tons more daily – we’re confident our fan base will totally embrace this product and reinforce our position as the top provider of on-demand adult video.”

Pornhub Premium’s ad campaign has sparked an international incident. Cheese producers in Italy are not pleased.

Or not.

The publicity campaign introducing the adult entertainment service has already caused one international incident. The Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese Consortium is weighing legal action against Pornhub after referring to their aged family friendly Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese in the same sentence as “that vulgar website.”

The European Union and Italian authorities both protect the image of the consortium’s dairy products, so there could be trouble. The cheese group wants Pornhub to immediately stop capitalizing on the fame of Parmigiano-Reggiano to pitch “vile” porn videos.

The dispute threatens to become far worse than the Spaghetti Scandal of 1957, when Italian authorities were on fire after the BBC aired a hoax story suggesting spaghetti was harvested from trees. Adding to the outrage – many in northern Europe believed the report was true.

Then there are the other objections, of course.

“Pornhub Premium is unlimited filth and degradation, a new low,” came an anonymous comment from a Florida resident who claimed he was a pastor.

Nolte: Time to cut the cord and starve left-wing media.

The only solution to stop the “largest swindle big business ever played on the American people” is to cut cable television’s cord and stop paying for channels you do not want or need.

That advice comes from the conservative Breitbart News Service, among the first to make cable television bundling a political issue:

Meanwhile, for around $100 a month pay TV is not only pummeling you with about 20 minutes of ads an hour, but forcing you to pay for a ton of networks you hate. Moreover, many of these networks get a chunk of your cable bill. Even if you don’t watch left-wing CNN and MSNBC, if they are on your package, chances are a part of your bill is going directly to both.

If you want to put CNN, MSNBC, MTV, and all these other low-rated, left-wing networks out of business, not watching them makes absolutely no difference.

You have to cut the cord.

Nearly half of CNN’s revenue comes from this immoral revenue stream. CNN is taking your money to attack you all day every day.

And that is the great con the gigantic left-wing multinationals have pulled off for decades. Something like 100 million homes keep hundreds of networks profitable by forcing those customers into overpriced cable packages. Maybe 15 cable networks could survive solely on ad revenue generated by actual eyeballs. The rest would go poof, and good riddance.

Author John Nolte, editor-at-large for the news service, blames big cable bills on the “Hollywood rich” who he writes just keep getting richer. He thinks a better solution is to sign up with Netflix or Amazon and say goodbye to cable television.

Breitbart News, Nolte writes, “has been way ahead of the curve” predicting the demise of the one-size-fits-all cable television bundle that customers can hardly afford “while Obama’s economy falters and an influx of illegal aliens keep wages depressed.” Nothing stops the rate increases until consumers cancel the service, Nolte believes.

Reader reaction to the piece quickly identifies one shortcoming for conservatives: the loss of Fox News Channel. But many comments expressed the view Fox News has gone “Republican In Name Only” and isn’t worth paying for either. Many conservatives taking anti-corporate political views prefer alternative media like Breitbart News Service and Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze, which ironically has tried to land cable carriage agreements for years with only limited success.

Verizon is ready to push speeds beyond 1Gbps on its fiber to the home network FiOS, after successfully testing the next generation of signaling technology capable of delivering at least 10Gbps to customers.

Next Generation-Passive Optical Network (NG-PON2) technology allows providers to improve signaling speed and performance on existing fiber infrastructure already on the poles or in the ground. Verizon successfully tested an optical line terminal to transmit four wavelengths, each capable of speeds up to 10/2.5Gbps. Future versions should achieve symmetrical speeds of 10/10Gbps, according to Verizon. Eventually, FiOS customers may be able to subscribe to speeds up to 80Gbps.

The test demonstrated Verizon can successfully upgrade to newer generation technology and stay backwards-compatible with existing GPON customers without having to scale a utility pole or dig up any sidewalks. Existing fiber strands can manage all types of light signaling, meaning upgrades will typically occur in the office, not in the field, reducing the costs of upgrades.

Verizon isn’t even sure what to do with the extra speed yet.

“Upgrades on the FTTP network will begin when commercial equipment is available to support business services such as switched Ethernet services,” Verizon said in a press release. “The technology upgrade can also be used to support multi-gigabit-speed Internet access services for FiOS customers as the marketplace demands such services and as the technology matures.

“Note: Enforcement of the 250GB data consumption threshold is currently suspended.” (Image: Houston Chronicle)

AT&T’s enforces usage caps with overlimit penalties on its slow speed DSL service while waiving overlimit fees for its higher speed U-verse Internet service.

In 2011, AT&T introduced a 150GB monthly data cap on its DSL customers and a 250GB cap on U-verse Internet access, promising an overlimit fee of $10 for each 50GB customers stray over their allowance. Since that time, although AT&T continues to claim all customers have a usage allowance, it only penalizes DSL customers with overlimit fees.

What makes one customer subject to a higher bill while another can use as much data as they like without penalty? Competition.

Stop the Cap! has found AT&T’s DSL customers are among those least favored by the phone company. Subjected to a data cap with penalty fees for exceeding the allowance is just one of the issues bothering customers like Sheila Rivers, who lives on Houston’s west side. Her Internet bill has gone up year after year no matter how much data she uses. Her phone line with DSL used to cost her around $45 a month. Last year, it increased to $65 and AT&T has now informed her they want another $10 a month, bringing her phone bill to almost $75 a month. As long as it hasn’t rained recently, she gets just under 6Mbps speeds from AT&T. This past spring her connection barely exceeded 2Mbps.

When Rivers complains about her bill, she is quickly offered U-verse at about half the price for faster speeds. She’d take advantage of the offer, except she can’t. AT&T’s engineers tell her there are “no more ports” open in her neighborhood at the moment.

That’s also true for Jim in downtown Chicago. He’s an AT&T DSL customer and not by choice. AT&T was supposed to upgrade his building to U-verse more than a year ago, but it still has not happened. Comcast has a record of delivering appallingly bad service in his building, judging from his neighbors who cannot stay connected to Comcast’s Internet service. That leaves him with AT&T DSL with that 150GB usage cap. He regularly pays $30 in overlimit fees every month for exceeding it.

“AT&T won’t budge on waiving the extra fees on DSL, unless I agree to sign up for U-verse and then they will issue me a courtesy credit,” Jim tells Stop the Cap! “I keep telling them ‘yes, please’ and around a day later I receive another call canceling my order because U-verse is not available in the building. It’s clear the DSL usage cap is supposed to convince people to switch to U-verse for a bigger allowance.”

(Image: Houston Chronicle)

Except AT&T has not enforced its 250GB usage allowance with overlimit fees anywhere we could find. In fact, customers tell us they are specifically exempted from any U-verse caps based on a message they see on AT&T’s usage measurement tool:

Note: Enforcement of the 250GB data consumption threshold is currently suspended.

This week, the Houston Chronicle’s TechBlog reports usage caps for U-verse have been suspended across the city of Houston. AT&T’s current reasoning for harshly enforcing caps on its DSL service while not enforcing them at all for U-verse customers was murky:

“We’re educating our customers on Internet usage, and we inform them if their usage might affect their monthly bill.”

So what is different about AT&T’s lower speed DSL service that presumably generates less traffic than its higher speed U-verse counterpart?

The answer seems to be competition.

AT&T has aggressively upgraded many of their urban and suburban service areas to U-verse. That upgrade alone does not mean the end of DSL for customers in an upgraded area, but AT&T has clearly embarked on an effort to convince customers to abandon older DSL service in favor of U-verse. In most cases this is accomplished with promotional pricing, dramatically reducing the cost of U-verse and convincing customers sticking with DSL is an expensive mistake.

AT&T also faces cable competition in nearly 100% of their U-verse service areas — competition that has raised broadband speeds and cut prices for new customers. If the competition offers faster Internet speeds with no usage cap, toughing it out with AT&T U-verse may seem unwise. Enforcing that 250GB cap would likely drive a number of customers to the competition.

In contrast, more rural and outer suburban communities are less likely to have a cable competitor and much more likely to qualify only for DSL because AT&T has not upgraded those areas to U-verse. That leaves AT&T with a monopoly, where customers have no other choices for service. It is very easy to enforce usage caps in these areas.

“It doesn’t make any sense that AT&T would cap me to 150GB on my DSL line and charge me overlimit fees for using too much when my next door neighbor with U-verse can use the Internet 24/7 and never be asked to pay anything extra for doing it,” Rivers said. “It rubbed me wrong enough to call Comcast, where I was offered more than 10 times faster service with cable TV thrown in for $15 less than what AT&T has been charging me and no usage caps for now at least. I can’t stand Comcast but AT&T is worse.”

Rivers thinks AT&T is making a big mistake having usage caps at all.

“That one issue just cost them my business after eight years with them.”

Jurors are into their second month of testimony about who has responsibility to pay damages over a fiber cable installation that breached a gas line. Now the lawyers are debating the value of the vintage wines stored inside the destroyed restaurant.

On Feb. 19, 2013, a contractor hired by Time Warner Cable to install a fiber optic line instead pierced a two-inch gas line next to the Country Club Plaza and JJ’s Restaurant in Kansas City, Mo. The resulting explosion demolished the restaurant, leaving one worker dead, and another 15 injured.

But the impact of that day still lingers more than two years later as the owner of JJ’s fights Time Warner Cable’s attorneys in court over his damage claim, right down to the value of individual wine bottles stored at the restaurant.

Jimme Frantze, the owner of JJ’s Restaurant, is seeking more than $9.3 million in damages to cover the loss of the building, his net lost income, and the costs involved in starting a new restaurant. Time Warner Cable said no.

Jurors are now into the second month of the trial, which has spent much of its time dwelling on the actions of three companies involved in the explosion and its aftermath: Time Warner Cable, which hired the contractor for the project, Heartland Midwest LLC, the Olathe-based excavating contractor hired to do the work, and Missouri Gas Energy, the company that responded to the initial reports of a natural gas leak.

But these days Time Warner Cable’s attorney is questioning Frantze about how he valued the wine bottles stored at the restaurant.

The Kansas City Star reports Frantze has told jurors it has been difficult to prove the fair value of many of the wines because they are no longer available for retail sale. Frantze lost most of his business records in the explosion and fire that followed, so he has attempted to find comparable bottles online for sale to establish a replacement value.

Time Warner Cable Attorney Ken Snow drilled down on the specific value of several bottles formerly a part of Frantze’s collection.

One 1929 bottle initially valued at $15,000 was re-estimated downwards by Frantze to $5,000 after he found an appraiser who valued it at a lower amount.

“I just acquiesced,” he said, adding, “There’s a lot of emotion on my part with some of the older vintages.” That 1929 bottle, he added, “was in pristine condition. I probably had it for 30 years.”

Snow also questioned Frantze about his assigned value of $2,600 to a bottle of 2000 wine appraised elsewhere at $1,100. One other bottle was appraised at $575, not the $1,900 Frantze estimated.

Snow also argued JJ’s was not the success story Frantze might suggest. Snow asserted the restaurant was struggling at the time of the explosion, a suggestion contested by Frantze.

On Monday, Frantze appeared in court accompanied by oxygen tanks, two weeks after a liver transplant. The same year of the explosion, Frantze was diagnosed with liver cancer.