Argh…  Lauren MacDonough, WROC Web Reporter, what were you thinking?  MacDonough adds to WROC’s highlighted coverage of the Time Warner service outage, with a follow-up explanation that belies belief.  She gets the first part of the explanation correct: a router failed in Syracuse which affected domain name servers, among other things.  That assured any connections made through the Syracuse Operations Center would end up getting no further if they were relying on Time Warner’s equipment to route the traffic properly.

But then MacDonough wades out into the deep end, and gets into trouble.  She posits the theory it could have been a “strain” on its network which caused the hardware to fail, and then quotes Time Warner’s earlier press release about “Internet brownouts could be on the horizon,” and then draws a line between the events on Sunday and Time Warner’s exaflood theory.  [Shudder]

Generally speaking, traffic on an electronic piece of equipment does not wear it out, leading to a failure.  Routers have failed since Road Runner began service.  It happens.  Sometimes it’s heat related, other times a power supply stops functioning properly.  A pesky spider spinning a web inside the case might be indictable.  There are lots of reasons.  Heavy traffic, on a Sunday morning yet, causing the thing to flame out is unlikely to be among the first theories I’d come up with.

Some readers have asked why I’ve been covering this story in the first place.  Today you know.  It’s not an intention to pile-on any negative bad news about Time Warner, but rather to be sure we are on guard against media misinterpretation of unrelated events which lead to any inappropriate tie-ins to Time Warner’s kooky theory of broadband management.

As you’ve just seen, that’s precisely what Lauren MacDonough did.  It’s likely unintentional on her part, but it doesn’t change the fact we will need to help correct the record and not allow debunked exaflood theories to be used as “evidence” for usage caps and rationing tier plans.

Many people still think of broadband Internet access as some sort of luxury “extra,” like a premium movie channel on your cable subscription, or maybe a nice dinner out at an expensive restaurant.  Only it’s not.  Increasingly, students are choosing where to attend school based on connectivity, high tech business incubators are built in communities where access is available at affordable prices, and now one New York State senator has released a report showing lack of access to affordable broadband is hurting the real estate market.

Senator George Winner (R/C/I – Elmira) released a report last fall documenting the trials and tribulations of inadequate availability and competition for broadband in smaller towns and cities, including many in his district in the southern tier of New York.

Winner fears that without equity of access and a healthy competitive marketplace, the impact will be felt community-wide.

Lack of access to broadband is influencing the real estate market. Homes that have broadband are winning out over more remote ones that don’t. Areas with better and faster broadband are becoming more desirable than ones with slower access. Experts believe that over time, the lack of universal broadband, could pull people from the countryside toward cities and suburbs. On the federal level, the FCC is considering using the Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes phone service in rural areas, to promote broadband coverage as well.

That’s why communities like Elmira, and others in the Twin Tiers region, were paying attention when Time Warner announced broadband usage cap experiments in Beaumont, Texas.  For most, Road Runner -is- their broadband provider.

Can anyone place that anchor’s accent?  It’s definitely not from the western New York area!

StoptheCap! heard from many Frontier customers scattered nationwide across their service area, which encompasses mostly rural communities from coast to coast.  For them, broadband Internet service means getting it from an expensive satellite service, or getting DSL from Frontier Communications.  There is no cable service in many of these communities.  When Frontier was considering a usage cap of 5GB per month, these consumers weren’t just alarmed, they were in full panic.

Rural and underserved markets are routinely bypassed by providers from the latest technological innovations, and are often under punitive contracts at high prices.  Senator Winner’s report details private and public initiatives to reach these communities.  He’s a conservative Republican who serves a district that would prefer not to be bothered by political schemes hatched in Albany, but the issue of broadband access is one that crosses party lines, as readers of this site have come to learn.  It’s not a right or left issue.  It’s one that will rapidly become as important as wiring communities for electricity and universal access to telephone service.

Expensive caps and overlimit fees are an anathema to the development of broadband nationwide.  It’s an issue rural communities are following, as they often have few, if any alternatives.

Effective today, I am making some policy changes affecting our Comments section.  It is important for everyone to understand that organizing a pushback against usage caps means putting aside non-germane issues that really don’t help to keep people focused on the issues here.  Therefore,

1. This is not a “right” or “left” issue.  We have people from all political points of view here, each concerned for their own reasons or beliefs why caps are bad.  Some feel this is a slippery slope towards controlling what people do online, others see it as a corporatist agenda to reduce competition and abuse market power.  Some seek a regulatory approach, others want competition in the free market, and many more want a combination of the two.  They are all valid, and it’s okay to offer different solutions.  But this is not the fault of any political party, past or current president, or federal official.  After 20 years of watching this industry, there are both Democrats and Republicans who support or oppose our views on these issues.  It’s remarkable how bi-partisan the good and the bad ideas are.  A Democrat in the North Carolina legislature is pushing the anti-municipal broadband legislation.  Republicans in Texas have largely not been receptive to appeals from constituents about usage caps.  In short, you’ll find good and bad all over, and we’ll need all of the good we can find, no matter what political party one aligns with.
2. Resist flame wars in the Comments section on other writers.  I am going to start purging the more egregious ones.  Argue and debate the issues, not each other.  It’s okay to have different opinions, and people should expect they might be debated about them, but let’s keep it above the belt.

The Comments system is now configured to allow you to edit your comments for up to 30 minutes after they are written.  If you are particularly annoyed with someone, you might consider writing the reply in a text editor, saving it, and waiting a few hours/next day before you paste it into the comments editor and send it.  Heat of the moment replies are often regretted later.

Thanks for helping out.

WXII in the Triad told its viewers that although the Time Warner usage cap plan was being put on hold, it was by no means gone for good.  The reporter told viewers the suspension came from “confusion” and “backlash” from Time Warner customers.

Time Warner’s talking point about saving the elderly money is on full display here, as the reporter tells viewers if they send only a couple dozen e-mails, it means they “end up paying more for those who spend hours on end gaming online.”  Of course, the report fails to mention those customers can save money today on a Road Runner Lite plan.  It’s really just a classic case of trying to pit customers against one another using the “us vs. them” card.  They hope dangling those shiny keys in customers’ faces will distract them from realizing that nobody’s cable bill ever really goes down — not unless you drop services along the way.

A talking point festival from Time Warner’s perspective.  I’m not sure if this report was a companion to another, but this on a standalone basis was simply a recitation of Time Warner’s claims.  Interestingly, the piece still quotes Time Warner maintaining the same plan — the gas gauge will then tell viewers “whether they need to go up a plan or down a plan.”

R-News is owned and operated by Time Warner.  There has traditionally been a firewall in place between R-News and Time Warner itself, and the reports have generally been far more balanced than the hackery at News 14 in North Carolina.  Still, they managed to use a broken up talking point from me about “loving the company.”  Of course, if the cap issue were dead and buried, as most of us in attendance were led to believe that afternoon, why not?  I’ve been happy with Road Runner since being one of the early beta testers back in 1998.  At the end of the press event that Thursday, I was thrilled for about … oh, 45 minutes, until getting home and reading the press release from Time Warner.

Senator Schumer’s very insistent point that “they are not going to use Rochester as a guinea pig for any tiered pricing plan, period” may come back to haunt Time Warner if they bring the dog and pony Cap ‘n Tier show back to the Flower City this fall.  There certainly wasn’t any wiggle room in the senator’s statement on the matter.  Will Time Warner defy the senior senator from New York?  We’ll be watching.