While ivi enjoys the fruits of the Cablevision-Fox dispute which drew suburban New Yorkers to sign up for service, another “online cable system” with an even more obscure reputation in North America has launched live “HD-quality” streams of British television, most of the major television stations in Los Angeles, and hardcore porn.

FilmOn, the brainchild of British billionaire Alki David, has been in beta for at least a year — until ivi stole a lot of its potential thunder by selling access to network stations from Seattle and New York City for $4.95 a month.  Since ivi’s arrival, FilmOn has taken off the “beta” label and opened their service to all-comers.

We’ve been playing with FilmOn for about a month ourselves here at Stop the Cap!, but have not written about it until now because the service operates like a moving target.  Yesterday’s channel lineup may be quite different the next day, and pricing has changed at least twice for the service in a matter of weeks.  While the service says it’s not in beta, it sure feels like it.  So, with this in mind, we present a brief review of the service as it exists today, the 2nd of November.  Don’t blame us if the channel lineup has changed since.

FilmOn has a bigger reputation in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom where British viewers hunger for access to America’s latest series and specials.  Getting access to FilmOn’s beta test was a badge of honor for many English speaking European beta testers craving direct feeds from CBS, NBC, and ABC stations in the United States.  Now Anglophiles on the other side of the pond looking for direct access to British television can now watch it live.

FilmOn uses its own free HDi player, which incorporates a viewing window, channel lineup, programming guide, and facilities to schedule recording shows for later viewing.  The player also includes authentication to protect the streams from unauthorized viewing, a bit of irony for many of the channels on the lineup which gave no authorization to be there in the first place.

The player software and layout is more advanced than ivi, and FilmOn’s picture quality is far superior to what we saw when viewing ivi’s streamed content.  However, FilmOn’s streams are far more likely to suffer from interruptions and buffering problems, and higher picture quality does not mean much if your favorite show sputters to a halt every 10 seconds or so.  That happened a lot with Los Angeles area signals on the channel lineup, especially in the evening.

The software allows users to increase the video buffer size, presumably to reduce re-buffering video pauses, but we found little difference in video quality regardless of how we configured it.  FilmOn either needs more robust American servers or allow the player to adapt to real world Internet connection quality by temporarily reducing the video encoding rate to deliver a stable signal.

FilmOn’s channel lineup changes regularly — way too regularly.  Since we started testing, entire groups and segments of channels have disappeared, returned, disappeared again, and many are back once more.  This is the biggest flaw FilmOn delivers to its paying subscribers, who simply cannot count on channels sticking around for long.  This is an issue FilmOn must address.  Paying customers don’t mind new channels being added to the service, but sudden removals will alienate them very quickly.

Like ivi, the centerpiece of FilmOn is delivering network broadcast station feeds.  Unlike ivi’s reliance on New York and Seattle-area stations, FilmOn prefers Los Angeles for its lineup.  That’s a definite improvement over Seattle area stations for Pacific time zone viewers.  But keep in mind Los Angeles stations are notorious for breaking away from regular programming to cover tragedies that regularly seem to impact southern California, from crazy car chases with Hollywood celebutards to the region’s various natural disasters.  While that is a plus for news junkies, someone seeking out a network show may find it interrupted by breathless reporters covering the latest wildfire, flood, earthquake, civil disturbance, or… killer bee attacks.

FilmOn Channel Lineup

KCAL-TV Los Angeles: KCAL is an “independent” station in Los Angeles delivering huge blocks of news programming to southern California audiences.  KCAL’s original reputation was its strong news coverage beyond Los Angeles, especially in Ventura County, the Inland Empire, and Orange County.  Although coverage of major breaking Los Angeles news events remains a hallmark of KCAL, the station is today owned by CBS, and is secondary to KCBS-TV.

KTLA-TV Los Angeles: KTLA was Los Angeles’ only true superstation, although it was seen mostly on cable systems in the western half of the country.  It used to be an independent station, but today is affiliated with the CW television network, which almost seems beneath it.  KTLA has an exceptional evening newscast and is well known for its coverage of major breaking news, but with the CW’s youth focus, the station’s news coverage has been dumbed down, especially in the morning.

KCBS-TV Los Angeles: The area’s CBS affiliate, KCBS partners with KCAL-TV in newsgathering.  Since the station is owned outright by the network, unless breaking news occurs you are certain to get all of the CBS lineup from KCBS.  The station has a lot of resources to cover breaking news stories, even after budget cuts reduced the news staff.

KVCR-TV San Bernardino: The Inland Empire’s PBS affiliate.  In large cities like Los Angeles, multiple PBS stations are not uncommon, typically sharing some major programming while different stations specialize in different programming at other times (educational, current affairs, nature, etc.)

KPXN-TV San Bernardino: The area’s Ion-TV affiliate, delivering religious and family-oriented programming.  Ion stations generally do not produce locally originated programming.

KTTV-TV Los Angeles: Fox’s Los Angeles affiliate delivers all of the Fox lineup and classic laid-back Los Angeles-style news coverage, especially in the morning.

KCOP-TV Los Angeles: KCOP used to be an independent station, but today serves as Los Angeles’ MyNetworkTV affiliate.  The station’s strongest years are now well behind it.  Today, it’s a dumping ground for a lot of shows other stations won’t take.  Fox owns the station, which means Fox shows occasionally air on KCOP during breaking news events being covered live on KTTV.

KNBC-TV Los Angeles: The area’s NBC station delivering the full lineup of NBC shows.

KOCE-TV Huntington Beach: Orange County’s local PBS station used to be considered a secondary PBS affiliate for Los Angeles, airing only about a quarter of the PBS lineup.  But on January 1st, KOCE will become LA’s most important PBS station as KCET-TV goes “independent.”

KABC-TV Los Angeles: The ABC station for Los Angeles, which includes a strong local newsgathering operation.

Universal Sports: The digital sub-channel network usually found on NBC stations carries an all sports format.

4 Music: An on-demand music video channel broadcast from the UK.

Scuzz: A British music video channel covering hardcore and metalcore genres.

Flaunt: Originally a dance music video channel targeting a LGBT audience, today the network delivers electronic dance music to all audiences.

Bloomberg: The well-known business news channel comparable to CNBC or Fox Business.

RAI Sport: RAI is Radiotelevisione Italiana, Italy’s public broadcasting network.  RAI Sport delivers Italian-language sports news and live coverage of soccer, motor-racing, and a range of other sports from southern Europe.

Dubai Sports: Emanating from the United Arab Emirates, Dubai Sports carries Arabic language coverage of sports ranging from extensive soccer coverage to camel racing.

Viva: is a music and entertainment channel serving the UK and the Republic of Ireland, owned and operated by MTV Europe.

Russia Today: Russia Today is the video equivalent of the Voice of Russia World Service on shortwave, delivering programming in English, Russian, Arabic and Spanish.  Funded primarily by the Russian government, the channel broadcasts a news-heavy diet of shows that speak to respective target areas.  For example, the network carried an extended interview with Ralph Nader commenting on today’s elections in the United States.  The channel tries to avoid blatant propaganda in their broadcasts, but has no problem celebrating Russia’s accomplishments and its importance in world affairs.

Sky News: The British news channel from the company that brought America Fox News Channel.  Less overtly biased than its American counterpart, its investment in international newsgathering and need to keep up with competition from the BBC has garnered the news channel considerable respect for the depth and breadth of its coverage, especially of live events.  But its political coverage definitely swings to the right.

BBC News 24:  The domestic 24/7 news channel from the BBC.  Similar to CNN, this news channel targets news of interest to domestic British audiences.  Very highly respected for its sober news coverage and unflappable anchors, many of whom are well-known to any BBC viewer.

TVE Spain: Spain’s state-owned public broadcaster delivers current affairs and entertainment programming from Madrid to a global Castilian Spanish-speaking audience.

CNN International: The external service of CNN, targeting global audiences outside of the United States with a heavy diet of international news typically delivered by anchors without American accents.

Clubland TV: A unique British music channel entirely devoted to on demand viewing of video tracks from the Clubland series.  It’s almost entirely dance music oriented and beats the pants off MTV Europe’s dance music channel in the ratings.

E4: This channel is like the British version of the CW, targeting youth audiences with shows aimed at teen viewers.  It airs a heavy diet of shows acquired from American networks, some in current runs (Glee) and others in reruns (Friends, Beverly Hills 90210).

CBBC/BBC Three: The BBC’s children’s programming network delivering shows of interest to viewers 16 and under.  (Also see BBC Three.)

JSC Sport Global: Also known as Al Jazeera Sports, this network delivers Arabic speaking audiences some of the most popular sporting events, having acquired the rights to major soccer league coverage.  Operated from studios near Doha in Qatar, most of the anchors are dressed in traditional thawbs.

Film 4: A British channel devoted to movies — traditional and current, without editing them to pieces or slapping on-air graphics and logos all over the screen.

ITV: FilmOn delivers the three network suite of channels from the commercial ITV network.  ITV1 is the original ITV network delivering the network’s most popular British shows.  ITV2 depends on mostly on series and shows imported from the United States.  ITV3 targets over-35 audiences with repeats of classic ITV series and American reruns like Quincy, M.E.

BBC: FilmOn also carries all four BBC entertainment channels, which include:

• BBC One: The flagship channel of BBC television, bringing the hallmark of BBC produced programming to audiences.
• BBC Two: More edgy than BBC One, new untested British series often turn up first on BBC Two.  Two also more closely represents today’s multicultural Britain, and major segments of airtime are turned over to locally-produced broadcasts from the BBC’s regional TV broadcast centers in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
• BBC Three: Shares time with youth-focused CBBC, BBC Three starts programming in the evening hours targeting audiences from 16-34 years old.  Almost all of its content is produced domestically or from Europe.
• BBC Four: This BBC network targets highly educated viewers with intelligent documentaries, highbrow entertainment, current affairs, art and science programming, and international foreign language imports.  Although respected for the depth of programming, critics occasionally make fun of BBC Four’s interest in obscure or narrowly targeted programming.

Channel Five: Britain’s lowest rated channel delivers lots of American reruns and shows that others have rejected.  The network has garnered about as much respect as MyNetworkTV has in the United States, and is derided as an economic mess.  The network has been sold several times, and is now owned by tabloid newspaper publisher Richard Desmond, who is pouring money into the venture.

One genre of programming FilmOn airs that ivi doesn’t touch is adult entertainment.  FilmOn currently has two hardcore porn channels — Adult XXX and Filthon XXX Latina.

Pricing for FilmOn services runs $9.95 per month (or $99 a year) with adult channels priced $5.00 per month extra.  FilmOn promises to beef up its Spanish language programming shortly with the addition of Los Angeles stations Azteca América (KAZA), Telemundo (KVEA)
 and Univision (KMEX).

A company spokesman said FilmOn is also available through mobile smartphones and will work on 3G networks without an app download.

In the coming weeks, FilmOn plans to add local stations from New York, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, Houston, and Seattle, which may give ivi some serious competition.

Still missing from the lineup are digital mini-networks like Retro TV which air classic TV shows.  Also missing, but perhaps not relevant to FilmOn’s marketing are Canadian networks like the CBC, Radio Canada, Global and CTV.

Something else missing is permission from any of these stations and networks to be included on FilmOn’s lineup, something it shares in common with ivi.

All of the major networks filed suit in September against FilmOn.com in the US District Court for Southern New York demanding a restraining order to stop the streaming as well as demanding damages.

Remarkably, FilmOn’s parent company is publicly traded on the German stock exchange and has been operating in Europe for over a year with few problems.  But running into a brick wall of entertainment conglomerates in the United States may require FilmOn founder Alki David to spend some of his billions to fight his way through a torrent of litigation.  Even if the courts see David’s company clear, the next step will be fighting the inevitable, well-financed lobbying campaign to get Congress to enact legislation to ban such enterprises (unless those doing the lobbying own and control them).

For now, FilmOn’s player provides extensive free previews of their content so feel free to explore.  But don’t get too hooked on any of FilmOn’s channels.  What you see today may not be around tomorrow.

Yet another telecom industry-backed front group claiming to represent the interests of small businesses managed to get its very-predictable opposition to Net Neutrality published in this morning’s Washington Post.  That is a small achievement considering the newspaper’s editorial page that increasingly promotes Big Telecom’s agenda.

This time it was the AT&T-sponsored “Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council,” which the Post claims is a “nonpartisan advocacy and research organization dedicated to protecting small business and promoting entrepreneurship.”  Hardly.  More on that later.

Karen Kerrigan is president, chief executive — and head regurgitator of the same false talking points AT&T and others have used to oppose Net Neutrality from the start:

The Federal Communications Commission is poised to impose new rules on the Internet using an outdated regulatory regime originally designed for the monopoly telephone system of the 1930s.

[…]Essentially, government regulations and bureaucrats would now direct how traffic over the broadband Internet flows rather than privately managed networks — they would also dictate what type of speeds, services and prices consumers should have (one size fits all) rather than let the market and innovators determine those things.

[…]Net neutrality rules would give the FCC new powers to micromanage the operations and pricing and service levels of the privately owned and financed broadband networks that are the physical heart of the Internet. This is a strategy for chasing away the billions of dollars that broadband network operators (principally the telecom and cable companies) plan to invest in broadband infrastructure and new technology.

Of course, the “outdated regulatory regime” we’ve heard about from AT&T repeatedly is not coming along for the ride in broadband reform… only the authority to provide an effective checks-and-balances system for the marketplace duopoly most Americans find when shopping for Internet access.  Nothing about Net Neutrality dictates speeds and prices consumers pay for broadband.  Considering the United States continues to lose ground in broadband rankings, all of the innovation the SBE claims would be lost was never here to lose.  It has been in South Korea, Japan, and increasingly eastern Europe.

Net Neutrality does not micromanage operations, pricing, or service levels.  In fact, it is the most simple, easy to understand government proposal around.  It states simply that broadband providers will treat all websites equally, will not run toll booths to extract extortion payments from content producers to guarantee their material won’t be artificially slowed down or blocked, and guarantees no provider censorship.  The industry’s claims that Net Neutrality will harm investment is phoney-baloney from the phone and cable companies.  They’ve earned fat profits in a Net Neutral-world for a decade.  But now decreasing interest in landlines and cable TV service means they’re trolling for more revenue, and they think they’ve found an untapped goldmine setting up toll booths on the Internet.

In Kerrigan’s world view, not allowing AT&T and Verizon to install paywalls, speed throttles, and establish paid special relationships with big businesses harms small businesses.  To prove her case, Kerrigan quotes Evelyn Nicely, president of Springfield-based Nicely Done Kitchens:

“Small businesses such as ours depend on every tool we can use to succeed. Undoubtedly, our strongest ally in terms of client communication, marketing, and product specifications comes from the use of broadband and the Internet. It has given us the ability to compete with anyone, even the larger and better-funded players in our industry, through our Web site and its innovative tools, which enable us to effectively market our services to the public.”

Of course, nothing in Nicely’s comments opposes Net Neutrality.  In fact, such important broadband reform preserves the strongest ally her business has — a free and open Internet that lets her compete with far larger players on an equal, level playing field.  The biggest threat to that level playing field is not passing Net Neutrality.  It would allow companies like Lowes or Home Depot to become paid, preferred content partners with broadband providers who could direct Ms. Nicely’s potential customers not to her website, but to them.  Large companies who can afford the price will find their ads splashed on broadband provider-home page portals that deliver customized web searches, preferred partner online ads and error redirection pages that can send customers who may mistype Nicely’s business name to her direct competitors.

How Nicely could ultimately manage to keep her business open in a broadband world where special favors can be bought and delivered should be a major concern for her and every other small business.

It’s no concern of the SBE, whose corporate backers keep this front group up and running.  But then it’s not the friend of small business it claims to be, and it’s hardly a “council.”

Before discovering the money that can be made parroting talking points for big cable and phone companies, Kerrigan was shilling for Big Tobacco, getting substantial contributions for her Small Business Survival Committee (a/k/a Small Business Survival Foundation) which received more than $100k from Philip Morris, hardly a small business at the time.

The SBE knows how to attract media attention through catnip-like “scorecards” that rank elected officials based on just how friendly they are to SBE’s benefactors.  The group and its leaders are darlings of conservative political media.  Their views see Communism anywhere individuals collaborate on their own in a way that costs big business profits.  Its chief economist even saw Borg-socialism in the concept of “open source” software:

“In the software universe, something similar to the Borg from ‘Star Trek’ seems to be at work,” declared SBE’s Raymond J. Keating. “It’s called open source software distributed under an agreement known as General Public License (GPL). If you recall, the Borg are ‘Star Trek’ bad guys. They’re basically evil bureaucrats with skin problems, who assimilate every species they come in contact with throughout the universe. Societies are wiped out. Individual thought and creativity are extinguished as individuals are absorbed into a collective. Something similar could be said of GPL-based open source software.”

An impartial, fair observer of telecommunications policy for small business the SBE is not.

Unfortunately, the Washington Post, whose parent company owns cable operator Cable One, has little incentive to see through the SBE’s haze of telecom industry-inspired talking points.

Cablevision and Fox finally settled their two week programming dispute Saturday when two local Fox-owned broadcasters and an assortment of cable channels returned to suburban New York area-television screens.  Cablevision ultimately capitulated to Fox’s increased programming fees and grumbled it was stuck paying an “unfair price” for the programming.

“In the absence of any meaningful action from the FCC, Cablevision has agreed to pay Fox an unfair price for multiple channels of its programming including many in which our customers have little or no interest,” Cablevision said, adding that it “conceded because it does not think its customers should any longer be denied the Fox programs they wish to see.”

But in reality, Cablevision subscribers who suffered through the two week outage will ultimately pay the price for Fox-owned programming in the next round of cable company rate increases.

While Cablevision subscribers can now watch the remaining games of the World Series from home, the cable-broadband industry post-game wrap-up show is now underway, surveying the winners and losers.

Let’s take a look:

WINNER: Fox Networks

Fox got everything it wanted, and then some, from Cablevision.  Consumers never take the side of the cable companies that have overcharged them for years. All most know is that when their favorite channels are not on the cable system that charges them more than $50 a month for service, it’s the cable company’s fault. While the terms of the final deal were not disclosed, it’s a safe bet Cablevision is paying rates even higher than those charged to New York’s other cable company Time Warner Cable.  The cave-in by Cablevision means Time Warner and other cable systems will likely also see higher rates for Fox programming now set as a precedent by Cablevision.  So will telco and satellite TV providers.  That’s money Fox will take to the bank.

LOSER: Cablevision

Not only did they alienate their customers, at one point telling them to watch Fox programming on third party websites, they are now facing a $450 million class action lawsuit from subscribers (filed by an attorney with prior connections to Fox parent company News Corporation.)  It is difficult to feel sympathy for a cable company deprived of Fox programming that still charged subscribers full price for channels they could not watch.  One industry executive praised Cablevision for “taking one for the team,” a phrase consumers have heard before to defend corporate pickpocketing.

WINNER: ivi Networks

Stop the Cap! reported on upstart ivi several weeks back.  The service carries all of metropolitan New York’s broadcast stations and Cablevision ended up recommending its blacked-out subscribers buy an ivi subscription to watch Fox-owned broadcast channels no longer on the cable lineup.  The new online cable system, which started in September, added New York subscribers in droves, annoying Fox to the point of sending a cease-and-desist letter to Cablevision CEO James Dolan to get cable company representatives to stop recommending the service, which Fox claims is “illegal, and perhaps criminal.”

WINNER: Verizon & Satellite Dish Companies

Many subscribers fleeing Cablevision for competitors have probably left for good, especially if they scored substantial discounts and promotions during their first year or two of service.  Verizon FiOS always faced resistance from customers not wanting to devote the time needed to install the service, and when customers have been with a cable company for 20 or more years, change does not come easy.  But die-hard sports fans already inconvenienced by earlier channel interruptions pulled the trigger just to get away from the endless programming disputes.

LOSER: Comcast-NBC Merger

Lawmakers set to either applaud or introduce roadblocks to the proposed merger between Comcast and NBC saw first hand what can happen when big media companies duel it out over money — millions of customers can be left in the middle with nothing to show for it.  Bloomberg reports the dispute could force significant concessions to prevent or limit such disputes in the future.  U.S. Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, said the Fox-Cablevision spat made her “increasingly concerned with the potential harm” if a dispute arose between an enlarged Comcast and competing video provider. In a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski last week, she called for “substantive and enforceable conditions” to preserve competition.

WINNER: NFL Networks – Where is Our Binding Arbitration?

Cablevision’s demands for binding arbitration to settle their disputes with Fox rang hollow, if not hypocritical, for NFL Network officials, who have been calling on Cablevision for the same binding arbitration the cable operator demanded of Fox.  The NY Post quoted an unnamed executive at the cable network: “Cablevision has been urging Fox to agree to binding arbitration — the same strategy we’ve been offering Cablevision — but we continue to get sacked.”

LOSER: The Federal Communications Commission

Despite demands from most consumer groups and Cablevision to intervene in the programming disputes, the FCC delivered a rebuke telling all sides to stop with the stunts and start with serious negotiations.  Beyond that, the agency did what it has done best under the Obama Administration: sit on its hands.

THE BIGGEST LOSER: You

With the grandstanding by both sides finally over Saturday — the shouting and expensive publicity campaigns wrapped up and put away for next time (KeepFoxOn.com now renders a blank page) — the person left standing with the bill in hand was you.  Fox wrapped the costs of its expensive publicity campaign into the rate increase Cablevision finally conceded to paying.  The bags of money to be handed from the Dolan family that owns Cablevision over to Rupert Murdoch will be filled from your pockets.  And there is no end in sight to future disputes raising programming costs even higher than ever.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Cablevision Fox Dispute 11-1-10.flv[/flv]

Bloomberg News delivers three reports detailing the impact of increased programming costs on cable bills, inaction by the FCC, and whether Americans are fleeing cable TV for online video instead.  (10 minutes)

A firestorm erupted this week on Broadband Reports over news that Shaw Cable was turning its existing “soft” Internet Overcharging scheme into a “hard” system filled with usage limits and overlimit fees.  One of Shaw’s social media representatives tried to throw some water on the fire:

I’ve seen a lot of discussion here about the new policy, and quite a bit of inaccurate or incomplete information and speculation, so I’d just like to set all of this straight.

Essentially, the system works like this: your package includes an allowance for a certain amount of traffic. If you exceed that traffic for one billing cycle, you will receive a notice on your bill advising you of the fact. We also automatically activate your traffic monitor so that you can monitor your usage from that time forward.

Since the bill arrives, of necessity, after your billing cycle ends, we give you a cycle’s grace between the period when you exceeded and when we start charging. That is to say that if you exceed in billing cycle one, you’ll receive your bill part of the way through billing cycle two, and so we won’t start charging for excess traffic until billing cycle three.

As to how much bandwidth will cost, here’s how it works:

If you exceed your monthly traffic allowance, you’ll receive a bill for $1 per GB for Extreme and above, $2 per GB for High Speed and High Speed Lite. Considering how much media, etc, you can obtain in 1 GB, $1 is not expensive.

However, if you plan to exceed by a considerable margin, data packs are also available, and what these do is allow you to increase the traffic allowance by the following amounts:

• $5 for 10 GB
• $20 for 60 GB
• $50 for 250 GB

So this gives you the option to increase your monthly traffic allowance to meet your needs. It’s also considerably less expensive than the standard $1-$2 per GB rate.

The best part about the data packs is that you can apply them at any time up to three days before the end of your billing cycle. So if you discover that you’ve exceeded your included usage allowance, and still have three days to the end of the billing cycle, just give us a call (or chat) and ask that we add the appropriate data pack for you.

[…]I’ve seen some posts here suggesting that this new policy has been financially motivated to avoid upgrading our networks. That’s actually not the case. In fact, just a few weeks ago we increased the included usage for all of our services by 25%, just in time for NetFlix. If you want to think about it in financial terms, just consider how much more bandwidth the network would need to allow a 25% increase for every customer, and how much that kind of network upgrade would cost. It’s pretty clear that our motives are not financial. If they were, increasing the included usage would not be very sensible, would it? It would, after all, considerably reduce the number of customers exceeding their monthly traffic allowance, would it not?

I hope that this clarifies the situation, but if there are any questions, please do feel free to ask.

James – Shaw

In part, this rebuttal was also directed to Stop the Cap!, because we are actively participating in that discussion.  Shaw’s argument about usage limits and how the company’s implementation of them benefits their customers is familiar to many of our readers who fought off usage caps proposed by Time Warner Cable last year.  Somehow, the same company that sets unjustified limits and penalty prices on already-overpriced broadband service is doing customers a real favor by offering alternative pricing plans for heavier users that reduces war-crime profiteering to pickpocketing.

That’s logic Stalin might have appreciated, but most customers already burdened with high cable and broadband bills won’t.

Our response:

Don’t you just love it when Internet Overchargers always claim their new gotcha fees are never about the money?

“James” from Shaw offers a classic example of what happens when your broadband provider implements a scheme to boost your broadband bill and then claims it’s good news that the company has some options to keep those overlimit fees from stinging too badly.

When Internet Overchargers tell you it’s not about the money, it’s really ALL about the money.

Who knew that an invisible border that makes unlimited Internet possible in Vancouver, Washington makes it impossible in Vancouver, B.C. Using Shaw’s argument, providers south of the border are headed straight for bankruptcy court while companies like Shaw barely hold on with “free usage upgrades” of existing limits.

But of course the financial reports for shareholders Shaw’s social media mavens don’t talk about tell the real story. Shaw enjoys considerable revenue from their broadband division thank you very much, and plans to do even better now that they can achieve ‘revenue enhancers’ from their enforced Internet Overcharging schemes.

That’s another way of saying Shaw’s Wallet Biters are back for more of YOUR money.

Whether it’s 20 cents per gigabyte (at least a 100 percent markup) or $2 (rape and pillage pricing), these schemes are hardly good news for Shaw customers. Indeed, if Shaw was truly concerned about saving their customers something under their cap ‘n tier regime, they’d deliver those “usage paks” to customers automatically instead of forcing them to call the company to add them when they go over the limit. If you remember to ask, Shaw gets extra profits they can take to the bank. If you forget, Shaw throws a Money Party on the extra high everyday overlimit rates.

What Shaw forgets to tell you is the cost to deliver increased usage and bandwidth to customers is ALWAYS dropping, and dropping fast. The price charged to move 10GB of traffic not too long ago moves 100GB today. So it’s hardly rough on Shaw to expand yesterday’s unjustified limit to today’s higher, still unjustified limit.

When one also considers yesterday’s “soft cap” is about to become tomorrow’s budget-busting “hard cap,” few Shaw customers are calling 1-800-FLOWERS to send a thank-you bouquet to Calgary.

Having been to Calgary, I know the people in Alberta and elsewhere across western Canada know a ripoff when they see one. They ask, “why is our broadband so overpriced and usage limited?” They wonder where the CRTC has been. They wonder why countries in Asia and even eastern Europe are now beating the pants off Canadian broadband with faster speeds at lower prices.

The fact is, Shaw pulls these overcharging tricks on their customers because they can. The broadband duopoly in Canada from cable and phone companies deliver punishing usage limits on Canada that are being banished in other countries around the world. Even notorious cappers like Australia and New Zealand are finally ridding themselves of broadband that is always capped, always throttled.

What would be sensible is that Shaw, a multi-billion dollar major player in Canada would plow some of their enormous profits into network capacity upgrades that can accommodate the needs of Canada’s growing knowledge economy, not inhibit its growth. Then, earn additional profits by selling even faster speed tiers and content customers can access over those networks.

Considering even Shaw admits only a small percentage of customers create traffic problem on their networks, it’s not hard to see the company’s new reliance on hard Internet Overcharging is designed to capture new revenue from those hitting their caps, thanks to the increasing number of broadband customers using their fast connections for high bandwidth content.

And hey — bonus: it also discourages those customers from even considering pulling the plug on their cable package to watch everything online.

You can’t blame a guy for trying.  As the Cablevision-Fox dispute continues to drag on — keeping several Fox-owned cable networks and two New York stations off Cablevision screens, Hamilton Mayor John Bencivengo decided it was time to start shopping for some cable competition.

Bencivengo wrote thoughtful letters to executives of Comcast and Time Warner Cable trying to sell the two cable companies on coming to Mercer County.

“I am writing to inquire as to any interest your company may have in entering into Hamilton Township (Mercer County), NJ as a cable television provider,” Bencivengo’s letter reads. “I understand that any business decision would be predicated on the economic feasibility of entering into a new market, either through a franchise agreement with Hamilton Township or through a statewide franchise agreement available from the State of New Jersey through the BPU (Board of Public Utilities),” the letter reads. “It is a vibrant market that seems ripe for picking at this time.”

He’s also reminding both cable companies they are free and clear to deliver service just by signing a franchise agreement — the one Hamilton Township had with Cablevision expired back in 2005.

The New Jersey Times notes the area is not well-served by cable competition.  Verizon FiOS is an option for only about half of the residents of Hamilton, and only a quarter of residents in nearby Robbinsville.  The only other alternative is attaching a satellite dish to the roof.

“Here we are again with stations that are pretty popular off the cable network without any reimbursement to the cable customers, and that’s unfortunate,” Bencivengo told the New Jersey newspaper. “I want to be proactive to try to woo these people to Hamilton Township.”

Unfortunately, the cable industry in the United States resembles an organized crime network (their prices sure are a crime), each with their own respective territories companies have quietly agreed never to cross.  Comcast and Time Warner Cable are the Godfathers of their respective service areas, and neither will compete head-to-head.  Even though many residents affected by the Fox blackout may think of Cablevision as the Fredo of the cable industry, the chances of another cable company arriving in town to compete with them is next to zero.

Verizon offers the most immediate opportunity for cable competition, but consumers will find pricing generally comparable to what Cablevision charges.

The mayor of Hamilton need not tilt at windmills, however.  There is another way.

If Hamilton Township is fed up with Cablevision’s HissyFits and Verizon’s high prices, the alternative is to build support for a community-owned municipal system that can deliver video, phone, and broadband service to residents.  That’s what communities ranging from Wilson and Salisbury, North Carolina to Opelika, Alabama are doing, among many others.

They’ve decided the future of their communities’ telecommunications needs can no longer be entrusted to a handful of bully boys who put customers in the middle of every dispute over the money those customers will ultimately have to pay no matter who wins.

It’s a far better long term solution than replacing one bad cable company with another.