We are becoming overloaded with traffic again, and the server went down briefly around 5:00pm this afternoon. The growth here continues to simply explode beyond our wildest dreams, and your activism and interest on this issue is exactly what we need to fight back! We will be exploring expanding our server yet again for the second time in two weeks to handle all of our new and returning friends.

There should be some exciting developments tomorrow afternoon on this issue (no, TW has not changed their mind, but they are about to get another major headache.)  As I told my skeptical friend out in Buffalo last Sunday, and I know he’s reading this, “I’m sure the impact we are making is less than I might hope, but more than you think.”  I think I’m right.

Later this evening, I am going to try and overhaul the comment software to finally allow you to edit comments after they get posted. I am also exploring creating a list of article titles on the home page to allow our new visitors to find articles that have long since left the first page.

Thanks for all your great news tips and comments. I will be covering the FCC angle very shortly. For our North Carolina friends, a question. I have been told I have been too narrow on this issue by focusing on Greensboro. Would you prefer I change my reference to TW down there to encompass the entire Triad region? I don’t want us to miss anyone who might be impacted by this issue. Leave your comments. I read ’em all!

Samuel Greenholtz, a retired manager from Verizon, offered this absolutely impenetrable thinking on why broadband providers needed to impose caps on customers and were forced to charge way too much for them:

While a tiered pricing structure may have been inevitable in the long run, if the corporate bashing horde stayed out of the way, the vast majority of users would have avoided paying more for additional capacity.  Time Warner Cable does give the politicians what they are looking for – more bandwidth availability for all of its subscribers.  Still, the lowest speed package is not going to be enough for most of the consumers – and so they will have to take the higher tier offerings — along with the new overage charges.  Had the MSOs been allowed to just cap excessive users, most of the subs would have continued to receive a reasonable amount of bandwidth at the same flat price.

Ironically, all of the illogic obsession with net neutrality will result in even more of a usage-based pricing scheme.  There will now be several layers of capping.  The anti-ISP crowd has actually created a more beneficial pricing system for these companies.  And there is certainly nothing unfair about this development.  But the clamoring for so-called equality resulted in an acceleration of the removal of the all-you-can-eat advantage for consumers.

What in the world is this man talking about, and why is he part of some so-called “expert network,” Gerson Lehrman Group?

Broadband Providers: How Low Can They Go?

The history of usage capping actually goes back into the earliest days of Internet service providers, providing both dial-up and broadband service in areas where network capacity simply didn’t allow customers to utilize unlimited bandwidth.  Some Time Warner customers in the midwest and central part of the country lived under “limits” for years, mostly due to lack of any viable competition.  The imposition of caps on customers has always been driven by the capacity argument, never by a more honest claim that lack of competition discourages significant upgrades, and allows a provider to limit usage to ensure a higher rate of return. Where competition exists offering similar types of service, caps and limits are much rarer, speeds are higher, and pricing is lower.  A provider that doesn’t regularly invest in upgrades to his network in a competitive marketplace will soon no longer be a part of that marketplace.

Today, a handful of major broadband providers are now colluding in a version of telecommunications limbo, with several watching each of the others “experiment,” to see how low a cap they can set before subscribers and public officials rebel.  Multichannel News columnist Todd Spangler literally wrote that “Time Warner is taking one for the team.”

The “corporate bashing horde” argument, which Greenholtz casually tosses out without any examples or proof, doesn’t hold water.  No group I am aware of has ever bashed the widespread deployment of broadband service from multiple providers.  Oh wait, there is one.  Those providers themselves when they attempt to squelch community cooperative broadband services or municipally-run wi-fi networks, run for the benefit of residents.

Greenholtz completely ignores the fact broadband service is almost entirely unregulated, and providers have always been free to set terms and prices.  Someone draw me a map where corporate critics have developed the leverage to force operators to impose usage caps and tiered pricing.

The net neutrality issue that comes into his argument stems from the Comcast controversy a few years ago, when the nation’s largest cable operator attempted to manage traffic on its network by “throttling,” or limiting the speed of customers using certain bandwidth intensive applications.  Comcast claimed they were primarily targeting peer-to-peer software, which allows users to exchange files with one another, during peak usage of their network.

But this came about at the same time several large corporate broadband providers were advocating for a new distribution system for the Internet, one that would potentially no longer provide an equal level of priority for data traveling across the Internet.  Opponents feared that broadband providers could discriminate or even throttle traffic that didn’t pay their asking price.  And then Comcast provided the net neutrality opponents with a real-world example of bandwidth throttling in action.

Comcast abandoned, at least for now, the bandwidth management approach that included throttling, and instead imposed a simple 250GB “limit” on residential accounts.  Those exceeding that amount of usage risked having service suspended.

Mr. Greenholtz fails to connect this event with any cogent argument or evidence that suggests multiple capped tiers were borne as a result of this controversy.  Indeed, until Time Warner “took one for the team,” other domestic broadband providers simply upgraded their networks to handle capacity issues and imposed no caps, or have simply asked residential users to limit their usage, mostly between 150-250GB per month.  Customers seeking more than that can purchase another account, move to a business plan, or switch to another provider, where available.  Curiously, the imposition and testing of lower limits has often been in areas where competitors either do not exist or cannot offer an equivalent level of service at the same price across an entire community.

But Greenholtz does say one thing that has been obvious to all of us: the Internet service provider is using this as an excuse to create a “more beneficial pricing system.”  Of course, it’s only beneficial to them, not to consumers.  The latter routinely object in overwhelming majorities to the concept of usage caps and the elimination of the existing flat rate pricing which has always been profitable for the broadband industry.  Any other connection, particularly with the absence of any evidence, is tenuous at best.

I have been getting news tips {thanks Carsten, J, and others) about newspapers in Texas reporting that the Texas Internet Rationing Plan from Time Warner has been “postponed” until October, and this represents some sort of consumer victory.

Hardly.

First, this is not exactly breaking news.  Landel Hobbs, Time Warner’s COO, already made mention the cap plan would begin implementation in Austin and San Antonio in October, presumably with a trial period.  It sounds like Mr. Hobbs, bless his heart, already knew about the “consumer victory” that comes “as a result of complaints” before the Time Warner folks on the ground down in Texas knew, because they only started speaking about it this week.

Trials will begin in Rochester, N.Y., and Greensboro, N.C., in August. We will apply what we learn from these two markets when we launch trials in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, in October, but we will guarantee at least the same level of usage capacity in these trials.

Now, actual billing starts in January, up until they change their minds again.

A trial program intended to charge varying rates depending on usage was slated to begin this summer. The decision to delay the meter program was prompted mostly by customer reaction, said Gavino Ramos, Time Warner’s vice president of communication for South Texas.

“What happened as we’re continuing to listen was we worked in some of the comments and ideas that got sent to us,” Ramos said. “We came to the realization, let’s do this in October.”

Meanwhile, Rochester is the big “lucky winner,” joining Greensboro in starting the Internet Rationing Plan in August.  I suppose it was inevitable our two cities come closer together, considering a whole lot of people exiting Rochester end up moving to North Carolina.  Sooner is better in cities with fewer competitive choices anyway.

If Time Warner was truly responsive to its customers, it would drop this Titanic-like disaster of a rationing plan today.

There is no consumer victory here, and this company is still not listening.  Instead, by putting off the abuse for a few months, they hope you will fall complacent and not continue to engage in a united effort to resist unwarranted capping of your Internet access.  The first step of coping with an abusive relationship with your Internet provider is recognizing you are in one.  Being told you are not going to get hit with punitive caps today, but in a few months, doesn’t change that.  Don’t be a victim.

I need some help in putting together a list of all of the town and village supervisors in Monroe County, including phone numbers and e-mail addresses (or at least web sites where you can use a form to contact them). This needs to be done urgently no later than late tonight. Please help out by posting the information you can collect in the comments section. If a group of you wants to get together and divide up the towns, that’s great. It will save me a lot of time in doing this myself tonight. I will explain why shortly.

"This is not a rate increase."

When you say something on those series of tubes we call the Internet, sometimes it’s awfully hard to get those statements back, thanks to the magic of Google caching.  Carrie, one of our great readers from Texas, clued us in on a tweet from Omar Gallaga at the Austin American Statesman, who noted a copy of a Google cached Time Warner corporate website page that said more than was perhaps intended.

It appears one section was cut out in the final release, but with the miracle of Google caching, it all comes back to life.  More and more, this reminds me of the bizarro world thinking Frontier was doing last summer, until they got smart.  Maybe it’s something going around.

Answers to Your Questions

Will my bill go up?

This is not a rate increase. Rather, it gives each level of Road Runner service a generous amount to use each month but, if of someone goes over the monthly usage allocation, they have to pay a slight fee. That’s the only way your bill would change.

How will this impact my Price Lock Guarantee?

The plan will not impact your Price Lock Guarantee price, but it could mean a small incremental fee that will vary by month depending on how much you exceed the megabit usage that goes with your level of Road Runner service.

How can I know if the plan is fair?

Time Warner Cable simply wants to make sure only those who use large amounts of data either upgrade to a level better for them or pay for incremental amounts they choose to have each month. This ensures others don’t have to pay for or subsidize those heavier users.

Why do I have to pay more for Road Runner?

You won’t be paying more if you are like the average user. These new fees will only be charged to the small group of heavy users that the rest of RR customers are effectively subsidizing.

Well, well, well.  I can see why the language was pulled here.  It’s utter fiction. “A slight fee” amounts up to $75 in overages each month, the bandwidth they are providing is generous if you were accessing the Internet from Zimbabwe, and from Time Warner’s own statements to the SEC, nobody is subsidizing anything – profits are up in the broadband division, as bandwidth costs decline.

But the most important part of this is the bit about throwing Price Lock Guarantee customers under the bus. Price lock contracts are available in some markets, mostly in Texas.  They are not part of service in Rochester. A “small incremental fee?”  Like the “slight fee” of up to $75 a month in overages?  Because these statements are no longer part of the “official release,” we’re not about to say this is what is coming, but it does shine light on the kind of thinking that seems to be at work here.  Doesn’t a Price Lock Guarantee mean… you know, a guaranteed price lock — your rate stays the same.   Why anyone would even draft something saying otherwise is beyond me.

The smartest thing Time Warner could do is pull this entire disaster altogether, and get back in the business of providing affordable Internet access to customers without gotchas, caps, and overage fees.