Over the next several days, StoptheCap! will be rolling out an interesting story about what happens when a local community decides it needs more than what corporate-owned cable and telephone behemoths are willing to give.  It’s an important story for any community pondering how to create new jobs in a high tech economy, provide state of the art broadband service to small businesses, colleges, and residents, and stop companies from rationing broadband services to customers at top dollar pricing with limits, caps, and overlimit fees.  It’s also a story about what lengths those companies will go to stop that from ever happening.

But first, an introduction to Wilson, North Carolina.

Rep. Dan Maffei (D-NY)

Rep. Dan Maffei (D-NY), whose 25th Congressional district reaches into the eastern suburbs of Rochester, addressed the issue of Time Warner’s usage cap proposal at a Town Hall meeting earlier in April.  Maffei expressed concern about the “experiment,” recognizing the limited alternative options consumers in his district have for broadband service.  Maffei warned that Time Warner’s cap proposal may create potential difficulties for the company in Washington, as issues affecting the cable television and broadband industry are likely to come before Congress in this session. [Courtesy: Rochester Turning]

25th Congressional District Map

To contact Congressman Maffei:

Syracuse Office

Dan Maffei
P.O. Box 7306
1340 Federal Building
Syracuse, NY  13261
Phone: (315) 423-5657
Fax: (315) 423-5669

Irondequoit Office

Dan Maffei
1280 Titus Avenue
Rochester, NY  14617
Phone: 585-336-7291
Fax: 585-336-7274

Senator Joe Robach (R-Greece) Repudiates Time Warner's Cap Plan

Senator Joe Robach (R-Greece), whose district includes several suburbs around Rochester, responded to StoptheCap! reader Tom R., expressing his concern about Time Warner implementing a usage cap system in his district.

“I agree that this new plan would produce costly bills and would not meet the needs of the Rochester community,” Robach wrote.

Senator Robach, a Republican member of the New York State Senate, wrote the NY State Public Service Commission and requested a thorough review of Time Warner’s plans.  He noted that Rochester is in a unenviable position of being the only major city in New York state not to be wired with fiber optics to the home, as part of Verizon’s FiOS project.  Rochester is served by an independent telephone company, Frontier Communications.

Robach accused Time Warner of setting their proposed usage caps so low, most customers would exceed their bandwidth allowance, leading to costly overlimit fees.

NY State Senate - 56th District Map

Unfortunately, the Public Service Commission has no regulatory authority over the cable industry’s broadband product, but increasing attention to the issue of cable company market abuse may lead to a more careful review of whether or not communities wish to retain Time Warner as the incumbent cable provider come franchise renewal time.  A community can revoke or choose not to renew a franchise if a cable operator is deemed not to serve the best interests of the community, allowing a different company to potentially provide service.

Robach’s involvement demonstrates a bipartisan commitment to the issue of unfair broadband usage caps, proving once again that this is not a “right or left” issue — but one of common sense.

Time Warner indefinitely shelved the proposal last week at the behest of consumers and elected officials, but StoptheCap! remains convinced the company will attempt to bring it back for another try later this year.

… Continue Reading

Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) remains vigilant as we begin Time Warner Cap Watch, our effort to keep an eye on Time Warner, which shelved its broadband usage cap plan last week (temporarily in our view.)

Congressman Massa gets the issue, and spoke out at a recent Town Hall meeting on the absurdity of Time Warner’s Internet rationing plan. Courtesy: Rochester Turning

The Rochester Business Journal polled its subscribers about Time Warner’s plan to create tiered pricing for broadband with usage caps.  Predictably, the results were largely the same as other polls taken on this question.  The majority of people asked do not want metered broadband.  The one option company officials refused to entertain was leaving the existing service plans in place, until heavy protests about the metered tiers forced them to withdraw.

Roughly 860 readers participated in this week’s poll, which was conducted April 13 and 14. Here are the questions asked:

In general, which approach to broadband Internet service billing do you favor?

Flat-fee billing for unlimited: 78%
Tiered usage-based billing: 22%

Do you think legislation is needed to regulate or prohibit tiered pricing for broadband Internet service?

Yes: 62%
No: 38%

Comments generally expressed skepticism about the prospect of their broadband bills declining.  Most expected they’d be forced to pay more for a reduced level of service. [Thanks to Colin for bringing the poll results to our attention.]