KVUE-TV is Austin examined the impact Time Warner’s proposed usage caps would have on younger users, part of the “Internet generation.”  Disproportionately heavier users of the net, these “heavy users” are often the ones who will be the first to lose the innovative net services they have depended on, because of the exhorbitant charges Time Warner was proposing to access them.  But the impact doesn’t stop there.  Innovative broadband applications that become unaffordable to use cause job losses, hurt the economy, and allow the United States to fall behind other countries that charge lower prices for faster Internet access.

A straightforward and honest package from KVUE, focusing on the “younger user” angle, and how usage caps impact them in their daily lives.  “Worried,” is the common reaction among younger users accustomed to flat rate Internet.  Many students spend more time online than they do watching television, a factor that obviously concerns a cable operator that sells packages of video channels they may choose to reject.

[Editor’s Note: Time Warner suspended, at least temporarily, the “experiment” in usage caps last week, according to company officials.  This news report was produced and broadcast prior to that announcement.]

Residents across Time Warner’s Triad region in North Carolina continued protesting the company’s proposed broadband usage cap experiment last week, calling it unfair and bordering on monopolistic.  Greensboro’s city council was “on the same page” on the issue of resisting the incumbent cable broadband provider and were seeking competive alternatives, as WGHP reports:

Fox 8 in the Triad covers the story from the perspective of a local government trying to find ways to respond to consumer complaints about Time Warner’s experiment.  Cities struggle to find competitive alternatives, but discover that’s an improbability during the current economic crisis.  This report features a dial-up modem handshake sequence (the noise you hear towards the end of the report.)  Many consumers in this part of North Carolina may be stuck going back to dial-up Internet access if usage caps this draconian return.

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

Last week, when Time Warner brought forth their “new and improved” tier system, North Carolina elected not to drink the Time Warner Kool-Aid, and said, emphatically, “no thank you” to the proposal. Time after time, customers told this company it had no interest in metered broadband or ludicrous rate increases for the same level of service. For more than two weeks, the company ignored its customers. Now that the plan is temporarily on hold, customers are catching their breath across the Triad, but they aren’t fooled. They know Time Warner will be back for more, sooner or later.

“That’s ridiculous.  I’m not going to pay for that.”

Another home run story for WXII which gave viewers the fact Time Warner is doing very well financially with the existing service they provide.  Too often, media outlets just accept the statements being made by company officials at face value and just repeat them.  As we’ve come to learn with this story, that’s a very dangerous thing to do if you are interested in informing viewers about the truth.

[Editor’s Note: The fast-changing news on the Time Warner metered usage plan and its temporary demise did not allow sufficient time to present a full history of media coverage of this issue across all of the affected areas. For historical documentation, and in case of any potential resumption of this type of plan, I feel it is important to have this material archived here for future reference. Some of the information in this news report may no longer be applicable.]

Although Time Warner has temporarily shelved the caps they were intending to dump on us this summer, there is every indication the caps will be back by the fall, if company officials have any say in the matter.  But usage caps to solve network bandwidth issues have plenty of unintended consequences.  In Rochester, the enormous deaf community is at significant risk of losing access to a vital, affordable way of communicating.  What the hearing community may take for granted as a convenient extra is, for those who need to communicate in other ways, a fundamental rights issue.

Sometimes the unintended consequences of a public us vs. them campaign, pitting active vs. casual broadband users, have unintended casualties.

WHAM-TV in Rochester picked up this important story before the cap plan was shelved, for now.

A very important angle to this story, particularly for the enormous deaf community in Rochester.  It sheds light on videophone technology, which allows members of the deaf population to sign, using a broadband connection.