Subscribe[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Sen Al Franken Grills Comcast-NBC Merger Advocates 2-4-10.flv[/flv]
Stop the Cap! has received several requests for Sen. Al Franken’s (D-Minnesota) comments during the Senate hearing in early February reviewing the proposed merger. So here, for your viewing pleasure, is the portion of the hearing where Franken comes out swinging in opposition to the ongoing consolidation of media companies in America. (February 4th – 14 minutes)
Virgin Mobile’s Broadband2Go prepaid mobile broadband service is increasing usage allowances in hopes of attracting new customers at current prices.
The service, launched last June, has not been as successful as it could be, especially in markets where competitors like Cricket offer no-commitment wireless broadband for $40 a month for up to 5GB of usage, for a lower initial cost.
Sprint, which now owns the Virgin Mobile brand, isn’t lowering prices, but it is increasing usage allowances.
Before:
$10 buys you 100MB of access that expires 10 days after activation.
$20 buys you 250MB of access that expires 30 days after activation.
$40 buys you 600MB of access that expires 30 days after activation.
$60 buys you 1GB of access that expires 30 days after activation.
Now:
The high end Virgin Mobile plan now matches many postpaid plans for pricing and usage allowance, without a two year contract. But it’s still priced $20 higher per month than Cricket. ConnectedPlanet notes:
According to Virgin Mobile chief marketing officer Neil Lindsay, more than 70% of Virgin’s customers said they signed up for Broadband2Go because of the flexibility to change the plans as they needed more or less bandwidth and to pay only for what they needed. Virgin is targeting those cord cutters, such as students or families, who may be using the Broadband2go as a replacement for their at-home Internet service. Virgin’s own surveys indicate that this at-home group already includes 16% of its Broadband2Go customers. Of its user base, 30% also use the card more than four times per week, and 47% asked for additional data on their existing plans.
In turn, Leap Wireless, which owns Cricket, is hinting it may be looking at its own pricing and usage allowances to maintain competitiveness. No specifics yet, but Leap’s 4th quarter earning results were hardly impressive, reporting a wider loss than Wall Street analysts expected, as competition and a weak economy helped erode profits. The company does not plan to expand into new cities in 2010, but will offer nationwide coverage for existing customers with expanded roaming agreements. Also on the way — smartphones from Blackberry and at least one Android phone.
Rogers Communications Monday began their latest Internet Overcharging scheme on Canadian broadband customers — they’ve doubled the maximum overlimit penalty from $25 to $50 for customers who exceed the cable company’s arbitrary broadband usage allowances.
It’s a fact of life for anyone living with a provider that wants to charge too much for broadband service. Like the credit card industry, the tricks and traps keep on coming as providers seek to monetize everything they can to extract as much money from customers as possible.
For some providers like Bell, the trick is to gradually reduce your usage allowance, exposing more and more customers to overlimit fees (the company even sells an insurance plan to protect you from their audacious pricing). For others, the fee trap comes from gradually increasing the maximum overlimit fee until there is no maximum.
Rogers has chosen the latter method, effectively passing through massive rate increases for Canadians that dare to use too much.
Originally, Rogers Extreme service was priced at $60 a month for 10/1 Mbps service with a 95 GB cap. Customers who traditionally exceeded that paid $1.50 per gigabyte in overlimit fees. With a $25 maximum penalty, many customers just accepted the fee as their ticket to unlimited broadband. Now, Rogers has conceded a quarter to customers, lowering the per gigabyte penalty rate to $1.25. But for customers who still regularly exceed their allowance, the charges really add up. That $60 a month now balloons to $110 per month for exactly the same unlimited service customers used to enjoy for less.
That forces customers like the Globe & Mail’s Michael Snider to make some choices:
This is the type of move that may force customers who regularly approach or exceed their cap to seriously consider upgrading their service package.If that’s part of Rogers’ plan, it worked.
I just bumped up my service from Extreme to Extreme Plus (if you do the same, inquire about the promotion that offers $20 off Internet for the first six months if you lock in for a year — that’s upgrading only). So now, I’ll be getting 25-Mb download speeds (still a measly 1-Mb upload, though) and a cap of 125 GB a month and, once the promotion ends, will be paying $14 a month more ($10 for the service and $7 for the modem rather than $3).
Call me a sucker, but twice in the past year I have exceeded my 95 GB cap and paid an extra $25 on my bill — once after backing up several gigs on an online backup service and once after downloading a few movies on my Xbox.
But Snider also faces, by design, the one-two punch of Internet Overcharging schemes. Not only do they fatten provider profits, they also discourage him from using his broadband service, fearing a higher bill. Even better, they discourage cord-cutting — relying on your broadband service and dropping your cable-TV package.
I am discovering that I’m actually limiting my consumption of some totally legitimate services because I’ve no desire to pay extra on my Rogers bill at the end of the month.
Take for example Microsoft Xbox’s movie service. After waiting for what seemed eons for some kind of a legit movie download service, I finally have access to one that has a list of movies that I’d actually like to see, but it’s proving too expensive to really enjoy it regularly. Reason is, downloading an HD movie eats up more than 11 GB of my bandwidth — more than 10% of my monthly allotment (before I upgraded) for one freaking movie. That goes for games too. It seems as though distributors are leaning more and more to online delivery, but at 6 or 8 GB per game, again, that eats up a lot of bandwidth.
Being the gatekeeper for broadband distribution and also being a content distributor has its advantages. If the competition starts getting too hot and heavy, locking down the distribution platform guarantees no competitor will ever get the best of you.
Whatever you do, don't turn off this modem, despite the fact you're paying for traffic it receives 24/7. Unplugging a cable modem could "damage it" according to Rogers.
Rogers claims its all about costs from increased broadband consumption, but one look at their pricing scheme proves that wrong. Rogers reserves the biggest penalties of all for its lightest-use customers. Those on Rogers Ultra-Lite tier suffer with barely-broadband speeds of 500/256 kbps with a usage limit of just 2 GB for a ridiculous $27.99 per month. The penalty rate for customers who can hardly be described as “power users” is a whopping $5 per gigabyte. They pay more because they impact the network more? How does that work?
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the agency responsible for oversight of telecommunications services in Canada is no help. They’ve become a de facto telecom industry trade association, rubber-stamping approval of whatever providers want. The result is expensive, usage-limited, speed-throttled broadband service across the country.
What can you do to control your monthly broadband bill Rogers wants to raise? Their advice is basically to use less of the broadband service you paid good money to get. Oh, and despite the fact whenever your cable modem is powered on you are bombarded with constant traffic which eats into your allowance, whatever you do, don’t leave it unplugged — it will “damage it.” From Rogers Internet FAQ:
We STRONGLY recommend that you do not turn off your modem when you are away from home. Your cable modem has been designed to remain powered at all times. Regularly turning it off and on may result in damage to your cable modem.
…and damage to our profits.
Broadband providers love to tout their Internet services as “unlimited, always on access at blazing fast speeds.” Increasingly, their service isn’t unlimited, it’s not always working, and those blazing fast speeds are doused in a shower of asterisks leading to fine print indicating “speeds are not guaranteed.”
Take Comcast, for example.
The Consumerist‘s reader Matt received a brochure from America’s largest cable operator filled with inaccuracies, falsehoods, and fine print. In order of appearance, let’s fact check:
Source: The Consumerist
Fiber Fiction: “Comcast High Speed Internet is delivered to your computer through the same fiber-optic network that delivers all those great channels to your television.”
Fiber Fact: Comcast does not operate an all-fiber network. Their distribution system uses a mix of fiber and standard copper coaxial cable. The fiber network is only a backbone, which connects to the same coaxial cable companies like Comcast have used since the 1970s. If you want a true fiber-optic network, you’ll need to sign up with Verizon FiOS or a municipally-run fiber provider. No national cable operator runs one. It’s part of their marketing rhetoric to try and capitalize on the benefits of fiber without actually spending the money to actually build a fiber system.
Speed Trap: “Download speeds up to 100 times faster than a 56K phone modem.”
Autobahn: This one has one of those asterisks attached — “actual speeds may vary.” Comcast doesn’t guarantee speed, and relies on the familiar “up to” disclaimer that phone companies love to use with their DSL service. If your neighborhood is clogged with users, the websites you visit run slowly, or Comcast has a problem somewhere, your speed will suffer.
Unlimited That Isn’t: “Unlimited usage for a flat, monthly fee.”
Unlimited Reality: Comcast has a usage limit of 250 GB per month. Exceed it and you potentially will get a call from Comcast lecturing you about your usage. Ignore them and you may be without your broadband service for a year.
Consumerist reader Matt was a victim of Comcast’s marketing doublespeak when he exceeded the limit and got a phone call from the company. Instead of being browbeaten by Comcast customer service, he was ready and armed with the brochure the company sent him:
I was told I used more data than they allow (250GB). I do not argue that I used over 250GB, in fact I went quite a bit over. Though I did want to ask for proof that affected their network, I figured it wasn’t the nicest way to start the interaction. I informed them that I used this because it was sold as “Unlimited usage for a flat, monthly rate.” He then told me it said “access.”
I had the brochure right next to me and quoted, “Unlimited usage for a flat, monthly rate.” He told me their website says something different, and my local franchise overstepped its bounds, and their website overrules the “Important Information about our services, Charleston SC” sales brochure sent to me. If I went over again (It goes by calender month, not billing cycle) I would be disconnected for 1 year without giving me a call.
I asked if Comcast had a tool to help me monitor bandwidth. “Not in your market” he told me. “Download something from Google that will do it for you.”
As consumers continue to expand their broadband usage to take advantage of services like online video and file backup, services Comcast itself offers, more and more will run up against Comcast’s monthly usage limit. Although your Comcast bill increases year after year, their usage limit has not. It was 250 GB in 2008 and remains the same in 2010. Thanks to Stop the Cap! readers Dave and Michael who sent word our way.
[Stop the Cap! will be closely following Google’s experimental gigabit fiber-optic broadband network. We’ll be bringing regular updates about the communities applying, the strategies they are using to attract Google’s attention, what the competition thinks, and the impact of the project on American broadband. You can read our earlier community profiles, and news about the project here.]
Topeka wants Google’s fiber experiment so badly, it is willing to rename itself to Google, Kansas — at least for the month of March, anyway.
Mayor Bill Bunten signed a proclamation Monday rechristening the city “Google, Kansas — the capital city of fiber optics.”
It’s all part of a well-organized effort to bring Google’s fiber optics to 122,000 residents living and working in the capital city of Kansas.
Think Big Topeka, a local group started by three people just a few weeks ago, was launched to promote Topeka as a candidate city. It includes links to e-mail elected officials, complete Google’s online nomination form, and coordinate upcoming events.
It has since collected more than 10,000 Facebook fans and has gotten a big push from most of the local broadcast and print media, which have run more than a dozen stories about the group and the petition to nominate Topeka. Several stations even have prominent links back to Think Big Topeka’s website. The city government is also an enthusiastic supporter of the experimental project.
Think Big Topeka knows how to get media attention. The group recently started running “flash mobs” — events where hundreds of people silently promote the project by suddenly stripping off jackets to uncover T-shirts promoting the Think Big Topeka campaign. Engineering events that are “made for television” guarantee plenty of attention on the evening news.
The Google “Think Big With a Gig” experiment has excited communities from coast to coast, convinced advanced fiber optic networks will bring new jobs, high technology business, and improved broadband service for both consumers and area businesses. Many hope the competition will also finally lower prices.
Incumbent providers Cox Cable and AT&T are the largest local providers.
Cox currently offers three broadband tiers — Essential 3 Mbps/384 kbps ($29.99), Preferred 12/1.5 Mbps ($46.99), and Premier 25/2 Mbps ($61.99).
Cox Cable, when asked by KSNT-TV news what they thought about the project brought a response from Kelly Zega, a representative from Cox Communications: “We have always believed competition in the marketplace is a healthy thing, as it leads us all to improve and innovate in ways that ultimately benefit consumers.”
AT&T offers U-verse in selected areas of Topeka, but most areas are still served by AT&T’s traditional DSL service which offers considerably slower speeds — Basic 768/384 kbps ($19.95), Express 1.5 Mbps/384 kbps ($24.95), Pro 3 Mbps/512 kbps ($24.95), or Elite 6 Mbps/768 kbps ($24.95). (Note the prices for Express, Pro, and Elite are identical — apparently which plan you get depends on what actual speeds AT&T is capable of delivering to your home.)
If Google can deliver faster speeds and lower prices, it’s no surprise thousands of Topekans are excited.
The Topeka Capital-Journal, the community’s daily newspaper, is also promoting the project on its editorial pages:
This excitement is being created by a lot of people who see opportunities to help the city grow and become an even better place to live, and are determined to do everything they can to make it happen.
Evidence of their enthusiasm and dedication was on display Thursday evening when about 500 of them gathered at the Ramada Hotel and Convention Center to talk about plans to revitalize downtown Topeka. Granted, the audience consisted of two different groups, but each had visions that, if fulfilled, would mean great things for our city.
We’ve written recently in support of Think Big Topeka, a group trying to convince Google that Topeka is the place to test an ultrafast Internet connection that promises to provide Internet service about 100 times faster than anything we are working with now. The effort has attracted about 7,875 supporters in a very short time and some of them turned out for Thursday’s meeting, sponsored by Heartland Visioning, to encourage others to jump on the bandwagon.
Supporters of the Google project and those interested in revitalizing downtown meshed during the evening as the discussion flowed between both issues.
Such a confluence of people and organizations with visions, dreams or plans — call them what you will — is a healthy, and welcome, development itself that bodes well for the city’s future. Most good things start with someone’s vision or dream, and they aren’t to be scoffed at or dismissed out of hand.
Think Big Topeka has more than 10,000 fans on its Facebook page
Dreams can come true… if a city actually applies. The city of Topeka will.
“The city of Topeka welcomes the opportunity to participate in this unique technological experiment, if selected as Google trial community, to benefit our citizens in providing all opportunities to access Internet technologies,” city officials wrote on the city’s Facebook page.
The city’s information technology department has been tasked with working on what they characterized as a very long and detailed application. Mark Biswell, IT director for Topeka city government, said his department has been hard at work on the application from the moment Google announced the project.
Shawnee county, which includes Topeka, is conducting an online survey running until Saturday asking residents about their interest in the Google fiber project. They are seeking input on what kinds of broadband speeds residents actually obtain, instead of relying on marketing promises made by the incumbent providers. They also want to learn how satisfied residents are with Cox and AT&T.
For Topeka, a city coincidentally working on its own revitalization plan for downtown development, the prospect of Google gigabit fiber could be the crown jewel of a complete city makeover.
[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTKA Topeka Google Fiber 3-1-2010.mp4[/flv]
KTKA Topeka aired three reports about the Google fiber experiment, including an interview with one of the founders of the Think Big Topeka group. (3 minutes)
[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WIBW Topeka Group Wants Google’s Blazingly-Fast Internet To Come To Topeka 2-17-10.flv[/flv]
WIBW Topeka has these two reports featuring the Think Big Topeka group and how the city government is involved in the project. (4 minutes)
[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KSNT Topeka City Renames Itself Google for March 3-1-10.flv[/flv]
KSNT Topeka has several reports about the organizing effort, a “flash mob” and Topeka city government’s strong belief in the project. (6 minutes)
[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Think Big Topeka.flv[/flv]
Finally, Think Big Topeka has some of its own videos on offer, answering residents’ questions and cheerleading the effort to bring better broadband to Topeka. (3 minutes)
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