Time Warner Cable's office on Mt. Hope Avenue in Rochester, N.Y.

More than two years after Time Warner Cable unveiled its DOCSIS 3 cable modem upgrade for New York City customers, Time Warner Cable has begun rolling out faster speeds in the metro Rochester area.  Rochester is the last upstate city to get DOCSIS 3, and Time Warner Cable has only soft-launched the upgrade in selected parts of the area — especially on the east side extending into Wayne County.

According to a Time Warner Cable representative we spoke with this afternoon, the service can now be ordered by customers in the following towns:

• Webster
• Perinton
• Sodus
• Macedon
• Medina
• Lima
• Covington

What do these communities all have in common?  They were all suffering from some congestion problems earlier this year.  Webster, in particular, was one of the worst-impacted areas.  Our readers reported dramatic speed reductions during peak usage times, often slowing to 1Mbps during the evening hours.  The most curious town on the list is Covington — a tiny community of 1,300 in extreme northeast Wyoming County.  Time Warner solved their congestion problems, and those experienced by other towns with DOCSIS 3 upgrades.

The representative we spoke with indicated a service call is required to activate either Road Runner Extreme (30/5Mbps) or Wideband (50/5Mbps).  A modem replacement is necessary.  Rochester area customers do not pay a modem rental fee, so the replacement comes free.  Signature Home customers in these areas should soon see 50/5Mbps speeds, if they have the company’s DOCSIS 3 modem.

Time Warner Cable will slowly expand the service to their other Rochester/Finger Lakes Region customers, with an estimated completion date of early summer.  The representative warned us not every Time Warner Cable representative may have the latest information allowing customers in these areas to order the service, so if you are told it is not available yet, and you live in one of these towns, you may want to try calling again.  Most of the Rochester area operators are briefed on the expanded service, but many in Buffalo are not, we were told, and there is no way to tell where your call will be answered.

Time Warner Cable has also unveiled some new price promotions for western New York.  Time Warner Cable’s website now sells its broadband-only service for a whopping $54.95 a month for Standard 10/1Mbps service.  Turbo runs an additional $10 a month (15/1Mbps service.)  That’s $15 more per month than just a few years ago when service could be had for $39.95 a month.  Broadband-0nly customers pay the highest prices because the company wants to drive its customers into multi-service bundled offerings.  The more services you take from Time Warner, the lower the price for each of them.

But for now, Road Runner Standard can be had by new customers for $33 a month for 12 months.  Turbo costs an extra $5 per month, making the out the door price for both around $38.  After the first year is up, prices go up.  Time Warner Cable in Rochester can be reached at (585) 756-5000.

Your view

Would you like an AT&T cell tower within 100 feet of your home?  Some residents in Walnut Creek, Calif. are on the verge of finding out if AT&T wins approval to install a cell tower on property belonging to St. Stephen Church, located in the middle of the Buena Vista subdivision, filled with residential homes.

Now, a local neighborhood group is charging AT&T with playing power politics by using their connections with local civic groups to influence local officials to quickly approve the cell site.

Some residents suspect the local government is more than a little cozy with the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce.  It’s newly installed chairman of the board just happens to be Ken Mintz, area manager for AT&T.  Although Mintz says his job does not involve choosing or lobbying for cell tower sites, he is responsible for meeting with local officials on an ongoing basis to discuss AT&T business matters important to the company.

Mardi Veiluva, leader of the Walnut Creek Buena Vista Neighborhood Group, considers AT&T too close for comfort with city officials.  The group points to the city planning commission being predisposed to accepting AT&T’s word that the church is the only possible place for the new cell tower, even if it is within throwing distance of nearby homes.

The group also claims the city failed to follow up on what they feel is false information purposely given by AT&T to city officials in order to sell their tower siting arguments.

The group won a city council directive to force AT&T to fund the hiring of an independent consultant to review the facts and get back to the council about possible alternative cell sites, but was disheartened when the city hired the consultant in a closed process, not subject to an open review.

The city hired Los Angeles-based Kramer Firm Inc., a decision immediately questioned by some group members over alleged favoritism to AT&T.  Firm owner Jonathan Kramer has more than two decades experience dealing with utilities, and has hardly been their best friend.  In 2003, Kramer blasted Comcast for improperly grounding their cable lines in Modesto, Calif.  Kramer has no ties to AT&T.

AT&T plans to add at least 55 cell tower sites in greater San Francisco in the near future to address congestion and signal problems.

AT&T claims Mintz is not influencing anyone in his position, city officials deny being lobbied by Mintz, and local residents will probably unsatisfied no matter who agrees to AT&T’s cell tower placement recommendations.

This brings the inevitable conundrum: people want improved cell service in their local communities, so long as cell towers are located far away from their neighborhoods.

Cell phone companies invariably defend their choices for cell tower sites as the best, if not the only option.  Nearby residents protest, and often local officials have to find a compromise location, or insist on efforts to camouflage the resulting tower (with varying degrees of success.)

Verizon 4G users across the country are still without their super-fast wireless service thanks to a major outage that wiped the LTE network out for users of the HTC Thunderbolt, Samsung Charge, and mobile broadband units from Novatel and Samsung.

The network has been down since late Tuesday evening, and Verizon took their sweet time telling customers, only admitting the outage after media outlets began reporting on it.

Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson says 4G users are temporarily being punished with data sessions that use Verizon’s ancient 1XRTT data connection — largely worthless for most broadband apps:

We are aware of an issue with 4G LTE data connections and our network engineers are working to resolve this quickly. We have determined the cause of our issue and are working with our major vendors to restore connections.

• 4G LTE Smartphones will still be able to make calls.
• Customers are temporarily unable to activate any 4G LTE devices.
• Please note: Customers may experience a 1XRTT data connection during this time.
• After determining the cause of our 4G LTE network connection issue, we are continuing to work to restore connections.
• We expect to see the network restored on a market-by-market basis. Timing and additional details will be provided as they become available.

Lucky for Verizon comparatively few customers rely on LTE service.  As of late Wednesday evening, the service remains down.

One of Canada’s largest phone companies is willing to admit it is prepared to launch an Internet Overcharging scheme on its broadband customers now, while western Canada’s largest cable company would prefer to wait until after the next election to spring higher prices on consumers.

When Shaw’s president Peter Bissonnette told investors and the media he believes users who use more should pay more, all that needs to be put in place is exactly how much more Shaw customers will pay for already-expensive Internet access.  With Shaw making noises about usage-based billing, Telus felt it was safe enough to dive right into their own usage cap and overlimit fee pricing scheme.

Shawn Hall, a spokesperson for Telus, told CTV News that the phone company was ready to begin overcharging customers as soon as this summer.

Shawn Hall (CTV BC)

“It’s only fair that people pay for how much Internet capacity they use,” Hall told CTV.

Telus doesn’t seem to be too worried about the fact usage-based billing has become a major issue in the upcoming elections.  A review of the pricing scheme by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is due within months, but the phone company isn’t going to wait.

Shaw is being more cautious.  After the pretense of a “listening tour,” and with federal officials breathing down their necks, Shaw wants to wait until the elections are over before moving forward on their own price gouging, according to Openmedia.ca.

As Stop the Cap! has told our readers repeatedly, corporate “listening tours” about Internet Overcharging are about as useful as lipstick on a pig.  Providers don’t actually listen to their customers who are completely against these pricing schemes — and every survey done tells us that represents the majority of customers.  Instead, they only hear what they want to hear, cherry-picking a handful of useful statements in order to make it appear they are responsive to customer needs.

Shaw heavily redacted their own meeting minutes on their website, completely ignoring a large number of customers unalterably opposed to usage-based billing of any kind.  Instead, statements that fit their agenda were repeated in detail, especially those that suggested average users don’t want to pay for heavy users.

Shaw executives discuss with investors how they will stick customers with usage-based billing, despite customers telling them they don’t want these schemes. April 13, 2011. (7 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

It’s like arguing marathon runners should pay extra for the oxygen they consume because others don’t breathe as much.  It’s all a lot of hot air.

Broadband traffic costs providers only a small percentage of the amount they charge customers, and that number is dropping.  Yet providers want to raise prices, restrict usage, and charge punitive fees for those who exceed their arbitrary usage limits.

The power of the duopoly in place across most of western Canada has given providers little to fear from overcharging consumers.

Shaw CEO Bradley Shaw told investors they know few customers will switch providers if usage-based billing is imposed.

“We are of the mind that we still have a tremendous upside in terms of pricing power on our Internet services,” Shaw said.

The fact many Shaw customers have no other choice other than Telus does not escape Shaw’s notice either.

Telus’ Hall even had the nerve to call their Internet Overcharging pro-consumer.

Bissonnette

“It’s going to be really customer friendly,” he said. “You’d be forgiven for the first month you go over. You’d get lots of warning, lots of notice that you were going over with options of moving to other plans.”

Except an unlimited one — that is not available.

Openmedia.ca is trying to hold politicians’ feet to the fire on the issue of Internet Overcharging, demanding answers from every major party in Canada about how they will keep providers from imposing these pricing schemes.

Every major party, with one exception — the Conservative Party of Canada, has answered.  That’s the party currently in power.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has spoken out against usage-based billing, while NDP Leader Jack Layton has promised to ban it outright if elected to power.

Nearly a half-million Canadians have signed a petition opposing usage-based billing, and providers are showing once again they are not open to listening to anyone but their bean counters, intent on extracting as much cash as possible from Canadian customers’ wallets.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CTV British Columbia – Shaw planning to revive metered internet billing critics 4-25-11.flv[/flv]

CTV in British Columbia covers Shaw’s plans to revive metered Internet billing later this year.  (2 minutes)

Stop the Cap! has learned Rep. Marilyn Avila’s (R-Time Warner Cable) anti-consumer, anti-competition, anti-community broadband bill H.129 is on the move again.  Now it’s up for a final vote in the Senate Finance Committee early Wednesday afternoon.  This is our last chance to derail this nasty piece of legislation before it hits the Senate floor and community networks start considering pulling the plugs on their expansion efforts.

North Carolina is YOUR state.  The state legislature is not Time Warner Cable’s personal playground, where they can order up customized corporate protection bills to protect their monopoly profits and stick you with higher bills.  It’s time to let your state senator know H.129 is totally unacceptable.  North Carolina is suffering from America’s worst broadband, and nothing about H.129 will make it any better.  Instead, companies like Time Warner and CenturyLink will continue to charge more for less service than other states enjoy.

North Carolina needs all of the broadband it can get, and with the defeat of H.129, the towns and communities big providers have bypassed for years can finally address their own needs without enduring years of broken promises for broadband service that never seems to materialize.

Our allies at Free Press have made this as convenient as can be.  Check out their legislator look-up page, which will get you the contact information for your state senator.  Then make the call starting tonight (you can even leave a message on their voicemail):

“Hello, I am calling to ask Senator “x” to oppose H.129, Rep. Avila’s anti-broadband bill now before the state Senate.  H.129 is nothing short of a protection bill for Time Warner Cable’s fat profits and does not bring a single new broadband connection to our state.  If communities want to build better broadband for people like me, I say let them.

North Carolina has the worst broadband in the country and large parts of our state cannot get it even if they wanted it.  We have the power today to hold our local leaders responsible if they stray too far — it’s called an election.

We don’t need Ms. Avila and Time Warner Cable, an out of state corporation, telling us what kind of broadband service we can get.

I absolutely expect you to oppose H.129 and I am carefully watching who votes for and against this legislation as it will be a major determining factor how I vote in the next election.  Please feel free to contact me at (provide name, address, and phone number.)  Thank you for hearing me.”

We need your calls to make the difference!