Phillip Dampier

[Our newest content appears below this appeal!]

Thanks to those who have made contributions thus far.  We have a long way to go, however.  This appeal will remain up over the weekend, with the hopes we will see a considerably stronger turnout of support.  This week alone we helped pull the rug out on cable lobbyists in North Carolina — just another example of the results we’ve achieved together.  But the growing expenses serve only to distract from the mission at hand, and that especially includes the battle with AT&T, so please do what you can.

With much appreciation, we’ve seen an enormous spike in traffic “thanks” to the latest money-grab attempt from AT&T.  For nearly three years, this community has stood together to fight all forms of Internet Overcharging: usage caps, metered billing, speed throttling, and whatever other new tricks providers conjure up to monetize broadband traffic they are already paid handsomely to deliver.

Since July 2008, we’ve brought you more than 1,500 stories educating you where broadband has gone wrong in North America, where the success stories are, and how you can fight back against those wallet-biting ISPs who want more money for less service.

We’ve helped promote better choices like fiber-to-the-home broadband, fought for Net Neutrality, exposed the industry’s agenda on “Internet congestion,” and corrected the record when providers malign community-owned broadband networks.  But above all, we are fighting to keep worry-free, flat rate broadband service an affordable option for every North American.

We don’t negotiate with Internet Overchargers — we don’t play their games or argue their numbers.  As consumers, we want an unlimited broadband experience without watching “gas gauges,” meters, or charts.

We do not receive a penny of industry money, nor are we a “dollar-a-holler” group.  It’s a 100 percent consumer effort on behalf of other consumers.  No astroturf here!

The protest against Time Warner Cable.

But folks, this fight is starting to get expensive, and fighting AT&T is going to make it even more so.

We despise pledge drives and beg-a-thons and are very wary of accepting advertising.

It’s important for us to concentrate our resources on winning the fight for better broadband, and chasing money to pay bills is not something we want to spend valuable time on.  Therefore, if you find value in what we do, whether it was winning the war against Time Warner Cable’s metered broadband experiment in 2009, helping community broadband networks spread, grow, and survive providers trying to shut them down, or we just saved you money with tips on winning a lower rate or getting your money back, please consider making a contribution to help keep the fight going.

Some of our opponents always suggest content producers want a “free ride.”  Nothing could be further than the truth.  We pay for web hosting, bandwidth, and licensing fees just like every other website.  We pay our fair share the same way many of the largest sites on the Internet pay theirs.  But we do it all for free as volunteers, donating an enormous amount of time and energy.

On the right side of your screen, you will see a small button to donate using PayPal.  Thanks from all of us for using it at this critical time.

With thanks,

The Team at Stop the Cap!

South Africans won uncapped broadband service one year ago tomorrow when an upstart provider — MWeb — unveiled its “Free the Web” campaign, delivering usage-limit free Internet access to customers across South Africa.

The company’s move to unlimited, flat rate service was heavily criticized by competing providers, who enforce draconian usage limits and have tried to convince customers the global trend was moving towards metered broadband.  But MWeb president Rudi Jansen dismisses the notion limiting broadband is the way to go, suggesting usage caps and meters are more about profits than serving customers.

Today, MWeb’s uncapped broadband is a runaway success, with more than 50 percent of its customers switching to the meter-free service.  It has been profitable, too.

“We are running ahead of our business plan and all our products are profitable,” Jansen tells TechCentral.

Now the nation’s semi-privatized, 39% state-owned phone company Telkom is widely expected to stop the erosion of its own broadband customers by adopting flat rate broadband service itself.

For Jansen, that would represent a welcome move.  The Internet visionary wants to transform South African broadband away from its current expensive pricing model and throw the Internet wide open.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Jansen says. “The sooner they launch it the better.”

The arrival of flat rate broadband made headlines across the country in 2010. (click to enlarge)

South African broadband has coped with challenges few other countries endure.  International connectivity has always been one of the biggest — sustaining traffic on satellite backbone links or underpowered undersea cables first forced providers to limit Internet use because of capacity concerns.  But new fiber-based underseas cables from Seacom and Wacs, including the forthcoming 5.1Tbps West African Cable System project will dramatically increase capacity and slash costs.

Jansen (Courtesy: TechCentral)

Yet several of his competitors want to keep the caps on and prices high, earning lucrative profits on a service Jansen says is becoming less costly to deliver every day.

Jansen admits MWeb is currently forced to traffic shape certain activities on his network, particularly bandwidth-intensive peer to peer traffic, because other providers in the country don’t agree with his wide-open view of the Internet.

He wants every provider in South Africa to agree to “open peering,” a practice that allows providers to exchange traffic with each other without charging transit fees.  He also wants to see wholesale mobile wireless pricing come down.  In Africa, mobile broadband has a strong place in a market where cable infrastructure (and broadband speed) is often lacking.

Telkom, South Africa’s equivalent to AT&T or Bell, is cited by Jansen as the biggest impediment to his plan to deliver truly unfettered, unlimited access.

Some South Africans deride the state phone company as "Hellkom"

In South Africa, broadband customers pay two providers — Telkom for the monthly rental of the telephone line and an ISP for the DSL service that connects through it.  Jansen says Telkom’s broadband line rental prices are too high.  But more importantly, the interconnection fee Telkom charges providers to access its network is “absolutely ludicrous.”

“Those prices are far more than the price of international connectivity,” Jansen says. “Telkom charges us to get access to their last mile and then charges end users to get access to the same last mile, so they make double money on it. And it’s completely mispriced.”

Despite the challenges from other providers, MWeb will celebrate the first anniversary of uncapped broadband tomorrow with a surprise announcement, probably targeting small business clients.

Time Warner Cable’s new free iPad application, giving authenticated cable customers a selection of live cable channels to watch on the portable device, crashed under heavy demand last evening, hours after the company unveiled it in a mass e-mail campaign to customers.

Time Warner Cable TV for iPad is Time Warner’s first serious effort at delivering a cable TV experience to an online audience, initially streaming 31 cable channels in HD to customers who pay for both cable television and broadband from the company.

Several of the featured networks were part of earlier contract battles with the cable company. Scripps-Howard’s Food Network and HGTV are there, as is Fox’s FX and Fox News.  Some smaller “less-connected” networks like Hallmark Channel also made the cut.  Comcast-NBC’s networks also have a prominent place, including Bravo and CNBC.  All four major cable news channels are included.  Time Warner has been making a point to negotiate for on-demand and streaming rights with cable networks as part of contract negotiations.

Channel Lineup

Requirements

• iPad™ with iOS 4.
• Time Warner Cable video package at the Standard (Expanded Basic) level or higher.
• Time Warner Cable Internet Service (Road Runner^® Standard or higher recommended for best experience. EarthLink^® High Speed or EarthLink^® Cable Max is also supported).

[flv width=”416″ height=”254″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/TV for iPad Time Warner Cable Ad.flv[/flv]

Time Warner Cable advertises its new iPad app for online viewing.  (15 seconds)

Time Warner Cable's new app for the iPad delivers 31 channels of live cable network viewing for free -if- you are a cable subscriber willing to watch from home.

Plenty of channels are missing though, including local broadcasters, Turner Broadcasting-owned networks like TNT and Turner Classic Movies, and sports networks.

But the most obvious limitation is that the service only works from inside of your own home, over a Time Warner Wi-Fi broadband connection.  You cannot take your viewing on-the-go.  This limitation seemed curious, considering other companies provide similar online viewing apps that can be used anywhere a wireless connection exists. 

Despite the limits, AdWeek reports several unnamed cable networks fired off warning shots yesterday to Time Warner Cable executives warning them they were streaming networks without permission.

Network legal reps are issuing a flock of heated missives to the nation’s No. 2 cable operator, calling for an immediate halt to a new service that allows subscribers to stream video content to iPads and other tablet devices. Although Time Warner Cable introduced the free app just 24 hours ago, a number of cable network groups have already made it abundantly clear that they had not signed off on any such distribution arrangement.

[…] “Distribution via any sort of third-party app is not addressed in our carriage deals with Time Warner Cable or any other operator,” said one affiliate chief. “There is going to be a messy dissection of what the rights are, but our position is that [this sort of distribution] is not authorized by our affiliate agreements.”

TWC CEO Glenn Britt has cautiously navigated the syntactic rapids, offering carefully worded assessments about the nature of the service. “Certainly all the business structures with the owners of copyrights are not fully in place, but you can begin to see a very exciting future for this set of industries and for the American consumer,” Britt said last August, after announcing plans to bow the iPad app. “There is great potential in all these devices…But it’s also a complicated process.”

Cable networks are concerned viewers who are not authenticated cable subscribers could get free access to programming from account sharing.  But considering Time Warner Cable has locked down viewing to inside the home for the time being, it is unlikely Time Warner Cable faces the same degree of wrath that could be heaped on Comcast and satellite dish TV providers who deliver apps that permit anywhere-viewing.

Time Warner Cable's new iPad app crashed under a heavy load last night.

The cable company’s heavy promotion of the newly-available app in mass e-mail announcements was probably a mistake, however.  The online viewing party came to a rapid end last night when the company’s servers, unprepared for the demand, ended up turning away many would-be viewers.

Jeff Simmermon, director of digital communications for the cable company, said they did not anticipate the level of demand they got last night.

“At about 8 o’clock last night the app crashed under a much heavier load than we anticipated. Our engineering team is working as hard as they can to put a fix in place and get everything up and running as soon as they can,” Simmermon wrote on Time Warner’s blog.

“For the time being, the app is running with only 15 channels. We have found that by temporarily reducing the number of available channels, we can ease strain on the authentication process. This will enable us to offer at least some sort of an experience to our customers while we get a fix in place. We’ll add the other 17 channels back in as soon as we can fix the underlying issue, and we’ll be adding more channels in future iterations of the app as well.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/BTIG Time Warner Cable iPad App.flv[/flv]

Rich Greenfield demonstrates Time Warner’s new iPad app.  (3 minutes)

Don't allow a "dollar-a-holler" mouthpiece for the broadband industry to speak on your behalf. Get on the phones and send those e-mail messages today!

H.129, Rep. Marilyn Avila’s (R-Time Warner Cable) anti-broadband bill has been moving full speed ahead as she hurries it through the state legislature before consumer outrage gets a chance to block it.  Tomorrow morning, it will make a stop at the Finance Committee, where we expect the bill’s broadband-killing language will remain largely intact, thanks to hard work from Time Warner Cable and their astroturf friends.

While Ms. Avila is e-mailing copies of a so-called “independent article” about H.129 written by a man who received a $20,000 check from Time Warner Cable and works for a telecommunications company-funded think tank to her colleagues, you need to be e-mailing, tweeting, and calling your friends and neighbors and get everyone to call or write the individual members of the Finance Committee immediately.

Here are the points you need to raise:

1. Please vote NO on H.129, an unnecessary bill that does nothing to improve broadband in North Carolina;
2. H.129 is sponsored by the state’s biggest cable and phone companies to protect their anti-competitive markets and guarantee high rates for slow service indefinitely;
3. The fastest broadband at the fairest prices in the state comes from 21st century fiber optic networks that will be driven out of business if this bill becomes law;
4. Although Ms. Avila and Chairwoman Howard promised to protect and exempt existing community broadband networks from the terms of this bill, they have not yet kept their promise;
5. If the companies supporting this bill delivered broadband at the speed they are rushing H.129 through the legislature, North Carolina would not have a broadband problem;
6. If rural communities cannot solve their own broadband problems, who will?  The companies that refused to provide appropriate service yesterday, today, and will continue to not do so tomorrow?

Make sure you remind your legislator this is not a Republican of Democratic issue — it’s a consumer issue, it’s an issue for every rural community, and it’s an issue for the future economic well-being of a state that needs digital economy jobs.

Finance Committee Members

(click each name for contact information)

Time Warner Cable has experienced several significant outages this week in different areas of the country.  When service conks out, customers are entitled to service credits, but you must request them — they do not come automatically.

The most significant problems:

• Yesterday: Northeastern U.S. — Telephone and broadband service was knocked out for several hours, causing a flood of calls to area newsrooms and clogging up Time Warner’s own call centers;
• This Morning: Ohio — Telephone and broadband service down in many areas.

The easiest and fastest way to request credit is sending a message to Time Warner Cable using their Online E-Mail form, select Billing Inquiry, and send a message like this (edit it as appropriate):

I am writing to request one day service credit for the Internet and phone service outage that occurred in my area yesterday. Please credit my account.