Time Warner Cable's DOCSIS 3 service is marketed as "wideband"

Time Warner Cable has made its DOCSIS 3 wideband broadband service its star at the 2010 Cable Show in Los Angeles.  Demonstrating up to 290Mbps service, company officials are suddenly excited about the prospect of delivering 21st century broadband speeds just one year after foot-dragging their way through upgrade plans for their cable systems nationwide.

Time Warner Cable has been among the slowest to deliver channel-bonded broadband service to its residential customers.  Currently marketed mostly in areas where Time Warner faces competition from Verizon FiOS or AT&T U-verse, DOCSIS 3 upgrades deliver faster speed tiers to its customers and reduce congestion.  At the top end, Time Warner residential customers can purchase 50/5Mbps service for just under $100 a month.  Because of its premium price tag, the company hasn’t had too many takers.  As of the fourth quarter of last year, just 2,000 customers signed up.  But the trends are clear — if the price comes down, adoption rates will increase.

For business customers, the price isn’t cheap either.  In Cincinnati, for example, Time Warner business customers face $350 a month for 50/5Mbps service.  Contrast that with Comcast in San Francisco, which charges businesses $189 a month for the same thing.

If Time Warner Cable is as enthusiastic about wideband as it suggested during this year’s Cable Show, it should be firing up its upgrade plans to deliver the service to all of its customers and attempt some new marketing that brings service at a more aggressive price.

In New York, Time Warner Cable’s DOCSIS 3 upgrades have so far skipped cities like Rochester, which faces only token competition from Frontier Communications’ DSL service.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/TWC 2010 Cable Show – Chief Marketing Officer Sam Howe.flv[/flv]

Time Warner Cable employees and chief marketing officer Sam Howe fall all over themselves, ecstatic with Time Warner Cable’s wideband broadband service, in this company-produced video taken at the 2010 Cable Show in Los Angeles.  (4 minutes)

Arris WBM760 DOCSIS 3 Cable Modem

Time Warner Cable is demonstrating 290Mbps downstream coupled with 90Mbps upstream broadband in its booth at the 2010 Cable Show in Los Angeles.  A Time Warner Cable insider told CED magazine it was the first public showing of the company’s ability to provide faster service outside of a lab environment.

The new high speeds are achieved using DOCSIS 3 technology which can bond multiple “channels” on a cable system together to create additional bandwidth.

The demonstration relies on an Arris CMTS and cable modems manufactured by both Arris and Motorola, which are connected to Time Warner’s Los Angeles cable headend.

CED notes Time Warner Cable has plenty of room for broadband speed growth.

The company is achieving the speeds using 8 x 4 channel bonding. With TWC’s top tier rated at 50/5 Mbps, the demo shows speed increases of greater than fivefold on the downstream and 18-fold on the upstream.

The TWC engineer compared the MSO’s achievement with the 300 Mbps that Bell Labs demonstrated on DSL recently.

“What they’ve got is something in the lab that goes 10 feet, and what we’re showing is live from our headend 22 miles away. We can compete (using) DOCSIS,” he observed.

Such developments are all part of a larger company plan to develop and market additional services the nation’s second largest cable operator can upsell to its customers.  For now, 290Mbps service is more theoretical than practical at Time Warner Cable’s likely pricing.  But it illustrates cable remains technologically ahead of what most phone companies can deliver over non-fiber-to-the-home networks.

MediaPost’s MediaDailyNews reports Time Warner Cable is about to begin market testing a new super-deluxe package that moves beyond the “Triple Play” packages common in the cable industry today.  Targeting wealthy, premium cable customers, Time Warner’s new “Homesuite” service would include all the bells and whistles:

• Multiple DVRs for several rooms in the house, with can eventually be connected together to let you start a recorded show in one room and finish it in another;
• A full range of premium channels at a bundled discount price;
• Faster DOCSIS-3 broadband with free Wi-Fi in and outside the home;
• Enhanced digital phone service, perhaps with more calling features;
• Concierge-like customer service, which could allow Homesuite customers to jump to the front of the queue for everything from service installation, repair and customer service.

Other options might include access to Time Warner’s wireless mobile broadband (rebranded Clearwire service), extended hours for service calls, discounts on pay per view, more deluxe set top boxes, and in some areas, even home security systems.

For Chief Operating Officer Landel Hobbs, the idea of selling $100 a month Triple Play package promotions just isn’t good enough anymore.  Time Warner Cable, MediaPost speculates, is now looking at $250 a month as a potential target price for Homesuite clients.

Time Warner Cable customers in Charlotte, North Carolina will be the first guinea pigs for super premium cable.  Are there enough customers around in Charlotte to pony up $250 a month for service?

TWC has conducted a customer “segmentation” study allowing it to identify opportunities for up-selling. “Our analysis indicates that certain of our large and profitable customer segments continue to hold substantial untapped opportunity,” Hobbs said earlier this year.

TWC says in a recent government filing that it’s likely to continue to lose video subscribers, but is expecting to make up for it by persuading customers to take DVR service, premium channels and other add-ons.

Charlotte is a key market for TWC — a Time Warner Cable Arena is located in the city center. After launching there, “Homesuite” would presumably then roll out in other TWC principal areas, which include Ohio, New York, Southern California and Texas. The working “Homesuite” moniker could be altered.

[Looking for more great examples of industry-backed dollar-a-holler front groups opposing Net Neutrality? Just click here and set your scroll wheel on turbo because we’ve compiled some examples you won’t believe!]

Americans for Prosperity's claim that grandma will face a $300 broadband bill will only become reality if Internet providers get away with Internet Overcharging schemes that would triple the price you pay for broadband service.

Americans for Prosperity, the group that harassed residents of Salisbury, North Carolina last year with push polls and recorded phone messages opposing municipal broadband, is renewing its effort to sign up the tea party crowd to oppose Net Neutrality reforms.

Ostensibly representing those favoring “less government,” AFP is actually a corporate front group founded by oil billionaire David Koch but also backed by telecom interests.  The group shills for large phone and cable companies to keep them deregulated, and opposes consumer reforms.  The group’s spokesman on Net Neutrality is Phil Kerpen — a regular on Fox News — appearing on Glenn Beck’s program to nod in agreement to wild claims that Net Neutrality is Maoist.

Now the group has unveiled a new advertisement opposing Net Neutrality and is spending $1.4 million dollars in its first ad buy.  The 30-second ad targets legislators with wild claims about Net Neutrality that don’t pass even the most rudimentary truth tests.

Comparing Net Neutrality with Washington-directed bailouts of banks and the auto industry, the group claims Washington wants to “spend billions to take over the Internet.”  Apparently the Internet is available for purchase on eBay.

In reality, the only group with the deep pockets is this debate is America’s telecommunications companies, who are among the biggest spenders for lobbyists, astroturf campaigns that claim to represent consumer interests, and writing big campaign contribution checks to state and federal elected legislators.

Establishing Net Neutrality protections doesn’t cost billions.  Fighting against establishing Net Neutrality might.

In fact, the biggest expense the Federal Communications Commission faces in its efforts to adopt Net Neutrality reforms will come from legal expenses brought about by continuous provider lawsuits.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Americans for Prosperity Dont Regulate the Internet Ad 5-2010.flv[/flv]

Americans for Prosperity’s anti-Net Neutrality advertisement claims Washington is spending “billions” to “take over the Internet.”  (30 seconds)

An amateurish animated video accompanying the ad on AFP’s YouTube channel extends the lies into the ionosphere:

• The video claims the government is preparing to take over the Internet, which is false.
• It implies the majority of Americans oppose Net Neutrality, also false.
• The video suggests that businesses will be prohibited from purchasing faster broadband, because under Net Neutrality, everyone will share the exact same broadband speed, both of which are totally false.
• Grandma, who “only uses the Internet to check e-mail,” will be prohibited from buying cheaper access under Net Neutrality.  More deception.

The video ends with a bleeped expletive.  Real professional.

[flv width=”641″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Americans for Prosperity Animated Anti Net Neutrality Video 5-2010.flv[/flv]

Americans for Prosperity’s animated anti-Net Neutrality video makes wild claims that don’t come close to being h0nest with the viewer. [Warning: Loud Video — Turn Down Volume Before Playing] (1 minute)

Let’s Get Real.

FACT: If anyone is trying to “take over the Internet,” it’s a handful of corporate providers who won’t agree to common sense regulations that guarantee they will not block or impede web traffic.  If they have no intention of engaging in bad behavior, why spend millions of dollars to fight the regulations?

FACT: Americans favor Net Neutrality protections that guarantee net freedom and keep providers from further increasing your broadband bill by monetizing every aspect of the Internet.

FACT: Americans buy broadband based on speed tiers.  Net Neutrality does nothing to change this model.  Any business seeking faster service can continue to acquire it, if they can find a provider to sell it to them.  What Net Neutrality prohibits are Internet Service Providers artificially slowing down your website traffic unless and until you agree to protection payments to take the speed throttles off.

FACT: Most providers sell “Lite” broadband service to those seeking cheaper access or who only need the Internet for basic web browsing or e-mail access.  Some communities even offer basic Wi-Fi access to the Internet for free, and the Obama Administration is proposing to modify the Universal Service Fund to help economically disadvantaged Americans obtain basic web access at a more affordable price.

FACT: The only way a broadband bill is going to achieve the $300 price tag found in this video is if providers are permitted to run roughshod over their customers with Internet Overcharging schemes.  Some earlier proposed broadband “pricing experiments” would effectively triple the price for broadband service Americans pay, but that has nothing to do with Washington.  That can be laid directly at the feet of the same broadband providers who are writing enormous checks to astroturfers like Americans for Prosperity to hoodwink Americans into supporting things directly opposed to their best interests.

Don’t be Americans for Prosperity’s sucker.

AT&T has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit that accused the company of selling DSL service at speeds it often never provided to customers.

The case, Robert Schmidt, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated vs. AT&T and SBC Internet Services, Inc., (d/b/a AT&T Internet Services), was filed in 20o9 when AT&T customers learned the company was configuring some customers’ DSL modems at maximum speed rates below those advertised by AT&T.

AT&T has agreed to settle the lawsuit for a maximum of nearly $100 million, or less depending on the total number of claims received nationwide.

The amount customers are entitled to receive will vary depending on how much of an impact AT&T’s speed limiting configuration had on a their service.  The settlement is also retroactive back to April 1, 1995 meaning longtime AT&T DSL customers could be entitled to several hundred dollars in compensation.  For those dissatisfied with the speeds they received from AT&T’s DSL service, their compensation will be limited to a one-time payment of $2.00.

For some others, the settlement will provide more generous compensation.  The law firm that brought the case, Dworken & Bernstein, will receive up to $11 million in compensation and also get to hand out $3.75 million dollars of AT&T’s money to no less than 20 charities.

Some Background

AT&T provides DSL service to the vast majority of its customers.  This technology works over traditional copper wire phone lines.  Unfortunately, that infrastructure was never designed to carry data, but after years of development engineers found a way to make Ma Bell’s wires work for broadband service.  Unfortunately, the service has never been able to provide consistent speeds to every customer.  The further away you are from the phone company’s central office (where your phone line ultimately ends up), the slower the speed your line can support.  Someone a block away from the phone company office can easily achieve the speeds AT&T promised its customers in its marketing.  But if you are a few miles away, chances are you cannot.

For those more distant, or who live in areas with bad phone lines, your DSL modem won’t be able to maintain a consistent connection at the speeds AT&T sold you.  That will cause the modem to reset itself regularly, trying to re-establish an appropriately fast connection.  That can drive customers crazy because your service will often stop working while the modem tries to renegotiate the connection.  Some phone companies stop the constant reconnection battle by configuring the modem to work at a lower, more stable speed that will work with an individual’s phone line.

For instance, here in Rochester Frontier Communications advertises 10Mbps DSL service.  But for me, more than 10,000 feet away from Frontier’s central office for my area, the line simply couldn’t support that speed.  So Frontier locked the modem to deliver just 3.1Mbps, not the 10Mbps the company markets to customers in this area.

While that practice may seem technically smart, it’s obviously not legally smart, as AT&T has discovered.  Even using the traditional weasel words of “up to” when marketing broadband speeds, AT&T felt it was exposed to charges of false advertising and defrauding customers, and decided to settle the case.  It should be noted AT&T strongly denies any allegations of wrongdoing, but has agreed to settle to avoid the burden and cost of further litigation.

AT&T now faces the prospect of paying compensation to every DSL customer it speed limited in this fashion, and has also agreed to stop the practice.

The Details

Who Gets the Settlement? — Potentially any AT&T DSL customer paying for service after March 31, 1994.  This also includes customers of companies acquired by AT&T:

• SBC Internet Services, Inc., d/b/a AT&T Internet Services
• BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc.
• Pacific Bell Internet Services
• Southwestern Bell Internet Services, Inc.
• Ameritech Interactive Media Services, Inc.
• SNET Diversified Group, Inc.
• Prodigy Communications Corporation
• Oklahoma Internet Online

Many AT&T customers may have already been notified about this settlement through postcards or other mailers sent by AT&T based on customer records.

What Kind of Settlement Will I Get? — For longstanding AT&T DSL customers, the amount could be substantial, so it’s worth your while to participate, even if you are no longer a customer.  For most everyone else, it’s probably worth $2.00.

There are three types of benefits that will be paid to those who submit valid claims under the settlement once it becomes final. Payments will be made by check or by credits on a customer’s bill.

• Group A Benefit. If AT&T’s Records indicate that AT&T configured the downstream speed of your DSL service, for one month or more during the Settlement Class Period, at a level lower than the Maximum DSL Speed for the plan you purchased, you may be eligible to receive $2.90 for each month your service was so configured.  This could add up to hundreds of dollars.
• Group B Benefit. If you are not eligible for the Group A Benefit and AT&T’s Records show that your DSL service may have performed, for one month or more during the Settlement Class Period, at downstream speeds below the following levels, you may be eligible to receive $2.00 for each such month:
  • 200 Kbps, if you purchased a plan with a Maximum DSL Speed of 768 Kbps;
  • 384 Kbps, if you purchased a plan with a Maximum DSL Speed of 1.5 Mbps before October 2008;
  • 769 Kbps, if you purchased a plan with a Maximum DSL Speed of 1.5 Mbps after October 2008;
  • 1.5 Mbps, if you purchased a plan with a Maximum DSL Speed of 3.0 Mbps; or
  • 3.0 Mbps, if you purchased a plan with a Maximum DSL Speed of 6.0 Mbps.

  Because the settlement provides for monthly credits, you could also receive hundreds of dollars in refunds or service credits, making participation in the settlement worthwhile.

• Group C Benefit. If AT&T’s records do not show that either you fall within Group A or Group B but you nonetheless believe that your DSL service has not performed at satisfactory speeds based upon the plan that you purchased, you may still be eligible for a one-time payment or bill credit of $2.00. In other words, if at anytime you were underwhelmed by AT&T’s DSL speeds, you can file a claim and get two dollars back.

AT&T has also agreed to monitor customers’ DSL speeds over a period of 12 months and if service cannot achieve the speeds promised, the company will either make repairs to boost speed or adjust billing.

For AT&T customers in Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, and Texas, AT&T’s settlement would replace a similar class action case filed in St. Louis.  Ford and Dunne v. SBC Communications, Inc. and SBC Internet Services, Inc., would have only covered customers after December 31, 2000.

Customers who believe they are entitled to participate in the settlement can get additional information and file an online claim at the DSL Speed Settlement website.

Get out your tiny violins.  Telephone and cable companies that have ignored your neighborhood for years are decrying attempts by the federal government to fund projects that would finally extend broadband service to rural America.  Companies ranging from tiny Eagle Communications in Kansas, to major regional telephone companies like FairPoint Communications and Windstream, are upset that new providers are on the way to deliver broadband service to bypassed homes or communities stuck in their broadband slow lane.

The Associated Press reports coast-to-coast complaints from incumbents who have refused to deliver service or force customers to accept 1-3Mbps speeds indefinitely.

From the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Great Plains, some local phone and cable companies fear they will have to compete with government-subsidized broadband systems, paid for largely with stimulus dollars. If these taxpayer-funded networks siphon off customers with lower prices, private companies warn that they could be less likely to upgrade their own lines, endangering jobs and undermining the goals of the stimulus plan.

That’s rich coming from some providers who threaten to refuse to upgrade lines they’ve never upgraded, endanger employees they’ve long since cut, and threaten their quest for monopoly profits serving rural Americans larger carriers are rapidly abandoning.

Anemic Broadband Is Not in Kansas Anymore

Rural Telephone's Exchange Map (click to enlarge)

Kansas-based Eagle Communications provides cable and wireless broadband service to more than a dozen small towns in the state.  For more populated areas, it’s cable broadband service.  For the rural parts of its service areas, Eagle relegates everyone to a slower speed, more expensive wireless network.

The company is upset to learn about additional expansion forthcoming from Rural Telephone Company, a cooperative which recently won a $101 million stimulus grant to construct a fiber optic system to expand service.  With the grant, the co-op phone company will move beyond its currently constrained DSL broadband network into areas even Eagle’s rural wireless signal won’t reach.

Rural Telephone Company says their broadband grant will provide service “in an area 99.5 percent unserved/underserved and provide a rural infrastructure required for economic stability, education and health care.”

Eagle says it’s unfair competition.

“It is extremely unfair that the government comes in and uses big government money to harm existing private businesses,” Gary Shorman, president of Eagle Communications, told the AP.  “This hurts our company.”

“It’s a little disappointing that companies that aren’t adequately serving these areas are trying to undercut those of us who are trying to step in and get the service where it’s needed,” says Lawrence Strickling, head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the arm of the Commerce Department handing out much of the stimulus money.

The $101 million Kansas project, for instance, will bring connection speeds of up to 1 gigabit to businesses and up to 100 megabits to as many as 23,000 homes. While the network will cover the population center of Hays, where both Rural Telephone and Eagle Communications already offer broadband, that accounts for just eight of the 4,600 square miles to be reached. Much of the area has no broadband at all, says Larry Sevier, Rural Telephone’s chief executive.

The goal is to “close the digital divide between Hays and the outlying areas,” says Jonathan Adelstein, head of the Rural Utilities Service, which awarded the money.

Eagle Communications' Wireless Service Area - Central Region (click to enlarge)

For rural Kansans choosing between Eagle’s wireless service or Rural Telephone’s current maximum 1.5Mbps DSL service for those outside of the Hays city limits, the definition of “high speed service” maxes out at an anemic 3Mbps:

Eagle Communications Wireless Network Pricing – Hays, Kansas

• Eagle 256/256 $34.95 /per month
• Eagle 768/512 $37.95 /per month
• Eagle 1.0/384 $44.95 /per month
• Eagle 2/512 $54.95 /per month
• Eagle 3/512 $59.95 /per month

Rural Telephone Company Pricing for Outside the City Limits – Hays, Kansas

• Rural Telephone’s 1.5Mbps DSL — $29.95 per month
• Rural Telephone’s 512kbps DSL — $19.95 per month

Gone With the Windstream: Phone Company Says Broadband Stimulus Doesn’t Give a Damn About Their Georgia Business Model

Many of the projects seeking funding don’t actually want to get into the Internet Service Provider business, preferring to construct fiber-based networks available equally to all-comers at wholesale pricing.  Sure they’ll wire government buildings, schools, and libraries as a public service, but their real goal is to make available super high speed networks that incumbent providers haven’t, under the theory a rising tide lifts all boats.  They even invite existing ISP’s to hop on board, buying access to deliver improved service to their existing customers.

But because some providers don’t own or control the infrastructure outright, they’re not interested.

One such project is the North Georgia Network Cooperative, created from a consortium of private business advocates, a state university, and two power company co-ops.

North Georgia sees broadband as a major economic stimulant… if they actually had it.  Large parts of the region don’t, so the Cooperative applied for and won a $33.5 million NTIA grant to construct a 260-mile fiber ring running through 12 counties in the state.  The network will easily deliver connections upwards of 10Gbps for institutions and broadband speeds far faster than incumbent DSL provider Windstream currently provides across the region.

Windstream's biggest promotional push is for its 6Mbps DSL service

Windstream’s DSL packages look better than many other independent phone companies, at least based on their website.  Windstream offers 3, 6, and 12 Mbps DSL packages across northwestern Georgia,  but that doesn’t mean you can actually obtain service at those speeds.  Stop the Cap! reader Frederick, who tipped us off to this story, notes that he can’t obtain more than 1.5Mbps DSL service from his home in Dalton, Georgia because the phone lines in his area won’t support faster speeds.

“I’m actually less than a mile from my area’s central office, but because the phone lines in my area are deteriorated, they had to lock my speed in at 1.5Mbps — anything faster causes the modem to reset,” Frederick writes.  “Windstream does the same thing to my cousin in Lafayette, who was offered 6Mbps service but can only get 3Mbps in reality.”

Frederick says most people in the community don’t really care where the faster broadband comes from — just that it comes.

“If Windstream, who incidentally also applied for government money, could do it there would have never been a need to go around them in the first place,” he says. “Hell, the ironic part is the Cooperative will sell wholesale access to Windstream to use as it sees fit, but because Windstream doesn’t own it they’re pouting, refusing to participate.”

Windstream says it has already invested $5 million in network upgrades covering northern Georgia over the last three years and the Cooperative’s stimulus grant undermines the economics of that investment.  Michael Rhoda, Windstream’s vice president of government affairs told AP Windstream now has to share rural customers with a government-funded competitor.  Windstream wants that funding limited strictly to those areas where broadband service is uneconomic to provide.  To underline that point, the company has applied for $238 million in stimulus funding to reach the “last 11 percent” who don’t have broadband in Windstream’s service areas.

Maine’s Three Ring Binder Project Snaps Shut on FairPoint’s Monopoly Fingers

Maine's Three Ring Binder Project plans to serve most of Maine (click image for additional information)

More often than not, independent efforts to launch improved broadband service in a region come after years of dealing with an intransigent provider comfortable moving at a snail’s pace to improve service.  Financially-troubled FairPoint Communications has been struggling to meet Maine’s broadband needs since the company took over service from Verizon two years ago.  The state government, university, and smaller telecommunications companies decided they could do better — applying for, and winning a $25.4 million dollar grant to construct three fiber rings across the state.

FairPoint insists the project duplicates the company’s own efforts to improve connectivity in Maine and has appealed to lawmakers to stop the project.  But FairPoint recently called a truce when it reached a deal to charge users of the new network a usage fee, with FairPoint getting a large share of the proceeds to expand its own broadband efforts.

[FairPoint’s financial problems have left the company] unable to bring broadband to wide swaths of rural Maine, says Dwight Allison, chief executive of Maine Fiber Co., which was created to build and operate the stimulus-funded network. The project, he says, represents a serious competitive threat to a company that “feels its monopoly is being attacked.”

Of course nothing precludes FairPoint from getting access to the new fiber network at the same wholesale pricing other providers will pay, but the company so far doesn’t seem interested.

Various talking points designed to derail the project are debunked by the Maine Fiber Company:

• Fiction: It’s government-run broadband.
• Fact: Three Ring Binder will be owned and operated by Maine Fiber Company, a private company based in Maine. MRC is unaffiliated with any telecom carrier to ensure fair and equal access to the system for all competitors.

• Fiction: This project will create unfair competition for private providers.
• Fact: MFC will be a wholesale provider of dark fiber, and its customers will be Internet Service providers, wireless carriers, and telephone companies. MFC will not provide “lit” service in competition with private broadband carriers. MFC is required to provide service on an open access and non-discriminatory basis. All carriers in Maine will be able to use the network to serve their customers in Maine, resulting in robust competition for the benefit of Maine consumers.

• Fiction: This project duplicates service FairPoint already provides.
• Fact: Prior to receiving a federal stimulus grant, the project was carefully reviewed by the National Telecommunications Information Agency (NTIA) of the US Department of Commerce to determine whether there was overlap with existing carriers. NTIA determined that TRB would substantially improve access to high-speed Internet access in rural Maine. If material duplication had been discovered, TRB would not have been funded. TRB will offer a mid-mile, dark fiber service that is fundamentally different from what currently exists in rural Maine. In fact, carriers seeking to obtain dark fiber service along the TRB route have routinely been denied access by incumbent fiber providers.