Millenicom customers have had their ups and downs over the last two weeks coping with e-mail notifications they would lose, keep, and once again lose their unlimited wireless data plan.

Just a day after Millenicom heard that Sprint would allow them to continue selling Unlimited and Bring Your Own Device plans, the wireless carrier best known for its “unlimited for life” offer changed its mind:

We are very sorry to report that Sprint has reversed their decision from yesterday and terminated their agreement with the gateway for our Unlimited and BYOD accounts.

We are not certain how long until the accounts will be closed.

We will be shipping out Hotspot devices to those clients who had opted for that solution and BMI.net is ready to fulfill orders for those choosing to go with them.

We have attempted to keep you informed every step of the way and avoid any abrupt transition. We apologize that we weren’t able to come through.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service and please accept our sincere wish for your future success.

Dennis Castle
Owner

It is not the first time Millenicom has had problems with Sprint, which has proved to be a difficult carrier to deal with with respect to unlimited use plans.

Sprint’s decision is a major blow to rural Americans who lack access to cable or DSL broadband and are forced to consider satellite-delivered Internet access or pay even more for wireless data plans that come with puny usage caps, overlimit fees or speed throttles.

There are a few alternatives, but since these providers resell access to Sprint-owned networks, all are potentially vulnerable to Sprint’s evolving views on resellers:

Blue Mountain Internet (BMI) offers an “unlimited plan” that isn’t along with several usage allowance plans. BMI strongly recommends the use of their Mobile Broadband Optimizer software that compresses web traffic, dramatically improving speeds and reducing consumption:

Monthly Plans

• $39.99/Month – 1 Gig Data (** up to 3GB compressed) ($25/GB Overlimit Fee)
• $59.99/Month – 3 Gig Data (** up to 9GB compressed) ($20/GB Overlimit Fee)
• $79.99/Month – 5 Gig Data (** up to 15GB compressed) ($20/GB Overlimit Fee)
• $99.99/Month – 10 Gig Data (** Up to 45GB compressed) ($15/GB Overlimit Fee)

• $79.99/Month – Unlimited (Bring Your Own Device) – BYOD
• $99.99/Month – Unlimited Data (S Network) ***

There is a $100 maximum on overlimit fees, but BMI reserves the right to suspend accounts after running 3-5GB over a plan’s allowance to limit exposure to the penalty rate. The compression software is for Windows only and does not work with MIFI devices or with video/audio streaming. BMI warns its wireless service is not intended for video streaming. Customers are not allowed to host computer applications including continuous streaming video and webcam posts that broadcast more than 24 hours; automatic data feeds; automated continuous streaming machine-to-machine connections; or peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing.

EVDODepotUSA offers two truly unlimited use plans starting at $119 a month. The company is only contracted to offer access to Sprint’s woefully congested 3G network and the Clear 4G WiMAX network that typically does not offer much coverage in rural areas. LTE access is not currently available. There is a six month contract obligation, but the company also offers a 10-day free trial.

Their current plans:

Wireless ‘n Wifi offers two partly unlimited plans with no contract commitment. The company charges a refundable deposit on devices, but they become yours to keep after two years:

• Unlimited 4G Sprint/Clear WiMAX with 3G Fallback ($58.99) offers unlimited WiMAX service but has a 5GB cap on Sprint’s 3G network, the network rural customers will encounter the most. Total start-up fee is $194.93 which includes an activation fee, modem deposit (refunded upon modem return or after 24 months of service), the first month of service, and shipping for the wireless device.
• Unlimited 4G LTE with WiMAX and 3G Fallback ($79.99) offers unlimited Sprint 4G LTE and Sprint/Clear WiMAX service with a 35GB cap on Sprint’s 3G network. Customers can select a dual-band device that supports LTE and 3G service for $246.93 (includes activation fee, modem upcharge fee, first month of service, shipping, and refundable $100 modem deposit). Customers looking for access to LTE, 3G, and WiMAX can choose a tri-band device for $315.93 (includes activation fee, modem upcharge, first month of service, shipping and refundable deposit.) Keep in mind Sprint’s 4G LTE network is still very spotty.

More drive-by reporting on Comcast’s usage caps.

When the media covers Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps and consumption billing, it is often much easier to take the provider’s word for it instead of actually investigating whether subscribers actually need their Internet usage limited.

Comcast’s planned reintroduction of its usage caps on South Carolina customers begins Friday. Instead of the now-retired 250GB limit, Comcast is graciously throwing another 50GB of usage allowance to customers, five years after defining 250GB as more than generous.

The Post & Courier never bothered to investigate if Comcast’s new 300GB usage cap was warranted or if Charleston-area customers wanted it. It was so much easier to just print Comcast’s point of view and throw in a quote or two from an industry analyst.

In fact, the reporter even tried to suggest the Internet Overcharging scheme was an improvement for customers.

The newspaper reported Comcast was the first large Internet provider in the region to allow customers to pay even more for broadband service by extending their allowance in 50GB increments at $10 a pop. (Actually, AT&T beat Comcast to the bank on that idea, but has avoided dropping that hammer on customers who already have to be persuaded to switch to AT&T U-verse broadband that tops out at around 24Mbps for most customers.)

Since 2008, the company’s monthly limit has been capped at 250 GB per household. When customers exceeded that threshold, Comcast didn’t have a firm mechanism for bringing them back in line, other than to issue warnings or threaten to cut off service.

“People didn’t like that static cap. They felt that if they wanted to extend their usage, then they should be allowed to do that,” said Charlie Douglas, a senior director with Comcast.

Charleston is the latest in a series of trial markets the cable giant has used to test the new Internet usage policy in the past year. As with any test period, the company can modify or discontinue the plan at any time.

During the trial period in Charleston, customers will get an extra 50 GB of monthly data than they’re used to having. If they exceed 300 GB, they can pay for more.

“300 GB is well beyond what any typical household is ever going to consume in a month,” Douglas said. “In all of the other trial markets with this (limit), it really doesn’t impact the overwhelming super-majority of customers.”

The average Internet user with Comcast service uses about 16 to 18 GB of data per month, Douglas said.

Customers who use less than five GB per month will start seeing a $5 discount on their bills.

“We think this approach is fair because we’re giving consumers who want to use more data a way to do so, and for consumers who use less, they can pay less,” Douglas said.

Data caps are designed to stop content piracy?

The Charleston reporter asserts, without any evidence, “data-capping is a trend many Internet service providers are expected to follow in the next few years as the industry aims to reduce network congestion and to find safeguards against online piracy.”

Suggesting data caps are about piracy immediately rings alarm bells. Comcast and other Internet Service Providers fought long and hard against being held accountable for their customers’ actions. The industry wants nothing to do with monitoring online activities lest the government hold them accountable for not actively stopping criminal activity.

“It’s not about piracy, per se,” said Douglas. “We don’t look at what people are doing. The purpose is really a matter of fairness. If people are using a disproportionate amount of data, then they should pay more.”

Comcast’s concern for fairness and disproportionate behavior does not extend to the rapacious pricing and enormous profit it earns selling broadband, flat rate or not.

MIT Technology Review’s David Talbot found “Time Warner Cable and Comcast are already making a 97 percent margin on their ‘almost comically profitable’ Internet services.” That figure was repeated by Craig Moffett, one of the most enthusiastic, well-respected cable industry analysts. That percentage refers to “gross margin,” which is effectively gravy on largely paid off cable plant/infrastructure that last saw a major wholesale upgrade in the 1990s to accommodate the advent of digital cable television and the 500-channel universe. Broadband was introduced in the late 1990s as a cheap-to-deploy but highly profitable, unregulated ancillary service.

How things have changed.

Just follow the money….

Customers used to being gouged for cable television are now willing to say goodbye to Comcast’s television package in growing numbers. Today’s must-have service is broadband and Comcast has a high-priced plan for you! But earning up to 97 percent profit from $50+ broadband isn’t enough.

A 300GB limit isn’t designed to control congestion either. In fact, had she investigated that claim, she would have discovered the cable industry itself disavowed that notion earlier this year.

In fact, it’s all about the money.

Michael Powell, the head of the cable industry’s top lobbying group admitted the theory that data caps are designed to control network congestion was wrong.

“Our principal purpose is how to fairly monetize a high fixed cost,” said Powell.

Powell mentioned costs like digging up streets, laying cable and operational expenses. Except the cable industry long ago stopped aggressive buildouts and now maintains a tight Return On Investment formula that keeps cable broadband out of rural areas indefinitely. Operational expenses for broadband have also declined, despite increases in traffic and the number of customers subscribing.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC Internet v. Cable 8-20-10.flv[/flv]

Don’t take our word for it. Consider the views of Suddenlink Cable CEO Jerry Kent, interviewed in 2010 on CNBC. (8 minutes)

“I think one of the things people don’t realize [relates to] the question of capital intensity and having to keep spending to keep up with capacity,” said Suddenlink CEO Jerry Kent. “Those days are basically over, and you are seeing significant free cash flow generated from the cable operators as our capital expenditures continue to come down.”

Unfortunately, Charleston residents don’t have the benefit of reporting that takes a skeptical view of a company press release and the spokesperson readily willing to underline it.

If Comcast seeks to be the arbiter of ‘fairness,’ then one must ask what concept of fairness allows for a usage cap almost no customers want for a service already grossly overpriced.

Phone companies looking for a cheap way to increase broadband speeds are turning away from fiber optics and towards advanced forms of DSL that don’t bring cost objections from shareholders.

Whether your provider is AT&T or an ISP in Europe or Australia, financial pressure to improve broadband on the cheap is fueling research to wring the last kilobit out of decades-old copper phone wiring.

Alcatel-Lucent suggests VDSL2 Vectoring is one such technology that can enable download speeds up to 100Mbps using noise-cancelling technology to suppress interference.

But the advice doesn’t impress fiber optic fans who suggest any reliance on deteriorating copper phone lines simply postpones an inevitable fiber upgrade that could come at a higher cost down the road.

VDSL2 Vectoring and G.Fast are only as good as the copper wiring that extends to each customer. Up to 45 percent of North American wire pairs are in some state of disrepair.

Vectoring has been described as “pixie dust” by Australia’s former Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. Conroy was overseeing Australia’s switch to fiber service as part of the National Broadband Network. But a change in government has scrapped those plans in favor of a cheaper fiber to the neighborhood broadband upgrade advocated by the new Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull that resembles AT&T’s U-verse.

“Malcolm can sprinkle pixie dust around and call it vectoring and he can do all that sort of stuff but he cannot guarantee upload speeds,” Conroy told Turnbull.

As with all forms of DSL, speed guarantees are extremely difficult to provide because the technology only performs as well as the copper wiring that connects a neighborhood fiber node to a customer’s home or office. Upload speeds are, in practical terms, significantly slower than download speeds with VDSL2. Turnbull expected download and upload speeds on Australia’s VDSL2 network to be around a ratio of 4:1, which means a customer who has a download speed of 25Mbps per second would receive an upload speed of around 6Mbps.

In the lab, VDSL2 Vectoring delivers promising results, with speeds as high as 100Mbps on the download side. DSL advocates are excited about plans to boost those speeds much higher, as much as 1,000Mbps, using G.Fast technology now under development and expected in 2015. VDSL2 Vectoring and G.Fast both require operators to minimize copper line lengths for best results. Unfortunately, dilapidated copper networks won’t work well regardless of the line length, and with many telephone companies cutting back upkeep budgets for the dwindling number of customers still using landlines, an estimated 15-45 percent of all line pairs are now in some state of disrepair.

Assuming lab-like conditions, G.Fast can deliver 500Mbps over copper lines less than 100 meters long and 200Mbps over lines between 100 and 200 meters in length.

G.Fast also allows for closer symmetrical speeds, so upload rates can come close or match download speeds.

This cabinet houses the connection between a fiber optic cable and copper phone wiring.

Providers prefer the copper-fiber approach primarily for cost reasons. There are estimates deploying a G.Fast-capable VDSL service to a home would cost around 70 percent less than fiber to the home service. Workers would not need to enter customer homes either, offering less-costly self-install options.

Telekom Austria and Swisscom are among providers committed to launching the technology. Both countries are mountainous and have many rural areas to serve. Fiber rich providers are also looking at the technology for rural customers too costly or too remote to service with fiber.

Critics question the real world performance of both VDSL2 Vectoring and G.Fast on compromised copper landline networks. Decades of repairs, deteriorating insulation, corroded wires, water ingress, and RF interference can all conspire to deliver a fraction of promised speeds.

Many critics also point to the required aggressive deployment of fiber/VDSL cabinets — unsightly and occasionally loud “lawn refrigerators” that sit either in the right of way in front of homes or hang from nearby utility poles. To get the fastest possible speeds, one cabinet may be needed for every four or five homes, depending on lot size. Australia’s VDSL network, without Vectoring or G.Fast requires at least 70,000 cabinets, each powered by the electric grid and temporary backup batteries that keep services running for 1-2 hours in the event of a power failure. The batteries need to be decommissioned periodically and, in some instances, have caused explosions.

The costs of electric consumption, backup batteries, infrastructure, and maintenance of copper lines must be a part of the cost equation before dismissing fiber to the home as too expensive.

Time Warner Cable customers in Los Angeles, New York, and Hawaii subscribed to the company’s top 50/5Mbps Ultimate speed tier will get a free upgrade to 100/5Mbps between now and the end of this year.

“Residential customers in Los Angeles who subscribe to our Ultimate 50 tier are being automatically upgraded to Ultimate 100 at no extra cost,” said Time Warner’s Andrew Russell. “Ultimate 50 residential customers in New York City and Hawaii will be upgraded by year’s end. By early 2014, all customers in these markets will have access to Ultimate 100, with more TWC markets to follow next year.”

“Consumers are adding more and more connected devices into their digital lifestyle,” said Steve Cook, general manager of Time Warner Cable residential Internet. “These new ultra-fast Internet speeds are designed to satisfy their growing demand to stream, download and connect simultaneously across multiple devices.”

Time Warner Cable announced several speed upgrades over the last year, but it still remains the least aggressive major cable operator in the speed category. Among the largest five cable operators, Time Warner Cable’s premium speed tiers are the slowest, with top upstream speeds of just 5Mbps and a maximum downstream speed of 50Mbps for most. But Time Warner Cable has no compulsory usage caps or consumption billing.

Over the last year, Time Warner Cable increased speeds for all but their Extreme customers (30/5Mbps), the only plan to have not seen any major speed boost in most markets since being standardized as an entry level DOCSIS 3 tier.

Time Warner also announced a speed improvement for their budget-conscious Lite tier, now 1/1Mbps in most markets.

Priced at $14.99 per month, the new offering will deliver 2/1Mbps — adequate for basic web browsing, e-mail and limited multimedia use — and becomes available nationwide beginning Nov. 4.

“We’re making our entry-level product even better and more affordable for the casual Internet user and cost-conscious consumer,” said Cook. “At both ends of our speed options and everything in between, we’re focused on giving our customers the best experience at the best value.”

Time Warner Cable will now offer most customers seven different speed tiers, all unlimited use (except when opting in to usage limited plans in return for a discount):

• Lite: 2/1Mbps
• Basic: 3/1Mbps
• Standard: 15/1Mbps
• Turbo: 20/2Mbps
• Extreme: 30/5Mbps
• Ultimate: 100/5Mbps

Broadband in the United States costs far more than in other countries — nearly three times as much as in the UK and France, and at least five times more than South Korea, according to BBC News.

The New America Foundation compared hundreds of available packages around the world and found customers in America’s largest cities are getting the biggest bills.

Customers in San Francisco with a discounted low-medium speed bundle including broadband pay $99 a month. A near-equivalent package costs London residents $38. New Yorkers get some savings from Time Warner and Cablevision facing down Verizon FiOS. But it isn’t enough. In the Big Apple, a promotional bundle averages $70 a month. “C’est la vie,” say Parisians. They only pay $35 for about the same. Even Washington, D.C. residents, which include the country’s most powerful politicians, pay Comcast its $68 asking price. In Seoul, South Korea, a comparable offer costs $15 a month.

High asking prices don’t buy better service. According to a report by the OECD issued over the summer, the United States ranks among the worst in terms of broadband-only pricing. With an average price of $90 a month for 45Mbps service, the U.S. ranked 30th out of 33 countries. Add phone and television service and the price spikes to around $200.

The BBC pondered why there is such a disparity in pricing. The answer was easy to spot: the lack of true competition.

“Americans pay so much because they don’t have a choice,” said Susan Crawford, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama on science, technology and innovation policy. “We deregulated high-speed Internet access 10 years ago and since then we’ve seen enormous consolidation and monopolies, so left to their own devices, companies that supply Internet access will charge high prices, because they face neither competition nor oversight.”

Although Americans can name the largest and deep pocketed providers — Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Cablevision, CenturyLink, Cox, and Frontier — most cannot choose from more than one cable provider and one telephone company. Comcast does not compete against Time Warner and AT&T does not compete against Verizon, except in the wireless world where both companies offer near-identical plans and pricing.

Comcast is quite the gouger in San Francisco.

Bay area customers told the BBC they get bills ranging from $120 a month for television and broadband (not including a $7 modem rental fee) to $200 a month for phone, TV, and Internet access. That same cable company is now testing a 300GB monthly usage cap on broadband in several American cities.

In contrast South Korea offers ubiquitous free Wi-Fi letting customers avoid usage charges. Home broadband is fast and cheap. Most pay $20 a month for 100Mbps.

Digging deeper, the BBC found clues why robust broadband competition delivers savings for consumers in Europe and Asia while Americans pay more.

Rick Karr, who made a PBS documentary in the UK comparing broadband costs at home and abroad, said the critical moment came when the British regulator Ofcom forced British Telecom to open its network and allow other companies to sell broadband over its copper telephone wires. In the United States, regulators never forced cable operators to open their networks, and after a 6-3 Supreme Court decision upheld the cable industry’s insistence it need not share access with competitors, telephone companies quickly called for parity.

A 2005 Supreme Court decision upheld the cable industry’s right to keep competitors off its cable broadband network.

Some argue the ruling promotes more competition by provoking competitors to build their own networks. But current conventional wisdom among the investment community teaches one cable and one phone company is considered good enough. Additional providers would erode the standing of all and force price cutting to compete.

There are exceptions. Although Google’s fiber to the home service has drawn national attention for its inexpensive gigabit fiber broadband network ($70 for broadband-only service), at least 150 cities are served by the public sector — co-op or publicly owned utility companies that offer broadband, often delivered over fiber optic networks.

Those networks often charge considerably less than the incumbent cable operator or phone company, a fact that has driven many privately run operators to seek legislative bans on community broadband.

In response to the report, telecommunications companies avoided the topic of prices and focused instead on value for money and the future.

Lowell McAdam, CEO of Verizon Communications, said Europe was replete with a decade of underinvestment, leaving many with less than 30Mbps service. The National Cable and Telecommunications Association said it was difficult to make international comparisons on price and Scott Cleland, part of the industry-funded NetCompetition website claimed although people may pay higher bills, they can at least choose among phone, cable, wireless or satellite.

“We may be paying more in your eyes today but we are building for tomorrow and the long-term,” said Cleland.