Time Warner Cable is blaming an increase in pole attachment fees in upstate New York for increasing the cost of doing business, despite the fact those increases will not apply to the cable company.

National Grid, which also does business as Niagara-Mohawk, is raising rates for third-party companies to attach new lines to the poles the electric utility owns.  The power company says it is the first rate increase since 2007, and covers the cost of engineering, safety reviews, and ongoing infrastructure costs.

The Albany Times-Union quotes Time Warner Cable spokeswoman Lara Pritchard’s reflexive complaints about the rate increases.

“Inevitably, any price increase to poles will impact our costs to bring service,” Time Warner spokesman Lara Pritchard said Monday. “At this time, we have no plans to adjust fees. We periodically assess all of our associated costs to do business, as any company would, and this would factor into that assessment.”

If so, it should be by a factor of zero because the pole attachment fee increases apply only to companies seeking to place new lines on utility poles, not those maintaining or replacing existing cables.

The New York Public Service Commission approved the utility’s request for a change in their “Make Ready” rates, which cover costs associated with new projects. Existing companies, including Time Warner Cable will continue to pay a locked-in rate of $11.13 per pole, which represents no change.

Verizon acknowledged as much, noting the company’s existing fiber and copper wire lines are exempt from the rate hike.

But not every company is being held harmless from the rate increases.

Major projects to extend fiber broadband service to rural Franklin and St. Lawrence counties in upstate New York could be at risk because Niagara Mohawk, the dominant power provider in the region, is raising the rates to place fiber on some 22,000 poles required for the network.

Slic Network Solutions, the Development Authority of the North Country and Ion HoldCo LLC are facing at least $3.5 million in higher pole attachment expenses the utility said nothing about when they reached an agreement with National Grid in December.

Taxpayer grant money is backing the projects, including Slic’s 136-mile network covering parts of Franklin County and another 660-mile project in St. Lawrence County.  Ion operates a fiber optic broadband backbone that extends throughout upstate New York.

Keith J. Roland, an attorney with the Herzog Law Firm representing the three companies, has filed a formal complaint with the N.Y. State Public Service Commission, calling the rate increase “unjust, unreasonable, excessive, and unlawful.”

Roland says the increased costs, which he calls “arbitrary,” could threaten the viability of the projects.

“Without access to those poles, SLIC, DANC and Ion and almost any other telecommunications, cable TV and Internet provider in rural area of Niagara Mohawk’s territory would be driven out of business or effectively be precluded from doing business,” the complaint states.

While America’s heartland is being wired for 3Mbps DSL service, residents in Pakistan are getting ready for speeds up to 50Mbps thanks to a major broadband expansion in the country.

Pakistan’s PTCL, the country’s state-controlled phone company, is working on a major upgrade to bonded VDSL2, the next generation of DSL, which can deliver more than five times the top speed of the country’s highest level of service, at a construction cost of just $200-300 per home passed.

PTCL, the largest broadband provider in Pakistan, has plans to complete the project in selected cities by the second quarter of the year, and then expand the service further out into more rural regions.

“PTCL is the first service provider worldwide to deploy a commercial VDSL2 bonding solution that aims at doubling the bandwidths provided to its existing customers,” PTCL President and CEO Walid Irshaid said.

Ishaid’s company chose VDSL2 over fiber to the home primarily because of cost.  With fiber installs now running around twice as expensive as a DSL upgrade, a developing country like Pakistan couldn’t justify the higher price.  VDSL is expected to be an important part of broadband expansion in the developing world, particularly in Africa, southeastern Europe, and central Asia.

Alcatel-Lucent, which is supplying equipment to deploy bonded VDSL2 service, says it has customers in western and central Europe as well.  Several providers are interested in VDSL2 technology because it could serve as a platform to deliver broadband, video, and phone service, much like AT&T’s U-verse.  Most Europeans get their broadband from DSL-equipped phone lines.

Pakistan hopes to eventually sell packages of service well beyond today’s maximum speed of 10Mbps, at a significantly lower cost.

Currently, Pakistan sells broadband ranging from a basic 256kbps connection (1GB limit) for around $3.50 a month, a popular 4Mbps unlimited package for around $24 a month, and 10Mbps service for a super pricey $119 a month.  With the upgrades, PTCL can either raise speeds, reduce prices, or a combination of both.  Outside of the 256kbps service, all other broadband packages from the company offer unlimited use.

OK for the $3.50 a month price, but it has a 1GB cap.

2Mbps unlimited service for $17.78.

10Mbps service is fast for today's DSL, but at more than $100 a month (ouch), it explains why Pakistan wants better and cheaper options for its citizens.

In what one website is calling a data witch hunt, AT&T is reaching out and touching some unlimited data plan customers the company suspects of “tethering” — the practice of sharing your smartphone data plan with other devices such as a laptop, iPad, or even home computer.

Just a short time ago, Stop the Cap! reported AT&T was tracking down “heavy users” that were using over 10GB of wireless usage per month.  But now it appears AT&T is starting to contact customers using less — as little as 5GB, warning them they must sign up for a tethering plan if they intend on tethering their phones.  Only many getting the warnings are not tethering at all.  Modmyi, which has an active forum discussing the subject, reports their latest findings:

The first round appeared to be users on AT&T unlimited data plans that used more than 10GB of data in March. The latest round appears to be similar users using more than 5GB in March. It appears AT&T is on a data witch hunt. We’ve seen the message sent to users who simply use a lot of bandwidth (and never even tether/jailbreak) as well as users that use unauthorized tethering.

What’s most shocking is that many users have reported calling AT&T and were asked if they were using Netflix, Pandora, etc. Some have been told that using those services is the definition of tethering. We’re not sure if this is coming down from the AT&T top, or if this is simply non-technical AT&T customer service reps that are confused about what tethering is. However, based on the number of user reports, and the chances that users are very likely reaching different reps, this seems like deliberate AT&T rep training. Seemingly unethically, many customers are being convinced to pay for a tethering plan when they’re in fact not tethering at all.

AT&T has sought to monetize data usage across all of their networks, first imposing a 2GB usage cap on their wireless customers and now plans a 150-250GB cap on their wired broadband services.

Visions of higher broadband bills for consumers... complete with usage limits.

In our continuing campaign to call out shallow analysis of Internet Overcharging, we present today’s latest example from Strategy Analytics.

This group, which claims to be “a leading expert on telecommunications tariffs research and analysis” for OECD and EU operators and regulators offered this gem: (underlining ours)

As and when these caps come into force, users will doubtless complain – much as they did with mobile broadband caps. Some will worry about overage charges, while others will bemoan the fact that the caps are set so high that they are paying for bandwidth they simply won’t use (which is kind of ironic, if they have come from a world where they were paying for unlimited usage). From a provider perspective, it is very much a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. The ‘trick’ for them is to strike the right balance between fairness – if you use, you pay – and simplicity/transparency, by not creating too many layers around broadband pricing.

We can probably expect to see providers follow AT&T’s lead in fixed broadband pricing. But before the critics start on the inevitable tirade against them, it is worth remembering that genuine flat rate pricing across comms services is not as prevalent as we would all like to believe – a closer look at service terms and conditions will reveal that.

The “critics” Strategy Analytics wants to lecture are consumers.

In nearly three years of covering Internet Overcharging schemes as our main focus of interest, we have never… we repeat never, heard of anyone complaining their home broadband provider delivered ‘too much’ usage allowance.  In fact, consumers who complain about broadband pricing point to relentless rate increases, particularly when they come on top of usage limits and/or speed throttles.

The only “strategy” on offer from this group is an apparent interest in raising consumer broadband bills with price tricks.  The ultimate in simplicity and transparency is today’s enormously profitable unlimited use broadband service that has raked in billions in profits for cable and phone companies.  Consumers need not think twice about every website they visit, providers don’t have to deal with billing confusion, customers are given the opportunity to buy faster speed tiers at a premium price that actually delivers value without restricted use provisions.

The group also claims unlimited broadband is not as ubiquitous as we might believe, hinting use restrictions can be found in Acceptable Use Policies.  The truth is, those restrictions which allow a provider to control traffic that proves harmful to the network (bot attacks, hacking, and viruses) or other customers (spam bombs, commercial use of residential accounts, running a server) have always been a part of Acceptable Use Policies since phone and cable companies started selling service.  Most providers responsibly enforce these provisions not as a backdoor usage cap, but to prevent activities that clearly create demonstrable problems for the provider or other customers.  Few consumers object to them.

In an upstate New York match-up, the Rochester/Finger Lakes region scored dead last in broadband speed and value, according to data from Broadband.com.

Why are broadband speeds so much lower in the Flower City?  Blame Frontier Communications, which continues to pitch its decade-old DSL product, delivering an average speed of 4.45Mbps, while other upstate cities enjoy access and competition from Verizon’s fiber to the home network FiOS.  Frontier DSL actually often costs more, after taxes and fees, than Time Warner Cable’s much-faster cable broadband product, Road Runner, which rates an average download speed of 12.77Mbps in Rochester.  Frontier does manage to pull one win — higher upload speed DSL providers can often achieve in cities where cable operators keep upstream speeds as low as possible.

Time Warner Cable has dragged its feet upgrading broadband service in the area to its DOCSIS 3 platform other upstate cities have had since last year.  DOCSIS 3 should arrive within the next 4-8 weeks, which should boost broadband speeds, but may not deliver lower broadband prices because of Frontier’s uncompetitiveness in the area.

(Source: Broadband.com)

The top city in upstate New York for download speed is the state capital, Albany.  But Buffalo wins the contest for upload speed thanks to aggressive competition for Time Warner from Verizon in the Queen City.  Buffalo also pays the least for service — nearly $5 less per month than residents in Rochester pay on average.  Syracuse scores in the middle — but closer in terms of speed and value to other Verizon-served cities.

Slow and expensive broadband service can hamper economic development and costs consumers more.  Unfortunately, there are no signs Frontier Communications has plans to do anything differently in its largest service area — a classic driver of the accelerating number of customers calling to pull the plug on their landline service.

Time Warner Cable's Road Runner vs. Frontier Communications' DSL (Speeds are downstream/upstream; Source: Broadband.com)