CenturyLink’s philosophy about offering gigabit fiber broadband speeds in Idaho can be summed up simply as “for business-use only.”

Jim Schmit, Idaho CenturyLink’s vice president and general manager, believes super fast broadband connections are overkill for homes and most businesses in the state.

“It’s like having a fancy sports car,” Schmit told the Idaho Statesman. “It might go 200 miles per hour, but what good does that do if the speed limit is 60?”

Schmitt’s attitude of broadband a-plenty is nothing new. In 2007, he told attendees of the Emerging Directions in Economic Development conference in Boise that “virtually all” Idahoans already had access to high-speed broadband. That was news to the audience, with about a quarter of the economic development professionals attending stating they represented a community that didn’t have it yet. Most of the questions related to how their communities could get the access they’d been told wasn’t available.

Seven years later, the Statesman reports more than a few homes and businesses in the region still rely on slow DSL, satellite and even dial-up access because faster options are just not available.

Idaho could find itself a bystander in the growing movement to deploy gigabit fiber to the premise broadband, despite the fact CenturyLink already has fiber infrastructure available nearby.

“We’re getting to the point where, for businesses in most places, we’re within last-mile connections for most locations,” Schmit says.

CenturyLink is willing to extend its fiber, but only if that fiber line reaches businesses needing gigabit speeds. Residential customers need not apply.

Fiber optics can be found in several office buildings in downtown Boise, which has been good news for established tech companies that need more bandwidth. Three data centers are operational in the city and would likely not be there without fiber.

But for home-based entrepreneurs of future Internet startups, most will be forced to choose between CenturyLink DSL or cable broadband from providers like Cable ONE, which offer slower speeds.

Smaller broadband providers have begun to fill the gap left open by the lack of interest from cable and phone companies. While Google is showing interest in building fiber networks in a handful of U.S. cities, many more communities are realizing they will not get gigabit speeds anytime soon unless they build a publicly owned broadband network themselves or rely on much smaller-scale projects under development in the private sector.

Patrick Lawless, founder and CEO of Boise voice recognition software developer Voxbright Technologies Inc., sees opportunity providing a limited fiber network in Boise. Lawless has plans to build a 2.6-mile fiber-optic loop and deliver television, phone and broadband service to apartment and office buildings in a manner similar to Google’s. It’s a small early effort, limited to a handful of businesses and new residential buildings — mostly apartments and renovated former office buildings or hotels. He plans to charge $99 a month for a package including television, 100Mbps broadband, and phone service.

With the project’s small scope and uncertain cost, CenturyLink says it isn’t too worried about the competition. For now they will continue to bank on offering only the broadband speed they believe customers actually need, and it will be up to a competitor to prove them wrong.

Charter Communications’ latest attempt to rehabilitate its reputation with customers in Fort Worth, Tex. arrived this week in area mailboxes, as Charter reintroduced itself as “Charter Spectrum.”

Fort Worth is the first major city to get Charter’s broad-based service upgrade that began more than a year ago with a switch to all digital television service.

The newly available bandwidth no longer needed to support analog television has allowed Charter to expand its video service to more than 200 HD channels, up from fewer than 100.

Customers also start their Spectrum experience with a free broadband speed bump — from 30Mbps to 60/4Mbps (with a barely enforced monthly usage cap of 250GB), and an improved cable telephone service with nationwide calling.

Charter Spectrum’s mailer is now arriving in Ft. Worth mailboxes. (Courtesy: TheTechGuru)

Charter CEO Thomas Rutledge openly admitted last year Charter had an inferior product compared against the competition. Upgrading Charter’s cable systems was designed to correct that and the company hopes its rebranding will deliver a marketplace reset, but some Charter customers remain skeptical.

“Same pig, fresh lipstick,” wrote one Charter customer in Missouri.

Others complain Charter’s upload speeds remain anemic at just 4Mbps.

Charter’s new pricing promotions were designed to simplify the shopping experience. There are now just three heavily promoted Spectrum triple play packages:

A customer taking advantage of the Triple Play Gold promotion will pay a one-year promotional price of $129.97 a month. (Customers can also select individual services or build their own double-play bundle). The fine print mentions the price rises to $149.97 the second year and then reverts to an undisclosed “standard rate” after that. TV set-top boxes are required on every cable-connected television ($7 a month each – not included in the price). The Internet modem carries no additional charge. Phone taxes, fees and surcharges are also covered, but other taxes, fees, and surcharges are not.

Offers are valid for new customers only, and those who have not subscribed within the last 30 days and have no outstanding debt obligation to Charter.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WLOS Asheville Charter Going Digital 11-11-13.flv[/flv]

Charter Spectrum arrives only after your local Charter system moves to all-digital television service. That happened last fall in Asheville, N.C., where customers were told they needed a digital set-top box on every television in the home. WLOS-TV covered the story back on Nov. 11, 2013. (1:44)

U.S. wireless carriers are on track to earn more than $100 billion this year from usage-based billing plans for mobile data, the first country in the world to break the symbolic $100 billion mark in data revenue.

Analyst Chetan Sharma reports Verizon Wireless and AT&T are statistically the largest recipients of revenue earned from metering data usage. For the first time in 2013, mobile data revenue surpassed voice revenue in the U.S., making data usage the most lucrative product available from wireless carriers.

A graph from the Economist published last year explains the runaway revenue growth at U.S. wireless carriers. The lack of significant competition has allowed U.S. companies to charge an average of $85 a month for data plans, which are nearly always bundled into compulsory packages of unlimited voice calling and texting. In contrast, customers in China pay just $24 for data plans. In the United Kingdom, the average charge is $9 a month.

Sharma said the only disruption to this revenue growth in the United States comes from T-Mobile USA, which has recently cut prices on its service plans, forcing AT&T and Verizon Wireless to react with moderate price cutting. But with the significant disparity in market share between AT&T and Verizon vs. T-Mobile, neither larger carrier is expected to take a significant hit to their bottom lines without a mass exodus to the country’s fourth largest provider.

Softbank, the Japanese company that now controls Sprint, has launched a lobbying effort to secure permission to acquire T-Mobile and merge it into the Sprint network. But with reports showing T-Mobile’s willingness to disrupt the wireless market, regulators are likely to be reluctant to remove that competition from the playing field.

While broadband prices in North America now typically exceed $50 a month, competition in the United Kingdom has brought Internet access pricing down to as low as zero as part of a promotion between BT — Britain’s largest telecom company and Northern & Shell, a newspaper publisher and owner of Channel 5.

Readers of the Daily Star and Daily Express found a four page pullout this week offering six months of free, unlimited use 16Mbps BT broadband service. After six months, the price rises to a discounted rate of $26.50 a month.

Those taking advantage of the offer also get free access to sports channel BT Sport. Readers take advantage of the offer by phoning a toll-free 0800 number or visiting the BT website with offer codes published in the newspapers.

In Britain, newspaper publishers struggling to hold readership are increasingly launching marketing campaigns that bundle broadband, television, and newspaper service into a discounted bundle package. The offers are an effort to stem declines in readership of printed newspapers and can be moderately effective if the price is right.

Robert D. Marcus has plenty to be excited about. After less than two full months on the job as CEO, he agreed to sell Time Warner Cable and exit his management role if and when the merger is approved. But he won’t be hurting, because he negotiated a bountiful golden parachute that will award him more than $56 million in exit compensation the day he leaves.

Courtesy: Jacobson

That is but one example of the kind of “innovation” Comzilla will offer Time Warner Cable customers. Others include charging top dollar cable modem rental fees, a broadcast TV surcharge, a completely arbitrary usage cap on broadband service, and an offshore customer service experience even more despised than what Time Warner Cable customers get. 

Without actual head-to-head competition, there is no doubt we will hear executives crow to Wall Street that a supersized Comcast has plenty of room to raise broadband prices even higher and to cut company investments in innovation it won’t need to succeed in a controlled duopoly market.

AT&T and Verizon executives — Comcast’s largest competitors — have shrugged their shoulders about the merger deal, believing it will have almost no effect on their bottom lines. Why should it? Comcast has found a growth formula that works — a tap dance away from competition — buy out other cable companies to grow the customer base instead of winning ex-customers back with better service and a lower price.

It appears Marcus’ grand vision for turning Time Warner Cable around with a massive investment in faster speeds and better service is now dead. All that is left on the table is the vague notion of a “significant investment to improve reliability and to enhance our customer service.” In other words – we’ll do a better job to make sure the service you already pay big money to receive actually works and we’ll do a better job answering our phones.

Survey results show the proposed merger is not at all popular with Time Warner customers.

Nothing about Marcus’ spammed e-mail to customers is likely to change that perception.