Phillip "No, I won't take your word for it" Dampier

Did you realize if you are pro-Net Neutrality, you’re probably pro-piracy and a broadband hog?  That’s the new low achieved this past week by Net Neutrality opponents who are spending millions trying to protect their broadband fiefdoms from any regulation.  But even if they lose their fight to stop Net Neutrality when they find consumers won’t accept a throttled “network managed” broadband future, providers will be “forced” to control those dirty pirates and broadband hogs with usage limits and overlimit fees to help “pay for network expansion.”

It’s why Net Neutrality and Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps and “consumption billing” go hand in hand.  What providers can’t profit from on one end they’ll try from another.

Longtime readers of Stop the Cap! already know how this scam works.  Canadian broadband users got stuck with both: speed throttles -and- usage caps and overlimit fees.  Assuming purposely throttled speeds are banned by Net Neutrality policies, simply under-investing in network expansion, despite the rampant profit-earning capacity broadband delivers, gets us to the same place — throttled speeds from overcongested networks and a convenient excuse to impose usage limits and other control measures to more “fairly” provide service to every customer.  Best of all, providers can pocket the overlimit fees charged to customers who exceed their allowance and train them to use less broadband with fears of more stinging penalty fees on their next bill.

Back in 2008, when Stop the Cap! launched, we challenged providers to provide the raw data to prove their assertions that they needed to impose formal limits and so-called “consumption-based billing” and abandon the lucrative flat rate pricing model that earns them billions in profits every year.  Of course, they have always refused, citing “competitive reasons,” “customer privacy,” or some combination of laws that supposedly prohibits any third party analysis.  Of course, they’re only too happy to characterize usage themselves, and we’re supposed to trust them — the same people that want to use that data to justify Internet Overcharging schemes.  Independent analysis?  When broadband pigs fly!

Now, telecom analyst Benoit Felten from the Yankee Group is asking the same questions on his Fiberevolution blog and issuing a challenge:

So here’s a challenge for them: in the next few days, I will specify on this blog a standard dataset that would enable me to do an in-depth data analysis into network usage by individual users. Any telco willing to actually understand what’s happening there and to answer the question on the existence of hogs once and for all can extract that data and send it over to me, I will analyse it for free, on my spare time. All I ask is that they let me publish the results of said research (even though their names need not be mentioned if they don’t wish it to be). Of course, if I find myself to be wrong and if indeed I manage to identify users that systematically degrade the experience for other users, I will say so publicly. If, as I suspect, there are no such users, I will also say so publicly. The data will back either of these assertions.

Felton’s co-author Herman offers his assessment:

Unfortunately, to the best of our knowledge, the way that telcos identify the Bandwidth Hogs is not by monitoring if they cause unfair traffic congestion for other users. No, they just measure the total data downloaded per user, list the top 5% and call them hogs.

For those service providers with data caps, these are usually set around 50 Gbyte and go up to 150 Gbyte a month. This is therefore a good indication of the level of bandwidth at which you start being considered a “hog”.  But wait: 50 Gbyte a month is… 150 kbps average (0,15 Mbps), 150 Gbyte a month is 450 kbps on average. If you have a 10 Mbps link, that’s only 1,5 % or 4,5 % of its maximum advertised speed!

And that would be “hogging”?

The fact is that what most telcos call hogs are simply people who overall and on average download more than others. Blaming them for network congestion is actually an admission that telcos are uncomfortable with the ‘all you can eat’ broadband schemes that they themselves introduced on the market to get people to subscribe. In other words, the marketing push to get people to subscribe to broadband worked, but now the telcos see a missed opportunity at price discrimination…

TCP/IP is by definition an egalitarian protocol. Implemented well, it should result in an equal distribution of available bandwidth in the operator’s network between end-users; so the concept of a bandwidth hog is by definition an impossibility. An end-user can download all his access line will sustain when the network is comparatively empty, but as soon as it fills up from other users’ traffic, his own download (or upload) rate will diminish until it’s no bigger than what anyone else gets.

Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) has a better idea to stop Internet Overcharging: the Broadband Internet Fairness Act (HR 2902), which would ban unjustified billing schemes for broadband

The arbitrary nature of what constitutes a “hog” invalidates providers’ arguments at the outset.  Frontier defines a hog as someone who consumes more than 5GB.  Comcast sets their definition of a broadband piggy at 250GB.  The gap between the two is wide enough to allow a small planet to slip through unencumbered.

If a consumer does all of their downloading from midnight to six the following morning, are they as much of a hog on a shared cable modem network as the user watching Hulu during prime broadband usage time?  Probably not.  If a cable provider tries to force too many homes to share the same finite amount of bandwidth available in a designated area, service will slow for everyone during peak usage times.  But nobody will notice or care if customers are maxing out their connection in the middle of the night.  The appropriate answer, especially for an industry that enjoys enormous profits, is to expand their network to maintain basic quality of service at peak times.  DOCSIS 3 upgrades for cable are cost efficient, flexible and often profitable, because providers can market new, premium-priced speed tiers to those who want cutting edge service.

Instead, some providers see delaying upgrades as a better answer, enjoying the cost savings that follow implementation of usage caps, limits and other overcharging schemes which artificially limit demand and further monetize their broadband service offerings.

Unfortunately, even if Felten got responses from providers, he’ll be forced to trust the integrity of data he didn’t collect himself.  Rep. Eric Massa has a better idea.  His proposed Broadband Internet Fairness Act would ban such overcharging schemes unless providers could prove to the satisfaction of a federal agency that such pricing was warranted.  The big difference is that providing “massaged” data to Mr. Felton might be naughty, but would be downright criminal if tried with the federal government.

Shouldn’t the central lesson here be to “trust but verify?”

Rogers Communications wants you to watch television on your broadband service, but not too much.  The Canadian cable company’s On Demand Online service was previewed Monday at a media event with plans for a public launch on November 30.

On Demand Online will showcase specific television shows as well as the entire lineup of certain channels.  The service has more than a dozen partner networks providing programming, among them TVOntario, Treehouse, Citytv, SuperChannel, and Sportsnet.

Premium programming will be available to Rogers subscribers who also receive those networks as part of their cable television package.  No cable TV package?  No access for you.  (Update: Rogers says it will offer the service to customers of any Rogers service.)  For now, company officials say the service will be available for no additional charge, but will be ad-supported.  Using On Demand Online will count against your usage cap/consumption billing allowance.  The service offers two speeds for viewing – a low resolution 480kbps feed and a higher resolution 1Mbps feed.  Rogers intends to increase the quality of the high resolution service to 2-2.5Mbps in the near future.

Rogers rations your online TV experience with usage allowances that make sure you don't spend too much time online watching shows you should be viewing on your Rogers cable TV service.

Rogers’ usage allowances, a part of their well-established Internet Overcharging scheme, will make it difficult for those already spending a lot of time online to enjoy the service.  Watching the current high speed, higher resolution feed could exceed 1GB of usage in just over two hours according to Digital Home.  That drops in half when Rogers upgrades the quality of the feed.

Customers who blow through their allowance face overlimit penalties and fees on their next bill.

Qualified subscribers will access the service through Rogers’ broadband web portal using established account names and passwords.  While the service will work “on-the-go,” Rogers says it will be keeping an eye out for password sharing and will also impose any viewing limitations required by content producers.  That could mean what is okay to watch in Ontario is not okay in Alberta, due to licensing issues.

Stop the Cap! reader Ibrahim in Toronto wonders how Rogers expects to get a lot of customers excited about a service that will help erode their monthly usage allowance.

“Isn’t is fascinating that Rogers wants to effectively charge you for every hour you watch online when you’ve already paid for the channel on your monthly cable bill?  What’s next, a meter on top of the television set demanding a quarter for every 15 minutes of viewing?” he asks.

Susan in North York wonders why she’ll have to pay for every ad.

“When I read about this service, I thought we were finally going to get something like Hulu here in Canada, but with usage-based billing, who is going to use up their allowance watching shows with ads all over them — ads I am now going to pay to watch,” she wonders.  “I guess it’s newsgroups for me — I can download my shows without ads and pay less.”

While the program content can be fast-forwarded or rewound, commercial advertisements on the service cannot be skipped or hurried through.  Initially, the service is expected to show just one ad per program, but Rogers intends to eventually run the same number of ads consumers would find if watching the program live on television.  With up to 12 minutes of advertising per hour, that also helps slowly eat away your monthly allowance.

What are the monthly usage allowances for Rogers Hi-Speed Internet service?

Ultra Lite – 2 GB
Lite – 25 GB
Express – 60 GB
Extreme  – 95 GB
Extreme Plus – 125 GB

Please note: The grandfathered Ultra Lite and Lite monthly usage allowance is 60 GB. Also, Rogers Portable Internet and dial-up services do not have usage allowances at this time.

Will I be charged if I go beyond my monthly usage allowance?

Yes. If you exceed your monthly usage allowance, you will be charged as follows:

Ultra Lite – $5.00/GB to a maximum of $25.00
Lite – $2.50/GB to a maximum of $25.00
Express – $2.00/GB to a maximum of $25.00
Extreme – $1.50/GB to a maximum of $25.00
Extreme Plus – $1.25/GB to a maximum of $25.00

Please note: the grandfathered Ultra Lite over-allowance fee is $5.00/GB with no maximum, and the grandfathered Lite over-allowance fee is $3.00/GB with no maximum.

Annoying usage caps, allowances, and consumption billing irritate broadband users in those places where Internet Overcharging is established.  But the demand by consumers for unlimited broadband is so strong, some ISPs are giving way, looking for competitive edges that can win them new customers and keep the ones they already have happy.

Orcon, a DSL provider serving New Zealand, has announced it is exempting visits to YouTube from its data allowance until the end of January 2010.

“YouTube is one of the hottest properties on the web – with an almost endless supply of content. It makes up a big chunk of our customer-base’s usage every month. With the school holidays looming and the festive season in full swing we’re expecting a big uptake from our customers,” said Orcon chief executive Scott Bartlett.  “Streaming and downloading can rapidly chew through gigabytes of data so these holidays mums and dads can rest assured their data cap won’t take a beating. It is also a great opportunity for families to make and share their own holiday home movies with friends and family around the world.”

Orcon presently exempts several domestic websites, including TV New Zealand, from its usage allowance.  YouTube is one of the first international sites Orcon has exempted.

Orcon services its customers over the telephone network using ADSL and, in selected areas, ADSL2+ which provides service theoretically up to 24Mbps.

For Orcon customers, any streaming video exemption is good news, considering the ISP’s tiny usage allowances.

Orcon charges prices that would shock Americans:

Orcon’s Purple Plan provides a variable download speed (often 8Mbps or less downstream) and 128kbps upstream service with a 1GB monthly usage allowance for $29US a month.  Each additional gigabyte costs $1.50.  Their Platinum Plan doesn’t provide additional speed, just a bigger usage allowance.  For 20GB of usage per month, prepare to spend $95 per month.  Domestic long distance and local calling is also included in the Platinum Plan.  Orcon’s new ADSL2+ network is even more pricey, but can deliver faster speeds (12-15Mbps seem to be real world ranges for downstream).  The usage allowance is slightly higher on the ADSL2+ network, but not by much.  The highest allowance available tops out at 25GB.

[flv width=”640″ height=”405″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Orcon Broadband Iggy Pop Ad 11-16-09.flv[/flv]

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p style=”text-align: center;”>Orcon Broadband ran an advertising campaign to find eight New Zealanders to help Iggy Pop re-record ‘The Passenger’ live via Orcon Broadband.  This is the result. (November 16, 2009 – 2 minutes)

Phillip "He Who Shall Not Be Named" Dampier

I’ve tangled with Todd Spangler, a columnist at cable industry trade magazine Multichannel News before.  This morning, I noticed Todd suddenly added me to the list of people he follows on Twitter.  Now I see why.

Todd is back with another one of his cheerleading sessions for Internet Overcharging schemes, promoting consumption-based billing schemes as inevitable, backed up by his industry friends who subscribe and help pay his salary and a guy from a company whose bread is buttered selling the equipment to “manage” the Money Party.

GigaOm’s Stacey Higginbotham and Broadband Reports’ Karl Bode don’t pay his salary, so it’s no surprise he disagrees them.  Oh, and I’m in the mix as well, but not by name.  Amusingly, I’m “the StoptheCap! guy, who’s making a career directing his bloggravation at The Man.”

Todd doesn’t consider himself “an edgy blogger type because, as everyone knows, I am The Man,” he writes.

Actually, Todd, you are Big Telecom’s Man, paid by an industry trade magazine to write industry-friendly cozy warm and fuzzies that don’t rock the boat too much and threaten those yearly subscription fees, as well as your paid position there.  I’ve yet to read a trade publication that succeeds by disagreeing with industry positions, and I still haven’t after today.

Unlike Todd, I am not paid one cent to write any of what appears here.  This site is entirely consumer-oriented and financed with no telecom industry involvement, no careers to make or break, and this fight is not about me.  I’m just a paying customer like most of our readers.

This site is about good players in the broadband industry who deserve to make good profits and enjoy success providing an important service to subscribers at a fair price, and about those bad players who increasingly seek to further monetize their broadband offerings by charging consumers more for the same service.  As one of the few telecom products nearly immune from the economic downturn, some providers are willing to leverage their barely-competitive marketplace position to cash in.

It’s about who has control over our broadband future – certain corporate entities and individuals who openly admit their desire to act as a controlling gatekeeper, or consumers who pay for the service.  It’s also about organizing consumers to push back when industry propaganda predominates in discussions about broadband issues, and we know where we can find plenty of that.  Finally it’s about evangelizing broadband, not in a religious sense, but promoting its availability even if it means finding alternatives to private providers who leave parts of urban and rural America unserved because it just doesn’t produce enough profit.

Let’s derail Todd’s latest choo-choo arguments.

“The idea of charging broadband customers based on what they use is still in play.” — That’s never been in play.  True consumption billing would mean consumers pay exactly for what they use.  If a consumer doesn’t turn on their computer that month, there would be no charge.  That’s not what is on offer.  Instead, providers want to overcharge consumers with speed –and– usage-based tiers that, in the case of Time Warner Cable, were priced enormously higher than current flat-rate plans.  Customers would be threatened with overlimit fees and penalties for exceeding a paltry tier proposed by the company last April.  The ‘Stop the Cap! guy’ didn’t generate thousands of calls and involvement by a congressman and United States senator writing blog entries.  Impacted consumers instinctively recognized a Money Party when they saw one, and drove the company back.  A certain someone at Multichannel News said Time Warner Cable was “taking one for the team.”  At least then you were open about whose side you were on.

“Verizon just wants to make more money by charging more for the same service. What an outrage! It’s not like the company spent billions and billions to build out their network and needs to recoup that investment.” — Recouping an investment is easily accomplished by providing customers with an attractive, competitively priced service that delivers better speed and more reliability than the competition.  Provide that in an era when fiber optic technology and bandwidth costs are declining, and not only does the phone company survive the coming copper-wire obsolescence, it also benefits from the positive press opinion leaders who clamor for your service will generate to attract even more business.  Stacey’s comments acknowledged the positive vibes consumers have towards Verizon’s fiber investment — positive vibes they are now willing to throw away.

Verizon FiOS already gets to recoup its investment from premium-priced speed tiers that are favored by those heavy broadband users.  Most will happily hand over the money and stay loyal, right up until you ask for too much.  Theoretically charging your best customers $140 a month for 50Mbps/20Mbps service and then limiting it to, say, 250GB of usage will be an example of asking for too much.  Verizon didn’t get into the fiber optics business believing their path to return on investment was through consumption billing for broadband.

“Today’s broadband networks — not even FiOS — are not constructed to deliver peak theoretical demand and adding more capacity to the home or farther upstream will require investment.” — Readers, today’s newest excuse for overcharging you for your broadband access is “peak theoretical demand.”  It used to be peer-to-peer, then online videos, and now this variation on the “exaflood” nonsense.  It sounds like Todd has been reading some vendor’s press release about network management.  Peak theoretical demand has never been the model by which residential broadband networks have been constructed.  The Bell System constructed a phone network that could withstand enormous call volumes during holidays or other occasional events.  Broadband networks were designed for “best effort” broadband.  If we’d been living under this the peak demand broadband model, cable modem service and middle mile DSL networks wouldn’t be constructed to force hundreds of households to share one fixed rate connection back to the provider.  It’s this design that causes those peak usage slowdowns on overloaded networks that work fine at other times.

No residential broadband provider is building or proposing constructing peak theoretical demand networks that are good enough to include a service and speed guarantee.  Instead, cable providers are moving to affordable DOCSIS 3 upgrades, which continue the “shared model” cable modems have always relied on, except the pipeline we all share can be exponentially larger and deliver faster speeds.  Will this model work for decades to come?  Perhaps not, but it’s generally the same principle Time Warner Cable is using to deliver HD channels quietly ‘on demand’ to video customers without completely upgrading their facilities.  You don’t hear them talk about consumption billing for viewing, yet similar network models are in place for both.

“Is it fairer to recover that necessary investment in additional capacity from the heaviest users, who are driving the most demand?” Apparently so, because providers already do that by charging premium pricing for faster service tiers attractive to the heaviest users.  But Todd, as usual, ignores the publicly-available financial reports which tell a very different tale – one where profits run in the billions of dollars for broadband service, where many providers Todd feels urgently need to upgrade their networks are, in reality, spending a lower percentage on their network infrastructure costs, all at the same time bandwidth costs are either dropping or fixed, making it largely irrelevant how much any particular user consumes. What matters is how much of a percentage of profits providers are willing to put back into their networks.

Do people like Todd really believe consumers aren’t capable of reading financial reports and watching executives speak with investors about the fact their networks are well-able to handle traffic growth (Glenn Britt, Time Warner Cable CEO), that consumption based billing represents potential increased revenue for companies that deny they even have a traffic management problem (Verizon), or that broadband is like a drug that company officials want to encourage consumers to keep using without unfriendly usage caps, limits, or consumption billing (Cablevision.)

“From 7 to 10 p.m., we’re all consumption kings,” Sandvine CEO David Caputo told Todd. “Bandwidth caps don’t do anything for you.” The implication of this finding is that “the Internet is really becoming like the electrical grid in the sense that it’s only peak that matters,” he added. — I would have been asking Todd to pick me up off the floor had Caputo said anything different.  His bread and butter, just like Todd’s, is based on pushing his business agenda.  Sandvine happens to be selling “network management” equipment that can throttle traffic, perhaps an endangered business should Net Neutrality become law in the United States.  His business depends on selling providers on the idea that sloppy usage caps don’t solve the problem — his equipment will.  Todd has no problem swallowing that argument because it helps him make his.  The rest of us who don’t work for a trade publication or a net throttler know otherwise.

What would actually be fair to consumers is to take some of those enormous profits and plow them back into the business to maintain, expand, and enhance services that deliver the gravy train of healthy revenue.  In fact, by providing even higher levels of service, they can rake in even larger profits.  You have to spend money to earn money, though.

Technology doesn’t sit still, which is why provider arguments about increased traffic leading to increased costs don’t quite ring true when financial reports to shareholders say exactly the opposite.  That’s because network engineers get access to new, faster, better networking technology, often at dramatically lower prices than what they paid for less-able technology just a few years earlier.  With new customers on the way, particularly for the cable industry picking up those dropping ADSL service from the phone company, there’s even more revenue to be had.

Or, do you think spreading the cost across all subscribers, thereby raising the flat-rate pricing for everyone, is the better option? Note that Comcast did this to an extent when it raised the monthly lease fee for cable modems by $2 (to $5), citing costs associated with its DOCSIS 3.0 buildout.

The industry already thinks so.  As we’ve documented, cable broadband providers like Time Warner Cable and Comcast (and Charter next year), are already raising prices across the board for broadband customers in many areas.  Does that mean the talk about Internet Overcharging schemes can be laid to rest?  Of course not.  They want their rate increases -and- consumption based billing for even fatter profits.

If, on the other hand, you want to pretend that all-you-can-eat plans are sustainable at today’s price tiers, you’d be kind of clueless.

Every ISP maintains an Acceptable Use Policy that provides appropriate sanctions for those users who are so far out of the consumption mainstream, they cannot even see the rest of us.  Slapping consumption based billing on consumers with steep overlimit fees and penalties punishes everyone, and the provider keeps the proceeds, and not necessarily for network upgrades.

If Todd believes consumers will sit still for profiteering by changing a model that has handsomely rewarded providers at today’s prices, with plenty of room to spare for appropriate upgrades, he’ll be the clueless one.  The cable industry’s ability to overreach never ceases to amaze me.  Every 15 years or so, legislative relief has to put them back in their place.  It’s what happens when just a handful of providers decide it is easier to hop on board the Internet Overcharging Express and cash those subscriber checks than actually engage in all-out competitive warfare with one another – keeping prices in check and onerous overcharges out of the picture.

Nobody needs to know my name to understand this.  But some of his provider friends already know the names of our readers, because PR disasters do not happen in a vacuum.  They are also acquainted with two other names: Rep. Eric Massa and Sen. Charles Schumer.  If they want to go hog wild with Internet Overcharging schemes, that list of names will get much, much longer.

Brian Whitton, Verizon's Executive Director of Access Technologies

At least Verizon is honest about it.  As providers contemplate slapping customers with usage limits, overlimit fees, and other tiered pricing systems, they’ve typically said they’re justified because of the strain they claim heavy users place on their broadband networks.  One network that doesn’t face that problem is Verizon’s robust fiber optic FiOS network, which is on the way to upgrading from the ridiculously fast current speeds to the “next generation” of FiOS speed: delivering 10 Gbps downlink and 2.5 Gbps uplink, shared among 32 locations.  That makes the cable modem competition, which shares slower speeds among many more customers wilt at the prospect.  DSL instantly becomes the dial-up service of the decade in comparison.

Make no mistake, Verizon tells all who ask: Fiber to the Home is near-infinitely upgradeable for decades to come, simply by swapping out some hardware at each end of the pipe.

Yet Verizon began making noises about ending its all-you-can-eat broadband buffet this past September, when Verizon Chief Technology Officer Dick Lynch said Verizon was in favor of consumption-based billing, too.

But why should Verizon FiOS, often priced higher than the cable competition, opt for Internet Overcharging schemes when it has a network that is nowhere near capacity and will increase its speeds even further next year?

As GigaOm’s Stacey Higginbotham found out, the answer is – because they can:

Brian Whitton, executive director of access technologies at Verizon did acknowledge how valuable broadband has become—precious enough that people will pay for premium access to it, especially those using up a disproportionate amount of network assets. “Ultimately this is the fairest cost-recovery model, and with a tiering plan or a meter everyone is paying their fair shares to finance the network,” Whitton said. Unlike other ISPs, Verizon doesn’t view heavy bandwidth users as hogs, but it does view them as potentially high-end customers.

Yet Verizon already does charge users a fair share to finance their network, based on the speed tier that customer chooses.  Those high-end customers are already paying Verizon premium prices for the fastest available speeds on Verizon’s fiber optic system.  Verizon’s ability to recoup their investment becomes easier and easier as costs decline to construct the fiber optic systems that will protect Verizon’s viability for decades to come, unlike those traditional phone companies sticking with copper wire lines until the last customer out the door turns the lights out for good.  Verizon’s average revenue per subscriber has never been higher with its ability to market video programming, speeds that make most cable operators blush, and an infinitely more reliable telephone network, all on one bill.  That helps achieve subscriber loyalty, particularly when offering service that keeps customers happy.

Creating Internet Overcharging schemes for your broadband service simply to monetize consumption does not keep customers happy.  Verizon sees the cream rising to the top — charging broadband enthusiasts more while promising nothing for customers who use the service less.  With average consumption per broadband user rising, there’s going to be a lot more cream to skim, charging an increasing number of customers more money for the exact same level of service.

No consumption billing scheme to date has ever provided customers with a “fair share” system, because none of them result in no charge for no consumption or charge a flat fee per gigabyte.  Instead, customers are allocated a pre-determined allowance for usage, charged whether they use it or not.  If they exceed it, punishing overlimit fees are always the result, unless a provider takes another step towards monetizing broadband by inventing overpriced “insurance plans” to protect consumers from overage fees.  The cost of delivering that data is already built-in to the price of today’s broadband plans, and those costs continue to decline.

Higginbotham adds another factor in the equation: with insufficient competition, those “fair share” schemes can inflate prices and lower allowances at a whim, as most customers lack a wide variety of competitors to choose from, which could help keep the greed factor in check.

Most places have two providers that offer slightly different sets of services and plans, making it hard to compare prices. I don’t mind paying more for a better network (I do so for my cell phone), but most consumers lack that option when it comes to wired access. Comcast—which competes against Verizon in about 12% of its footprint—is rolling out faster broadband to ensure that customers don’t leave the cable provider for Verizon’s fiber. But in other areas of the country, such as here in Austin, Tex., folks must choose between DSL (with some U-verse) and cable that hasn’t been upgraded to the faster DOCSIS 3.0 speeds.

Austin was one of the test markets for Time Warner Cable’s reviled “consumption billing experiment” this past April.  In other test cities, it’s more of the same.  In Rochester, New York broadband service is realistically available from two major players — Time Warner Cable and Frontier Communications.  The former has apparently passed over Rochester for DOCSIS 3 upgrades because the cable operator sees little need to upgrade service in an area whose only primary competitor believes DSL service is good enough, one that has stubbornly kept an Acceptable Use Policy defining an appropriate amount of usage at a piddly five gigabytes per month, and thinks fiber is for breakfast cereals, not for Flower City residents.

Verizon’s words help call out the fiction that some providers have used to peddle Internet Overcharging schemes on their customers.  It’s not about “fairness,” it’s not about “exafloods and Internet brownouts,” nor is it about “expanding networks.”  It’s about profit, pure and simple.  When you have a duopoly in place for broadband and almost no regulation governing that service, the sky is the limit for price increases and limits on usage.

[flv width=”480″ height=”284″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Verizon Whitton On Telecom Delivery 2-25-09.flv[/flv]

Verizon’s Executive Director of Access Technologies Brian Whitton speaks about the future of telecommunication delivery technologies with Kimberlie Dykeman of Web2point0.tv at The Future of Television East conference in New York (February 25, 2009 – 11 minutes)