Time Warner Cable's office on Mt. Hope Avenue in Rochester, N.Y.

Don’t say we never gave you anything.

Another widespread Time Warner Cable broadband and phone outage struck Rochester, N.Y., this morning, leaving many customers with lagging or no service for several hours.

Customers are entitled to service credits, but Time Warner Cable only provides them when you ask.  We’ve made it easy to collect with our easy, breezy instant service credit request menu.  The online e-mail form usually takes the shortest amount of time.  A credit for $3.16 for our Road Runner Turbo account was posted within an hour of our request.

If your area experiences an Internet outage and you can point us to your company’s methods of requesting service credits, we’ll be happy to extend this service to other areas and companies.  Just use our contact form, linked above.

Stop the Cap! Presents Your Easy Service Credit Request Menu

Customers can request one day of credit for both phone and Internet service (assuming you have both services, of course).  Make sure you request -both- credits if you are entitled.

Sample Request You Can Cut and Paste:

I am writing to request a service credit for the phone and Internet outage that occurred in Rochester today, Wednesday Dec. 1st.  Please credit my account.

Methods to Obtain Credit:

1. Use Time Warner Cable’s Online Chat system, select Billing Inquiry, and type to a customer service representative.
2. Call (585) 756-5000 or toll free 1-800-756-7956 and speak with a customer service representative.
3. Use the Online E-Mail form, select Billing Inquiry, and send a message requesting credit.

Charlotte, N.C. Time Warner Cable customers can thank city officials in nearby Salisbury for finally provoking Time Warner Cable into boosting speeds for residents across the region.  Just as community-owned Fibrant was opening its doors for business promoting its new fiber to the home service, the area’s dominant cable company managed to steal some of their thunder.

Time Warner Cable this week announced the entire Charlotte service region, which encompasses Salisbury, is getting a free broadband speed upgrade this week.

“We substantially increased our download speeds and essentially doubled upload speeds for all of our Turbo and Standard Internet service customers,” said Mike Smith, area vice president for Time Warner Cable’s Charlotte operation.

The announcement allows Time Warner Cable to maintain its position as the fastest downstream Internet provider in the Charlotte region because Fibrant’s marketing department decided that 25Mbps service was fast enough.  No, it’s not, and Time Warner Cable showed them up.

Salisbury is located northeast of the city of Charlotte, N.C.

“This service upgrade demonstrates our commitment to deliver enhanced value to our customers. We are satisfying their thirst for more throttle,” said Smith. To access the new speeds, customers need to reboot their cable modem which is easily accomplished by leaving it unplugged for about one minute.

The company is also introducing two speed tiers in Charlotte this week. Customers will have the option of purchasing or upgrading to DOCSIS 3 Wideband Internet or Road Runner Extreme service. Wideband Internet–the fastest residential Internet experience in Charlotte–provides customers with speeds up to 50 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps upstream for $99.95 per month.

Road Runner Extreme delivers speeds up to 30 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps upstream for as low as $64.95 per month when bundled with any other Time Warner Cable Service.

As Stop the Cap! has strongly advised all municipal providers — there is not much point in providing fiber to the home service if you are not willing to capitalize on its benefits.  Offering a maximum speed of 25Mbps just is not going to cut it, as Time Warner Cable demonstrates.

Fibrant’s pricing models are also endangered by this week’s developments.  Road Runner Extreme delivers 30Mbps downstream for $65 a month (admittedly a bundled price) while Fibrant offers 25Mbps service for the same price (standalone service).  Fibrant still kills Time Warner on upload speed, but that’s a distinction that could be lost among many potential customers, and is easily solved by boosting download speeds as well.

Fibrant must immediately consider speed upgrades for their existing tiers to assure its value proposition and launch a new super-premium speed tier that can show off fiber to the home’s true capacity to deliver the best possible Internet speeds in the region.

Peer to peer traffic no longer represents the largest single source (by application) of broadband traffic on the Internet.  Cisco’s Visual Networking Study now finds online video streamed from websites like Hulu and Netflix to account for more than one-quarter of all broadband traffic, displacing file swapping from the number one position.

File sharing activity has routinely been used by providers dreaming of Internet Overcharging as an excuse to introduce usage limits and throttled speeds for their broadband customers.  Peer to peer software allows customers to exchange pieces of files back and forth until everyone manages to secure their own copy.  Cable operators, in particular, have complained this network traffic saturates their shared broadband lines because customers upload far more data than they would without this software.  Up to 44 percent of all upstream traffic from residential accounts comes from peer to peer traffic, according to Cisco.

Providers and their friends have started to give up on their scare stories of peer-to-peer “exafloods” and data tsunamis triggered from too many online users engaged in file swapping.  As we’ve argued for two years now, the glory days of growth in peer to peer are behind us for a variety of reasons:

1. Downloading copies of TV shows and movies, always popular on file sharing networks, has declined now that content producers are finally serving the growing market for on-demand video programming;
2. The growing popularity of downstream delivery direct to consumers has reduced wait times for downloading to near nothing — to the point where some users are abandoning peer-to-peer altogether;
3. An increasing amount of fake files filled with viruses and spyware has made peer to peer-sourced files from underground websites more risky;
4. Copyright enforcement and other legal actions have made file trading less palatable for some.

While peer-to-peer traffic is still growing along with other online usage, online video is growing far faster.

Now some want to move the goal post — blaming online video for “forcing their hand” to implement overcharging schemes.

Broadband Traffic by Application Category, 3rd Quarter – 2010

• The marked categories contain video.

Karl Bode at Broadband Reports writes that he found Sanford Bernstein analyst and cable stock fluffer Craig Moffett telling CNET that if customers cut the cord, cable broadband companies will simply turn around and begin metering broadband customers’ bandwidth. In fact, Karl adds, Moffett goes so far as to insist ISPs will have “no choice” in the matter as streaming services like Netflix gain popularity.

Instead of simply raising prices on cable broadband, Moffett said it’s more likely that cable operators would move toward usage-based pricing. That way consumers who use more bandwidth to stream movies and TV shows end up paying more per month for service than people who may be getting their video from the traditional cable TV network. Time Warner has tested usage-based billing, but the company faced a huge backlash from consumers. Still, Moffett said that broadband service providers may have no choice as bandwidth-intensive video streaming services like Netflix become more popular.

CNET’s Marguerite Reardon calls that scenario a “heads we win; tails we win” situation, especially for cable companies.

Would you tell this man you are dropping your Comcast video package to watch everything online for free? (Neil Smit, president - Comcast's cable division)

Last quarter, some companies saw the number of subscribers actually drop for the first time ever.  Now Comcast reports in its latest earnings call the same thing is happening to them — losing 56,000 TV package subscribers during the third quarter.  Comcast surveyed some of their customers calling to fire their cable company.  Most of them are not switching to a pay TV competitor, said Neil Smit, president of Comcast’s cable division.  Comcast characterized them as “going to over the air free TV,” but would you tell your cable company you are dropping their video package to watch everything on their broadband service for free?  For a lot of cable customers, that would be tantamount to calling them up and saying you are now getting free HBO on your TV.

Both companies are still denying online video is cutting into their cable TV package business, but it’s an argument some stock analysts have begun to make as they watch cable profits struggling to hit targets.  Watching extra fat profits bleed away because “broadband piggies are watching all of their TV online for free” just won’t do for folks like Mr. Moffett, who will be among those leading the call to slap limits on broadband usage to protect industry profits.  Why leave good money on the table?

But before Moffett encourages cable companies to install coin slots and credit card readers on cable modems, he has another idea: jack up the prices of broadband higher than ever while cutting video pricing, making it pointless for customers to jump ship:

“Cable’s broadband dominance opens the door for renewed share gains in the adjacent video market,” Moffett said in his report. “Cable companies could simply increase their a la carte broadband prices (since in most markets, households have no other choice for sufficiently fast broadband) and simultaneously drop their video pricing, leaving the price of the bundle unchanged, to recapture video share.”

He pointed to an example of this in Albany, N.Y., where Time Warner Cable raised its broadband price by 10 percent for its Internet-only customers to a rate just $2 below its promotional bundled rate for both services. The Internet-only price increased to $54.95 from $49.95. The 12-month promotional rate for video and data was $56.95.

Of course, Albany has Verizon FiOS breathing down Time Warner’s neck.  In late October, Verizon announced it was launching its video FiOS service in Scotia, just outside of nearby Schenectady. Bethlehem, Colonie, Schenectady and Guilderland already have FiOS phone and Internet services available, so getting a TV franchise to deliver competition to Time Warner Cable isn’t a big leap.

In Rochester (where Frontier Communications idea of video is a satellite dish), a similar promotional package from Time Warner runs $84.90 a month.

Highlights of the Cisco Report

• The average broadband connection generates 14.9 GB of Internet traffic per month, up from 11.4 GB per month last year, an increase of 31 percent;
• “Busy hour” traffic grew at a faster pace than average traffic, growing 41 percent since last year. Peak-hour Internet traffic is 72 percent higher than Internet traffic during an average hour. The ratio of the busy hour to the average hour increased from 1.59 to 1.72, globally;
• Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing is now 25 percent of global broadband traffic, down from 38 percent last year, a decrease of 34 percent. While still growing in absolute terms, P2P is growing more slowly than visual networking and other advanced applications;
• Peer-to-peer has been surpassed by online video as the largest category. The subset of video that includes streaming video, flash, and Internet TV represents 26 percent, compared to 25 percent for P2P;
• Over one-third of the top 50 sites by volume are video sites. There is a high degree of diversity among the video sites in the top 50, including video viewed on gaming consoles, Internet TV, short-form user-generated video, commercial video downloads, and video distributed via content delivery networks (CDNs). Video sites appeared more frequently than any other type of site in the top 50.

Recently, the FCC issued a report claiming Americans are often only getting half the broadband speeds they are promised by providers.  KTVX-TV, the ABC station in Salt Lake City, recently investigated whether that held true for local residents.

The results?  Most Salt Lake City Internet users don’t always get a good deal from providers that often deliver inconsistent speeds, even on premium priced plans that can cost up to $130.

Ookla, which has been compiling speed test data as well, reports the United States was in 11th place globally when it comes to being honest about what broadband speeds providers actually deliver.  Don’t get too excited — we score 30th on the download speed index.  More than two dozen nations deliver faster service.

Which nation scores at the very top of the honesty chart?  The Republic of Moldova, a largely-Romanian speaking former Soviet Republic.  In fact, ISPs in Chişinău, the capital city, are too modest, claiming speeds lower than they actually provide customers.  The rest of the top-10 honesty ranking contains a number of countries in eastern Europe — countries that blow the United States out of the water when it comes to telling the truth about broadband speed:

1. Republic of Moldova, 109.21%
2. Russia, 98.65%
3. Slovakia, 98.64%
4. Lithuania, 97.97%
5. Ukraine, 97.58%
6. Hungary, 96.80%
7. Switzerland, 96.72%
8. Bulgaria, 95.96%
9. Latvia, 94.83%
10. Norway, 93.97%

Five states manage to score high marks on the honesty chart, most of which are served by Verizon.  We suspect FiOS may be a major factor in why these states lead the others:

1. Delaware, 100.85%
2. Massachusetts, 100.07%
3. Maryland, 99.56%
4. Rhode Island, 98.83 %
5. Virginia, 98.36 %

KTVX found that the area’s incumbent cable company Comcast did manage to deliver promised broadband speeds, often when most customers are not using the service.  Speeds were far lower in the evening — prime-time usage hours — sometimes as low as 3Mbps.

“Qwest’s DSL is best forgotten,” says Stop the Cap! reader Sangi, who writes from the city of Roy.  “It’s so bad a lot of us think of it as dial-up on caffeine.”

Sangi used to receive DSL service from the phone company, which is planning to merge with CenturyLink.

“When we moved closer to town, cable was an option and that made Qwest something we could live without,” Sangi says.  “They never came close to the speeds they marketed and when we complained, they claimed we wouldn’t notice the difference when browsing web pages and checking e-mail.”

“Apparently Qwest considers the Internet good for little else, at least how they deliver it,” he added.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTVX Salt Lake City You Are Getting Half Your Promised Broadband Speed 10-22-10.flv[/flv]

KTVX-TV in Salt Lake City investigates broadband speed claims and finds residents don’t always get what they pay for.  (3 minutes)

Telephone companies will lose up to half of their broadband market share if they insist on sticking with DSL technology to deliver Internet access, according to a new report from Credit Suisse analyst Stefan Anninger.

Anninger predicts DSL will increasingly be seen as the “dial-up” service of the 2010s, as demand for more broadband speed moves beyond what most phone companies are willing or able to provide.  Credit Suisse’s analysis says DSL accounts sold in the United States top out at an average speed of just 4Mbps, while consumers are increasingly seeking out service at speeds of at least 7Mbps.  The higher speeds are necessary to support high quality online video and the ability for multiple users in a household to share a connection without encountering speed slowdowns.

A lack of investment by landline providers to keep up with cable broadband speeds will prove costly to phone companies, according to Anninger. He believes a growing number of Americans understand cable and fiber-based broadband deliver the highest speeds, and consumers are increasingly dropping DSL for cable and fiber competitors.  Any investments now may be a case of “too little, too late,” especially if they only incrementally improve DSL speeds.

Anninger says providers may be able to offer up to 18Mbps in five years by deploying ADSL 2+ or VDSL technology, but by that time cable operators will be providing speeds up to 200Mbps, and many municipal providers will have gigabit speeds available.

The impact on phone company broadband market share will prove bleak for phone companies in all but the most rural areas, Anninger predicts.  He says by 2015, cable companies will have secured 56 percent of the market (up by 2 percent from today), phone companies will drop from 30 percent to just 15 percent, Verizon FiOS, AT&T U-verse, and wireless broadband will each control around 7 percent of the market, with the remainder split among municipal fiber, satellite, and other technologies.

Anninger is also pessimistic about wireless broadband being a wired broadband replacement in the next five years.

A Credit Suisse online survey of 1,000 consumers in August found that less than half would consider going wireless only.  The reasons?  It’s too slow, too expensive and most plans have Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps and speed throttles.

Although cable companies are on track to be the big winners in broadband market share, still have one giant hurdle to overcome — a lousy image.  Just 36 percent of cable customers say they are “very satisfied” with their local provider.  More than 60% of FiOS and U-verse’s broadband customers said they are “very satisfied” with the services these advanced telephone company networks provide.  Consumer Reports has regularly awarded top honors to Verizon FiOS for the last several years.

Independent phone companies and smaller cable operators routinely score at the bottom, typically because they are relying on outdated technology to supply service.

This makes the marketplace ripe for disaffected consumers to jump to an alternative provider.  Unfortunately, as most Americans face a duopoly of the cable company they hate and the phone company that doesn’t deliver the services they want, there is no place for them to go.

Anninger also predicts the risk of broadband reform by reclassifying broadband under Title II at the Federal Communications Commission is now “minimal.”  That suggests Net Neutrality enforcement at the FCC is not a priority.  The Credit Suisse analyst says if action hasn’t been taken by winter or spring of next year, it’s a safe bet the Commission will never re-assert its authority.