Road Runner Turbo is getting a makeover in Indianapolis.  Faster speeds are forthcoming, but at a higher price.

Bright House Networks currently provides Road Runner Standard customers with 7Mbps/512kbps.  Getting better speed requires the purchase of Road Runner Turbo at a new price of $15 per month.  In return, Bright House is boosting Turbo speed customers to 20/2Mbps service, with PowerBoost temporarily accelerating downstream speeds up to 30Mbps.

In most markets, Road Runner Turbo is priced at $9.95 per month, but it’s five dollars more in Indianapolis.

Bright House headquarters in Indianapolis

Will the increased price for Turbo become a trend in return for faster speeds in other markets?

Ironically, the associated public relations campaign sells customers on signing up for Turbo to enjoy a better online video experience.

“Building the excitement toward the opening games of the Olympics, we’re able to add to the enjoyment of and access to entertainment and information with these exclusive new products and features,” said Wayde Klein, vice president of marketing and customer operations for Bright House Networks Indiana. “With our speed boost to Road Runner Turbo, customers will be able to take advantage of some of the highest Internet speeds available, making video viewing over the Internet an even better, real-time experience.”

The upgrade in broadband service is part of Bright House’s effort to improve service in central Indiana.  The cable operator is also adding several new high definition networks and introducing the “Start Over” feature allowing viewers to return to the start of a program in progress.

Bright House is licensed to provide Road Runner service, a brand more commonly associated with Time Warner Cable.

Bell has announced it will boost broadband speeds for selected residents of Ontario and Quebec as high as 100/20Mbps service through a fiber service upgrade it will begin this year.

While Canada’s largest phone company is providing a “fiber to the neighborhood” service that still relies in part on traditional copper phone wiring in other parts of Ontario, Bell promises to install true fiber to the home connections starting in Quebec City, and in new housing developments elsewhere in both provinces.

Quebec City was chosen because most of the city’s telecommunications wiring is installed above ground on traditional telephone poles.  Upgrading above-ground service costs considerably less than coping with buried cables.  It will take the company three years to complete the upgrade.

Bell claims the upgrades are part of a natural evolution of telecommunications service in Canada.

“Investment in broadband networks and services is a core strategic imperative at Bell,” said chief executive George Cope in a statement. “We’re actively building the communications platforms that support the growth of competitive new internet, video and other digital services now and into the future.”

Competition may be the key factor in Bell’s decision to upgrade service, particularly in Quebec.  Incumbent cable provider Videotron has effectively called out Bell for its slower broadband DSL service, which offers “up to” 7Mbps DSL service.  Videotron already provides speed tiers up to 50Mbps for just under $80 a month, and is capable of expanding service to 100Mbps in the future.

In Ontario, Bell faces competition from Rogers Cable, which itself has boosted speeds after a DOCSIS 3 upgrade.  The cable operator offers residents in the Greater Toronto Area 50Mbps for $100 per month.

But two things that will come along for the ride are Bell’s notoriously low usage allowances and throttled speeds when using bandwidth-intensive applications like file swapping software.

The company did not release what usage limits are anticipated for their fiber optic offerings, but consumers acquainted with Bell service are skeptical the upgrade will be worth the price.

“Who cares what Bell’s speeds are when you cannot use the service at promised speeds,” writes Stop the Cap! reader Noelle.  “Besides, if Bell’s usual stingy limits remain in place, if you did maximize your connection, you could blow through their usage limit in an hour or so.  As usual, we get to pay for what most others get for free as part of their subscription price.”

Some other online reactions:

“Sure we’ll all have faster speeds, but Bell will make us pay through our teeth for it. Faster speeds mean less time to reach the bit-cap limit = more profit for Bell. Also everyone with an independent ISP will continue to use whatever crumbs of service Bell wishes to dole out as part of it’s non-monopoly obligations. Having a hyper-fast internet with Bell is like having a Ferrari and having to drive the speed limit everywhere. I know it can do 200mph, but Ma Bell limits me to 50. Its like throwing your money away.”

“Bell’s theoretical DSL download speed of 7Mbps is a joke.  Most people barely break 1Mbps, and after they’re done throttling you to death, you’d beg for that speed if you could get it.  I dumped the Bell nightmare years ago.”

“I can’t wait to find out what my bill will be after they charge me another arm and a leg to pay for all these upgrades.  Who cares about speed upgrades when their usage-based limits mean you cannot use them.  Instead of upgrading speed, how about upgrading your network capacity and do away with the usage limits and throttled broadband speeds?”

Metro Vancouver residents will have access to Canada’s fastest residential broadband service next Friday when Novus Entertainment launches its Net 200 tier providing 200Mbps service over a fiber optic network for $279.95CDN per month.  Customers currently paying $179.95 for the company’s 60Mbps plan will also receive a free upgrade to 100Mbps service on that same date.  No word yet on what the new usage limits will be, but Novus previously limited its 60Mbps plan to 360GB per month, unfortunate for a plan that carries such a premium price.  Novus charges 50 cents for each additional gigabyte above their various plan allowances.  Novus’ upload speeds are the same as its advertised download speeds.

Novus Entertainment has wired fiber optic cable in 33,000 large multi-dwelling units in parts of greater Vancouver, providing broadband, telephone, and television competition for incumbent cable provider Shaw Communications.  The two companies were embroiled in a nasty price war last year, with Shaw slashing prices to as low as $10 per month for video, phone, or Internet access.  To date, Novus has 9,000 subscribers, 8,200 of which subscribe to the company’s broadband service.

“We noted a recent survey by Harvard University which found that Canadians’ access to superior broadband performance and infrastructure ranked poorly among developed countries,” said Donna Robertson, Co-President and Chief Legal Officer of Novus Entertainment Inc. “While these results are disappointing, this provided Novus with the opportunity to not only take this challenge head on and provide customers with superior Internet speeds, but to also set us apart from the competition.”

Vancouver is the home of Novus Entertainment

Novus’ Net 200 will be available in selective buildings that are configured for 200 Mbps technology. With the vision of becoming one of Metro Vancouver’s major Internet and communications service providers, Novus continues to expand its service in Vancouver and Burnaby and plans to launch services in Richmond in 2010.

“Canadians want a service provider that delivers a fast Internet connection to meet their growing needs at a reasonable cost,” said Doug Holman, Co-President and Chief Financial Officer of Novus Entertainment Inc. “Yet they’re paying among the highest prices for some of the lowest speeds. Novus’ superior fibre-optic network allows us to provide our customers with best-in-class, reliable and consistent transfer speeds that the incumbents simply can’t offer.”

Shaw probably cannot match Novus’ 200Mbps service tier on their non-fiber optic cable network, but will likely continue to compete heavily on price with discounts that stun Canadians outside of metro Vancouver.  Shaw’s pricing in Novus-wired buildings is as much as $60 less than in other areas where Novus does not compete.

Novus also owns some wireless spectrum covering Alberta and British Columbia, so eventually the provider could mount a competitive challenge in the mobile telephone market, at least in western Canada.  There are rumors the company could partner with an eastern Canadian spectrum holder like Public Mobile, which owns spectrum covering southern Ontario and Quebec.  Neither company has launched service, and probably won’t for the rest of 2010, but could eventually provide additional competition in the overpriced Canadian mobile phone market.

New Zealand Telecom

New Zealand’s Telecom is the latest company caught with a defective broadband usage meter that overbilled 150,000 of their 500,000 customers for Internet usage never utilized.  The problem was tracked to a “technical problem” involving the company’s network upgrade in preparation for the introduction of TiVo.  Telecom’s engineering partner Juniper was held responsible for introducing the error which resulted in more than one hundred thousand customers finding their broadband speeds reduced for “excessive usage” to near-dial-up or billed steep overlimit penalties for the months of November and December.

On December 23, Telecom sent out letters to around 150,000 customers informing them of the error.

“Our reports show us that you will have experienced slowed internet speeds earlier than expected in your billing months,” said the letter, signed by Telecom’s general manager of broadband, Ralph Brayham.

Telecom spokeswoman Emma-Kate Greer told the New Zealand Herald all customers who had been affected by over-charging or slowed internet speeds had been identified.

They had been refunded and credits had been given to “customers who may have been incorrectly slowed.”

Customers shocked by their November and December bills were initially stuck taking Telecom’s word for the overbilling, resulting in lots of finger-pointing in New Zealand households.  The Herald reported:

Sarah Broughton, from Herne Bay in Auckland, said she had been frustrated by the slow broadband, and had accused one of her flatmates of downloading too many movies.

“There are six people living in our house. We all suspected everyone else was downloading heaps,” she said.

“We were blaming other people.

“I never suspected it was Telecom. You think when you give them money they are going to use it properly.

“It’s just been so annoying.”

Usage meters, a vital component of Internet Service Providers seeking an enhanced payday from Internet Overcharging schemes that bill customers based on how much data they consume, have been controversial because of questions regarding the accuracy of their measurements.  Most providers do not permit independent verification of the accuracy of their meters, despite their accounting for a significant portion of a customer’s monthly broadband bill.

It took a concerted, organized effort by members of the Geekzone website to “out” Telecom’s erroneous billing practices and get the company to issue compensation to impacted customers.

AT&T’s DSL customers are promised high speed service that can never be delivered thanks to speed caps and dishonest marketing.  That is the premise of a lawsuit filed against AT&T way back in 2005 in St. Louis County Circuit Court.  After years of languishing, the lawsuit has recently been certified a “class action,” which means it could eventually expose AT&T to thousands of settlements with DSL customers all the way back to 2000 in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas.

An attorney with Gray, Ritter & Graham in St. Louis, which is handling the case, accused AT&T of making speed claims for its DSL service it knew it could never actually deliver to consumers.  The suit describes several instances where customers’ modems were artificially locked at speeds far lower than promised in company advertising, often making it impossible to reach even the minimum promised speeds.

“They were being charged for these high speeds that could not be delivered,” said Don Downing, an attorney with the firm.

AT&T admits it does cap DSL speeds, but calls the process “optimization.”  That usually refers to the process of identifying the maximum supportable speed a telephone line can handle with minimal errors, and then configuring the modem not to exceed that speed.  As DSL speeds will decrease the further away a customer lives from the phone company’s facilities, typically advertised speeds are often achieved only by a select few who live very close to the phone company’s exchange office.

The fine print in AT&T's DSL service terms and conditions

AT&T maintains records of every customer capped, and at what rate.  The legal firm handling the case considers that a potential road map of identifying impacted consumers.

AT&T has notified the court it may seek to appeal the class certification, but otherwise does not comment on pending litigation.

Many customers have not been impressed with AT&T’s DSL service.

“We recently left AT&T because our DSL, which worked fine, suddenly stopped working completely and when it was brought back up, it was almost as slow as dial-up. The service guy told me that was as fast as we would ever get with DSL, which was odd because two weeks earlier the speed had been fine,” Anne writes.  “Needless to say, we’ve switched to Charter (Cable).”

Another AT&T customer noted getting out of bad AT&T DSL service can be difficult, unless you are willing to pay.

Dano notes, “When you sign up, there’s a one year contract and termination fee on the lowest speed you’d have to deal with if you close your account early. They will get you either way.”