Rogers Cable: Setting the Bar Lower Than Ever

Just a day after Netflix announced they are coming to Canada, Rogers Cable has responded by announcing it is lowering the usage allowances of its customers.  Stop the Cap! reader Munly writes to inform us Rogers Lite service plan, intended for occasional users, has dropped its 25GB usage allowance to 15GB per month, making it suitable for even less usage.

New customers on Rogers’ popular Extreme plan will find their usage limit cut from 95GB to just 80GB per month.  But if you accept the cut in your allowance, Rogers will increase the speed on that tier from 10Mbps to 15Mbps, allowing customers to blow through that usage limit that much quicker.

Existing customers may be grandfathered in, at least temporarily, but Rogers is notorious for eventually terminating grandfathered plans and moving customers to higher-priced alternatives.

All this from a company that claims it offers its customers “abundant usage.”

Rogers buries in the fine print the fact customers can stay with their current higher allowance if they forego the speed increase.

AND AN EVER INCREASING BILL

With the new lowered usage allowances, Rogers offers tips for customers to reduce their usage, including our favorites:

Use medium quality photos when sending them through e-mail. Your family’s cherished memories don’t deserve high resolution, even if you want to send them to a digital photo lab for printing.  Maybe you could get the kids together and have them draw copies of those vacation pictures with crayons.  At least they won’t be online using up your Rogers Internet ration.

Be aware of how others in your home use your Internet connection.  If you are not spying on your family’s online usage, it’s your own fault if we send you an enormous bill.  In the time it took you to read these tips, your kids could have downloaded over 20 e-mails, looked at more than three web pages, or watched almost a minute of online video.  Don’t make us bill you for that.

Turn off Peer-to-peer programs when you’re not downloading. Better yet, since we know you are using them to steal the content we’d like to sell or rent you, stop using them altogether… or else.

Try the tools. No, we’re not talking about us, silly.  If you are doing more than reading your e-mail or browsing web pages, look out because we’re coming for your wallet.  You can try and outwit our overcharging ways by using our usage notifications service, which will flash messages to you that we’re about to cash in on your over-usage.  Hey, don’t say we didn’t warn you!  Remember, if you use Rogers Internet to download files, stream video or music or play online games, we own you.

Does this mean I should use the Internet less to avoid paying more? Is Sarah Palin American?  You betcha.  We want to get the most out of our customers who use their Internet service too much, which is why we expose them to up to $5.00 per gigabyte if they exceed our ever-dwindling usage allowances.  Our goal is for you to feel free to use the Internet as you always have, just so long as you recognize it’s not free and that you’ll need to pay us for every web page your read, more if you dare to watch cable programming online you should be watching on our cable TV service.  The only surprise you’ll have about your bill is that we haven’t found a way to charge you even more… yet.

What About Netflix? Seriously? You weren’t really thinking of using that service on Rogers were you?  A word to the wise — we can cut your allowance down even further.  Go outside.  Read a book.  Rent a movie from Rogers Plus or enjoy some great Rogers Cable TV.

Rogers Cable’s Internet Packages

A Before And After Comparison

Rogers Old Pricing and Usage Allowances

Rogers All-New Pricing and Usage Allowances, Effective July 21, 2010

Netflix is coming to Canada.  Sort of.

Canadians will be able to sign up for Netflix’s on-demand video streaming service beginning this fall, but will Canadians be interested in using the unlimited service on their usage-limited broadband accounts?

Netflix is not planning on bringing its rental-by-mail service to Canada, instead relying exclusively on streaming its library on-demand over the Internet. Netflix currently licenses streaming rights for over 17,000 titles in its 100,000 plus library.  How many of those titles with be licensed for Canadian subscribers is not yet known, nor is an exact price for the service.  Netflix will launch for English-speaking Canadians at the outset, with French to come later.  This is the first time Netflix is making its service available outside of the United States.

But many Canadians are questioning the value of Netflix in their heavily-usage-limited country.  Most Canadian ISPs have either chosen or been forced to limit subscribers’ broadband usage.  Even ISPs that want to offer unlimited service find flat rate wholesale pricing nearly impossible to get because of Bell’s stranglehold on the market.  Cable providers like Rogers have implemented their own usage limits to boost revenue and keep costs down.

For Canadians living under an average usage cap of 40-60 gigabytes per month, adding streaming video will only eat their allowance that much faster.

“Netflix and the Canadian press covering this story have ignored the reality of bit-capped Canada,” writes Stop the Cap! reader Jeffrey from Calgary.  “I would be paying $75 a month for a broadband account and be limited in how I could use the service.  The CRTC (Canada’s equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission) has been in the providers’ pockets for years and this is why high bandwidth services bypass Canada or risk failure if offered here.”

Rogers, one of Canada's biggest cable companies, also happens to own one of the largest chains of video rental stores: Rogers Plus

Jeffrey believes Canada’s largest broadband providers, including Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Telus, and Vidéotron will never allow Netflix.ca to gain the kind of foothold it has in the United States.

“These companies all own or control Canada’s cable, IPTV, and satellite TV services, all of which are threatened by an American company like Netflix,” Jeffrey notes. “They’ve already got universal usage limits on their accounts, but these guys will also run to the CRTC and Canadian government to throw up roadblocks over everything from copyright and licensing issues to Canadian content rules and the initially ignored Québécois.”

Jeffrey believes more than anything else, Internet Overcharging schemes will serve their role in keeping would-be competitors under control.

“In Canada, we already had the debate about who gets to use our pipes for free,” he says. “Thanks to the CRTC, only the providers get to use them for free.  Everyone else pays a usage tax to them which fattens their bottom lines while stunting the growth of Canadian broadband.”

In Quebec, it’s much the same story.  Asperger notes Zip.ca, a Canadian rent-by-mail service, can get him 20 new DVD releases a month for around $25.  If he signed up for Netflix, anything beyond five DVD’s a month would put him over his limit forcing him to “pay and pay, and then pay some more.”  With Canadian ISP’s increasing their penalty rates for exceeding usage allowances, the overlimit fee could easily exceed the cost of just sticking with Zip.ca’s by-mail service.

Or, for many Quebecers, the next best alternative is Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, which offers an enormous collection of DVD’s that can be checked out for free.

Canadian press accounts of Netflix’s imminent entry into Canada have largely ignored the limits Canadian Internet providers impose on their subscribers, something readily noted by readers who comment on those stories.  Canadian consumers are well aware of their usage limits, and they avoid services that could expose them to even higher broadband bills.

Those who use their Internet service heavily, unaware of overlimit fees up to $5 per gigabyte, will be educated by bill shock when their next bill arrives in the mail.  After that, no more Netflix.ca for them.

Still, Netflix.ca will probably deliver a challenge to the already-stressed Canadian video rental market where Blockbuster and Rogers Plus duke it out for a dwindling number of renters.  Price cuts have not stopped the erosion of interest in DVD rentals, and Blockbuster is mired in more than $900 million in debt, trying to avoid bankruptcy.

The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission's support of industry-promoted Internet Overcharging schemes may limit Netflix's success in Canada.

If Netflix’s streaming library, mostly of titles two or more years old, is deemed sufficient by many Canadians, it could also cause a wave of cancellations of premium movie channels and other cable services.

The Ottawa Citizen reports some analysts believe Netflix.ca will cause an earthquake in the Canadian entertainment marketplace.

Carmi Levy, an independent technology analyst based in London, Ont., believes Canadians can expect a major entertainment industry shakeup this fall.

Levy says Netflix will sound the death knell for movie-rental services such as Blockbuster and Rogers Video and will force a pricing war among traditional cable and satellite TV providers who will be forced to scramble to keep customers.

“Netflix is not some Johnny-Come-Lately to the market. Even though they are new to Canada, they have been so successful in the U.S. that only a Canadian living underneath a rock wouldn’t be aware of their brand,” Levy said. “It’s the most seismic change to the content distribution system landscape that we have seen. It forces the incumbents to change their business model.”

Levy said the arrival of Netflix will allow casual TV watchers to cut their satellite and cable TV bills in favour of Netflix’s all-you-can-eat monthly offering. He said the $9 U.S. a month charged by the company was carefully thought out and he expects to see a similar price on the service later this year.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CBC News Netflix Comes to Canada 7-19-10.flv[/flv]

CBC News discussed the introduction of Netflix Canada and how it will work with Netflix vice president Steve Swasey.  (5 minutes)

[flv width=”512″ height=”388″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CTV News Netflix Canada 7-19-10.flv[/flv]

CTV News and its Business News Network ran four reports on the impact usage caps might have on the service, what kinds of titles will be available, and what it means for Canada’s entertainment businesses.  (12 minutes)

Despite claims that broadband is not eroding Time Warner Cable’s cable television business, the nation’s second largest cable operator has begun a “TV Everywhere” trial to expand broadband viewing options for “authenticated cable subscribers” and plans IPTV tests by the end of this year.

A “small number” of subscribers are now participating in the TV Everywhere trial in the New York City area, accessing premium channel content online, if they also subscribe to the channel.

James Manchester, regional president of network operations and engineering in the company’s New York City system told Broadcasting & Cable that the tests will verify whether the authentication process functions properly.

Manchester expressed urgency that unless Time Warner Cable moves to manage video content online, the company will continue to lose subscribers.

He told B&C cable’s erosion of video subscribers, at a time when digital voice and broadband subscriptions continue to grow, makes it essential to move to more of an IPTV environment.

“It’s no secret that we’re losing video subscribers as an industry,” he said. “We can’t afford to wait.”

Time Warner Cable sees challenges from several potential competitive threats:

• Online video: Services like Hulu and Netflix, and time-shifting services that allow viewers access to on-demand programming online represent a real threat to the traditional cable-TV model.  Customers can cut the cable cord and watch everything online for free or for around $10 a month.
• IPTV: Niche and ethnic programming delivered over IPTV networks allows third parties to create mini broadband-based cable systems using hardware that mimics a cable box, delivering potentially dozens of channels to subscribers without giving a cut to the cable company.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Skyangel IPTV.flv[/flv]

SkyAngel used to deliver its lineup of Christian television channels over satellite, but switched to an IPTV platform in 2007.  This video explains how the service works.  (3 minutes)

TV Everywhere allows Time Warner Cable to control who has access to cable programming, restricting it only to those who haven’t cut cable’s cord.

Time Warner Cable’s solution for IPTV competition is to bring those services under TWC’s own menu of offerings.

One example in KyLin TV, a multi-channel Chinese language IPTV service.  Today, customers pay KyLin TV for service they watch over Road Runner’s network.  But Time Warner Cable could potentially get a piece of the action if it moved KyLin TV into its own IPTV package.

Manchester says TWC would like to be able to make such IPTV programming services an extension of the TWC offering.

Despite some earlier assertions made by company officials that DOCSIS 3 upgrades were designed to improve broadband service for Time Warner Cable customers, it turns out DOCSIS 3 is the foundation for the cable company’s future IPTV and “big pipe” platform.  Manchester says DOCSIS 3 will enable the company to service the wired home of the future.  It will deliver content to an edge device (such as an advanced router) with a hard drive and caching capacity that will link to home computers, MP3 players, or any other device on which consumers want to view content.

One in eight Americans are poised to drop or curtail their cable, satellite, or telco-TV packages in the coming year because the bill has gotten too expensive, according to a new study.

With an average cable bill now $71 a month and rising an average five percent a year, middle class consumers are being priced out of pay television according to the Yankee Group.  The Boston research firm conducted the study of cable, satellite and telephone-company IPTV services and surveyed 6,000 consumers from across the country.

“At the most basic level, the decision to cut off pay TV services is an economic one,” says Vince Vittore, principal analyst and co-author of the report. “As programmers continue to demand ever higher fees, which inevitably get passed on to consumers, we believe more consumers will be forced to consider coax-cutting.”

Coming on the heels of a steady erosion away from traditional telephone landline service which has threatened the fortunes of major phone companies, the implications of millions of consumers coax-cutting are not lost on cable operators or phone companies getting into the IPTV business.

Back to the Future: Older Americans Going Back to Rabbit Ears When Confronted With Today’s Cable Prices

Retro TV is a network that piggybacks on digital television sub-channels in many cities across the country. The network airs classic television shows popular with older audiences.

Those dropping service often take diverging paths for their future entertainment in a cable-free household.  Among older consumers, especially those on fixed incomes, it is back to the future with over the air television and a pair of rabbit ears or rooftop antenna designed to receive digital television broadcasts.

Among these consumers, the most common reason for canceling service is cost.  Many signed up for cable in the 1970s and 1980s for better picture quality, and with the right rooftop antenna, last year’s conversion to digital television solved that problem for over the air viewers.  Post-cable, many are pleasantly surprised to discover new channels piggybacking on traditional stations, several offering classic TV shows from decades past that are familiar and welcome in older Americans’ homes.  Even better — no confusing equipment to deal with.

Jesus Chea, 59, of Queens, told the NY Post he ditched his Time Warner subscription “because I’m on a fixed income and I believe it’s not worth the money.”

To get around the $136 monthly bill, the retiree, who lives with his wife and two grown sons, had antennas installed on both of his TVs — at a cost of $298 — taking advantage of last summer’s national conversion from analog to digital broadcasts.

“Antenna is great,” he says, “because they don’t charge you for rent on digital boxes and they don’t charge you for the remote control. When you add up all those extra fees and so many extra [cable] charges, even if it’s three or four extra dollars, they all add up.”

For many others, the arrival of Redbox video rental kiosks in area grocers has replaced the HBO subscription, and has proven to be a worthwhile supplement to the coax-cutter who drops cable service altogether.

The savings from cord cutting can be dramatic.  Some have saved upwards of $60 a month — $720 a year just by dropping the cable-TV part of their package.  Those kinds of savings have become important when wages are frozen or in decline, jobs are hard to find, and everything else is still going up in cost.

The cable industry has never imagined a country where consumers have quit cable (or satellite) and gone “cold turkey,” especially when upwards of 90 percent of Americans pay for some type of entertainment — pay television, movie rentals, or broadband video.

But as the Yankee Group discovered, Americans are simply tapped out.

Your Father’s Cable TV: Why Would Anyone Under 30 Subscribe?

For younger Americans, the addiction to cable or pay television was something that afflicted their parents.  They never had a problem dropping service from a cable company with whom they never did business.  The teens and twenty-somethings have spent most of their video dollar on broadband and DVD’s for much of their viewing, not cable.

Younger cable subscribers are most at risk for coax cutting, rationalizing they can watch most of their favorite shows online through services like Netflix, Hulu, or websites run by the major American networks.  Others download content (legally or otherwise), rent or buy DVD’s, or subscribe to services like Netflix which combine video streaming with DVD rentals-by-mail.

Many of these viewers also own devices that can bring web-based viewing right to their 50-inch television sets, using set top boxes or video game consoles with web connections.

“Admittedly, this is a small phenomenon now, but a number or recent transactions and new items point to a shift in consumer thinking,” said Vittore.

With the increasing ubiquity of Internet-capable devices, the challenge to traditional coax-based cable TV has never been greater.

“Just like with telephone land lines, it’s going to become hard to sell pay TV to anyone under 30,” Vittore said.

Provider Revenge: You Won’t Get Away That Easy!

With billions of dollars at stake, providers and content producers are intent on not allowing a repeat of what happened to the newspaper industry to afflict their business plans.  Giving it all away for free is not their idea of a sustainable business model.  Keeping tight control over content and its distribution is their ticket to maintaining profits.

Many Olympic events were not aired on NBC television, instead moved to NBC Universal-owned cable networks.

Older Americans who’ve gone back to over the air television are least susceptible to provider revenge, but content is still king and the cable industry will own an increasing percentage of it if the NBC-Comcast merger is approved.  While the two companies are currently promising not to dispense with free over the air broadcasting, an increasing amount of content could be diverted to pay television channels like cable sports networks, movie networks, and general interest basic cable channels.  Broadcasters themselves are now hungry for the same dual-revenue stream their cable competitors already enjoy – advertising income and subscription fees.

Most of the coming wars over pay entertainment are expected to be fought on the broadband battlefield.  For younger Americans relying on Hulu and other video streaming services, subscription fees are coming.  Hulu promises to keep some free viewing options open, but additional access to back episodes or certain series are likely to be restricted only to those who agree to pay an anticipated $9.95 per month.  The cable industry’s own TV Everywhere streaming services offers a clearer dividing line — its available only for those who maintain their pay television package.

Broadband providers, often the same companies that stand to lose from the retreat from television subscriptions, are considering making up the difference with limits on broadband service to make sure consumers can’t watch too much online, or charging consumption fees for heavy online viewers to make up their losses on the TV side.

The long-standing business relationship between content producers and distributors, such as those between Hollywood studios and cable companies, have led to a united front against would-be competitors.  For consumers seeking access to the latest Hollywood movies through low cost rental services or online video, expect to wait longer.  The window of time between a movie release in the theaters and when it becomes available for rental through Redbox or Netflix is growing longer to protect video-on-demand revenues for the cable industry and DVD sales for Hollywood.

Some consumers don’t mind the wait, but are still regularly reminded what they can miss when they don’t agree to a monthly pay television bill.

Jeremy Levinn, a 27-year-old personal trainer from Manhattan, told the Post he jumped the cable ship last year, but Time Warner Cable reminded him whose still boss during the Olympics, when numerous events were available only on Universal-owned cable channels including USA, CNBC and MSNBC and not broadcast over the air.

[flv width=”384″ height=”236″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNN Converging Broadband and Television April 2010.flv[/flv]

CNN aired this review of the next generation of television sets capable of connecting with your broadband service to receive television shows and movies over the Internet.  (4 minutes)

A survey released this week by Arbitron Inc. and Edison Media Research found, for the first time, that Americans are more willing to give up TV than the Internet.

Asked to choose the ”most essential” medium, 42 percent of the survey’s 1,753 respondents picked the Internet, 37 percent picked TV, 14 percent said radio and 5 percent said those dead-tree format newspapers.

That represents more evidence that major telecommunications companies will need to lasso control of the Internet before the cable television profit train derails.  That’s because the Internet delivers the prospect of a two-for-one deal.  Enjoy your online web surfing -and- stream your favorite television shows online at the same time — no more ever-increasing cable-TV bill for channels you never asked for and don’t watch.

Even more worrying for big cable — young people are increasingly never bothering to sign up for cable television in the first place.  In the 18-24 age group, 74 percent said they would quit TV before surrendering the Web, and many never bothered with subscription television to begin with.

The last time Arbitron and Edison posed this question in a survey was in 2001, back when dial-up access still predominated.  Back then, 72 percent of respondents said they could do without Internet and 26 percent said they’d give up TV.

“The shift over these nine years has been steady and profound,” said Edison Research president Larry Rosin.

Some consumers don’t want to watch television over their computers and would prefer to be entertained in a comfortable chair in the living room.  But Internet video innovation is increasingly solving that problem by coupling your television or DVD player to the web.  Several providers like Netflix even deliver their streaming video service through video game consoles.

How do cable companies stop the herd mentality to broadband video, leaving those big cable TV bills behind?  Stick a meter on broadband service, and charge consumers for every TV show they watch or simply put a limit on their broadband service.  The broadband usage cap or meter can, indeed, kill the online video star.

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WJW Cleveland The Download Internet More Important Than TV 4-9-10.flv[/flv]

WJW-TV in Cleveland reports that more people are ready to ditch their televisions than being willing to part with their Internet connection.  (3 minutes)