Stop the Cap! reader Brian thought he noticed a change in Time Warner Cable’s speedtest website for upstate New York residents — he thought the top speed on the gauge may have increased.  At the same time, a few readers on the Broadband Reports Road Runner forum wondered if a change in the Texas division’s speedtest gauge meant DOCSIS 3 upgrades were headed their way.

Perhaps, but Time Warner Cable’s speedtest gauges probably aren’t a guaranteed indicator of an imminent upgrade.  The one for western New York has shown a maximum speed of 120Mbps for months now, but there’s no evidence every city covered by it will soon have up to 100Mbps service.

A quick survey of Road Runner speedtest sites show a remarkable variation:

Suddenlink broadband customers in Lubbock and Midland, Texas will soon have a new option to boost their broadband speed to 36Mbps.  Dubbed MAX36, the new tier leaps over the cable company’s former top broadband speed of 20Mbps.  Upload speeds get a boost as well — to 2Mbps.

Multichannel News reports pricing for the new tier depends on how many other Suddenlink services you have.  Standalone pricing is $75 per month.  Bundle it with television or telephone service and the price drops to $65.  Take all three services and MAX36 costs $60 a month.

Suddenlink serves portions of these Texas communities

If that is too rich for your blood, Suddenlink next week will be providing existing broadband customers in Lubbock and Midland free speed upgrades:

• 1Mbps service increases to 1.5Mbps
• 8Mbps upgrades to 10Mbps service
• 10Mbps service becomes 15Mbps

The new speeds are possible because of DOCSIS 3 upgrades underway at the nation’s ninth largest cable operator.  Suddenlink has focused on DOCSIS 3 upgrades for many of its Texas systems, including Abilene, Bryan/College Station, Georgetown, Lubbock, Midland, San Angelo and Terrell.  The operator also deployed the technology in Beckley, Charleston and Parkersburg, West Virginia, as well as Jonesboro, Arkansas, Humboldt County, California, and Nixa, Missouri.  The company hopes to upgrade 90 percent of its cable systems within the next two years.  Nationwide, Suddenlink reaches 1.3 million subscribers.

Last summer Suddenlink introduced a usage meter for subscribers in Clovis, New Mexico and included a chart of what constituted average usage for its customers.

Suddenlink's national service area

The company openly admits it limits customer use of its broadband service is several communities where bandwidth upgrades have yet to occur, but at least drops communities from the usage limit list after expansion is complete.  As of February 4th, communities impacted by usage limits include:

• Arkansas: Charleston, Hazen, Mt. Ida, Nashville
• Kansas: Anthony, Fort Scott
• Louisiana: Ville Platte
• Missouri: Jefferson City, Maryville
• Oklahoma: Fort Sill, Healdton, Heavener, Hughes, Idabel
• Texas: Albany, Anson, Brenham, Burkburnett, Caldwell, Canadian, Center, Claredon, Crane, Dimmitt, Eastland, Electra, Hamlin, Henrietta, Junction, Kermit, Monahans, Nocona, Olney, Paducah, Rotan, San Saba, Seymour, Sonora, Trinity, Vernon, Wellington

Suddenlink also admits it engages in “network management” techniques which may spark controversy with the ongoing Net Neutrality debate, despite its declaration it “allows customers to access and use any legal Web content they prefer, thus honoring the principles of network neutrality.”

In addition to “mitigating network congestion, which can interfere with customers’ preferred online activities,” Suddenlink also discloses it “prioritizes certain latency-sensitive traffic such as voice traffic.”

Still, performing system upgrades to put a stop to usage limits and allowances is a move in the right direction, one that other providers seeking to monetize broadband traffic with Internet Overcharging schemes are loathe to take.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Suddenlink Ads.flv[/flv]

Watch some of Suddenlink’s more creative and amusing advertising. (2 minutes)

Time Warner Cable changed their billing system for San Antonio residents late last year, and some customers using automatic bill payment services forgot to update their bank with their new Time Warner account number.  The result?  Missing payments and past due notices.

The decision to issue new account numbers has caused delays in posting payments made under the old number, and some consumers are concerned about late fees and payments not posting to their accounts.

Company officials recommend customers double check their online bill payment services to make sure they reflect the new account number.  Time Warner promises to work with customers who are experiencing problems as a result of the billing system change.  Customers in San Antonio can call (210) 244-0500 or check their website for directions on how to correctly make payments on your account.  If you are billed any late charges, ask the company to waive them.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WOAI San Antonio Time Warner Billing Glitch 1-31-2010.flv[/flv]

WOAI-TV in San Antonio ran this story about customers running into the “missing payment” problem with Time Warner Cable. (1 minute)

Time Warner Cable and Fox are now into their final day of negotiations before the agreement expires governing Fox-owned affiliate stations and cable networks.

One thing that the dispute has accomplished is increasing media attention on both companies and a spotlight on the business models of television programming and distribution.  It used to be so simple – television programming would air on broadcast television, enjoy massive audiences and the lucrative ad revenue that comes from having top-rated programming.  Cable networks couldn’t survive on the much smaller ad revenue they earn from their smaller audiences, so they charged cable operators a small fee for every subscriber who could watch their channels.

With the advent of TiVo and other digital video recorders, online viewing, and the audience erosion that comes from both, what worked for more than 50 years didn’t work so well anymore.  Time-shifting viewers no longer felt committed to watching live television, satisfied with being able to watch when they want and fast forward past the increasing amount of advertising television stations crammed into programming.  With broadband, viewers could download or stream their favorite programs online, often for free and with limited (if any) commercials.  Cable networks that used to be content running older syndicated programming, movies, and low budget documentaries and specials began creating their own original programming, often just as good as anything the networks produced.  Subscription fees charged programmers increased accordingly to help finance these shows.

Today, some cable networks are coming close to rivaling the viewership of broadcast networks’ lesser-watched programming.  If the economic downturn didn’t challenge the advertising industry, the ongoing loss of network television viewers would have accomplished the same thing – lower ad rates for ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox.

At the heart of the debate is a new discussion about whether “free over the air television” is a sustainable business model.  Networks like Fox evidently don’t think so, which is why they seek payment from the pay television industry, be it cable, FiOS, U-verse, or satellite.  Since the majority of Americans now watch television through one of these services or through their broadband connection, there is plenty to be made from such payments.  Of course, those costs are passed on to you.

The result?  You are now paying for “free television.”

The hardball game between Fox and Time Warner Cable will be replayed often between the other networks and programmers and pay television companies.

Today’s video reports include another update from the business side of the story, several additional reports from impacted Fox stations, and basic education about what television antennas are all about.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Reporter Stelter on News Corp Time Warner Cable Talks 12-31-09.flv[/flv]

New York Times reporter Brian Stelter reports the two parties remain “pretty far apart” from an agreement in this report from Bloomberg News. (2 minutes)

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC Time Warner Fox Dispute 12-31-09.flv[/flv]

CNBC discusses the business side of the Time Warner Cable-Fox dispute, and now Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) has put himself in the middle of the dispute as well. (1 minute)

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KXAN Austin Cable dispute could turn off bowl games 12-31-09.flv[/flv]

In Austin, KXAN-TV reports Time Warner Cable has been telling Texas viewers they can watch most of the Fox Network programming on Hulu for free.  Some Austin residents are sick of hearing about the dispute and are abandoning Time Warner Cable for DirecTV.  “Football is everything in Texas,” say some who are watching the dispute with concern. (3 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KDFW Dallas Watch FOX 4 without Time Warner 12-31-09.flv[/flv]

Some local Fox stations are teaching their viewers how to receive their stations if Time Warner Cable no longer carries them on their lineup.  KDFW-TV in Dallas went to Best Buy where they’re only too happy to sell antennas and digital converter boxes to Metroplex residents. (2 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WOFL Orlando Fox Orlando Affiliate Teaches Viewers About Antennas 12-30-09.flv[/flv]

WOFL-TV in Orlando spent part of the newscast teaching people what a TV antenna is.  For many under 30, television viewing has always been through cable or satellite, never over-the-air, so the concept of rabbit ears is a new one for some. (1 minute)

Lots more to watch below the page break.  Click the link below to continue!

… Continue Reading

OnLive puts the processing power to render and play games on their end, and streams the result to you over your broadband connection (click to enlarge)

OnLive, the cloud-based videogame streaming service, was on display during a live dem0 of the service at Columbia University.  The service, which literally streams game play across fast broadband networks, could seriously challenge the videogame console marketplace.  Instead of using an expensive piece of hardware at home to play videogames such as w88, OnLive puts the hardware at their end and streams the results to any computer or television.  If it works, it means consumers won’t need the highest performance videocards or latest new CPU.  They’ll just need a fast broadband connection to let OnLive’s own servers do all of the processing.

The founder and CEO of OnLive, Steve Perlman, shows considerable enthusiasm for the concept, and several major investors including AT&T and Time Warner have backed the venture, which could help guarantee smooth passage on their broadband networks.

Still, a product that requires a minimum of a 5Mbps broadband connection for HD-quality streamed game play could consume an enormous amount of data — up to 2.25 GB per hour of gaming.  Although cable and fiber-based broadband connections will suffice, many DSL customers don’t have service fast enough to support OnLive.  Among those that do, any usage caps or allowances will significantly reduce the value of the service to potential subscribers.  Frontier Communications’ infamous 5GB “acceptable use” per month, for instance, would allow just over two hours of use per month, assuming you did nothing else with your DSL service.

Even Comcast’s 250GB usage allowance cuts game play to a little over 100 hours per month.  That’s a ludicrous amount of gaming for most of us, but not for some gaming addicts who may have tried games like 핑카지노.  Besides, it also assumes you don’t use your Comcast broadband service to watch video or other bandwidth-intensive online services.

Time Warner Cable’s proposed 40GB usage limit, shelved indefinitely in April after consumer protests, would permit less than an hour of play per day, assuming your Road Runner service was for nothing but OnLive.

In short, assuming OnLive works as promoted, its biggest threat to success will come from external factors mostly outside of its control — namely cap-happy ISPs that could quickly make streamed cloud computing untenable for all but the wealthiest among us.

What could OnLive do to reduce its risk from caps?  Partner with ISPs in a non-Net Neutral broadband world, of course.  That investment from AT&T, for example, could theoretically pave the way for AT&T to exempt OnLive from any usage limits that come from its own Internet Overcharging experiments in Beaumont, Texas and Reno, Nevada.  That would be a clear violation of Net Neutrality, if enacted into law.

Scenarios like this should drive consumers to support Net Neutrality policies.  ISPs forming “preferred partnerships” with innovative services like OnLive might seem consumer-friendly at first, but not in the long-term because it spells the death of would-be “non-preferred” start-ups, and helps pave the way even faster to Internet Overcharging schemes letting broadband providers pick the winners and losers of the future.

[flv width=”484″ height=”292″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/OnLive Columbia University Demo.flv[/flv]

OnLive founder and CEO Steve Perlman demonstrates OnLive and talks about cloud-based, streaming game play at this gathering at Columbia University in New York. (49 minutes)
(If stream stops for buffering, pause it for a few minutes to let a significant amount of the file pre-load, which should reduce re-buffering problems.)