Wyden

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has introduced legislation that would force Internet Service Providers to prove usage caps are designed to manage network congestion instead of monetizing consumer data usage.

The Data Cap Integrity Act would require the Federal Communications Commission to enact new rules forcing providers to justify their usage cap programs, create standards by how ISPs measure usage and to provide useful measurement tools to customers before they incur overlimit fees.

“Internet use is central to our lives and to our economy,” said Wyden. “Future innovation will undoubtedly require consumers to use more and more data — data caps should not impede this innovation and the jobs it creates.  This bill is intended to help consumers manage their data more effectively and ensure that data caps are used only to serve the legitimate purpose of addressing congestion.”

Wyden’s bill is an attempt to force providers to prove their contention that usage limits improve the user experience by preventing so-called “data hogs” from slowing down connections of other paying customers.

Wyden is also concerned that without uniform standards of data measurement, consumers could be blindsided with overlimit fees or even have their service cut off. In the past, providers have stuck customers with a variety of often inaccurate measurement tools that have under or over-reported usage, which can sometimes lead to higher bills. At present, no government agency has authority over the veracity of provider measurement tools, and most ISPs impose terms requiring subscribers to accept their word as final for the purpose of usage measurement.

The Oregon senator’s bill is the first measure regulating usage caps introduced in the Senate. In 2009, Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) introduced a measure in the House that would have banned most usage caps and usage-based billing without first applying a means test. Massa introduced the bill after Time Warner Cable attempted to impose a usage-billing scheme on customers in his district, which includes parts of the Rochester area.

Among the provisions in Wyden’s bill the FCC must enact and enforce within one year of its passage:

• A “truth in labeling requirement” that requires ISPs fully disclose the cost of their services, the true upload and download speed a customer will receive, and the presence of any speed throttles or usage limits;
• A ban on usage caps for any provider that cannot prove they are needed to control congestion and not simply discourage Internet usage;
• A penalty for providers that either do not provide suitable measurement tools or inaccurately measure usage leading to unjustified overlimit fees;
• A provider may not exempt certain content from its usage cap while imposing it on others.

Lyons

Wyden’s bill was introduced at the same time the nation’s largest cable lobbying group, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, sponsored an event defending usage limits and consumption billing. Two of the three experts speaking at the event declared peak usage limits or congestion pricing ineffective.

In fact, Michael Weinberg from Public Knowledge took note of the fact the cable industry now seems to admit it does not have a congestion problem:

“The most refreshing section of the [NCTA’s] study is the one that is not there,” Weinberg wrote. “There is no meaningful discussion of usage-based pricing as a tool to reduce network congestion or a suggestion that monthly data limits are a reasonable way to impact congestion. There is also no invocation of the mythical ‘data hog,’ a sinful creature that can only be punished with data caps. Hopefully, the omission is NCTA’s tacit admission of two things: that cable networks are not congested and, if they become so in the future, monthly caps will do little to address that congestion.

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“I don’t think congestion is as big a problem in fixed broadband,” said Professor David M. Lyons of Boston College Law School at the NCTA event. “The latest broadband speed surveys that the FCC has come out suggests that there is not a whole lot of slowdown at peak periods on the fixed side.”

Time Warner Cable is expanding its footprint in the capital region of New York with the acquisition of independent Princetown Cable Company, which serves around 600 subscribers in Princetown, Duanesburg and Rotterdam in Schenectady County.

Time Warner already manages cable service for most cable subscribers around the Albany-Schenectady region, but bought Princetown Cable to further solidify its holdings.

Princetown Cable began service in 1990 serving rural areas ignored by then-dominant TCI Cable (later AT&T Cable, then Comcast).

Most customers signed up to get better reception of television signals from nearby Albany and Utica.

Princetown Cable’s lineup of around 100 channels ($82.50/month for digital cable) is dwarfed by Time Warner, and its broadband service is comparatively slow and expensive:

Time Warner Cable agreed to pay $1.2 million for the system, which breaks down to around $2,000 per subscriber.

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt warned programmers in early December that low-rated cable channels were at risk of being dropped from the second-largest cable operator in the country.

Ovation and Current TV now understand he meant it.

Customers are now being notified that the cable company has dropped both networks. Most customers will never notice the loss — only about 1% of Time Warner customers, around 33,000 nationwide — watched Ovation last month and about as many parked their remotes on Current TV.

Time Warner Cable released a statement explaining escalating programming costs are forcing the company to closely assess each network as it comes due for renewal. The cable company called Ovation one of the worst performing networks on its lineup. It was more abrupt about Current. The company claimed it dropped the network simply because “it was sold.”

Several weeks ago, Britt hinted networks that began offering one type of programming but shifted to another in a bid to win more viewers are especially vulnerable to being dropped. Britt appeared to be thinking about Ovation, which calls itself a cultural fine arts channel but last month devoted 70 percent of its schedule to infomercials, reruns from TV networks that hardly qualify as “fine arts,” and endless repeats of PBS’ ‘Antiques Roadshow.’ For this kind of programming, Time Warner Cable has paid Ovation $10 million over the past several years.

Ovation has gotten 25,000 signatures on its petition drive to try and convince Time Warner Cable to bring the network back to its lineup.

“They’ve had ample opportunity to improve the ratings and the content, and have failed to deliver,” Time Warner said in a statement.

Current TV, which was partly founded by former Vice President Al Gore as a broadcast home for viewer generated content (think YouTube on the airwaves) has always turned in dismal viewership numbers. More recently, the channel has shifted its format, airing a variety of liberal political talk radio and television shows deemed too left-wing for MSNBC, which has helped win the network some additional viewers, but not in every case. Disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, formerly with CNN, has a TV show on Current he admits doesn’t draw flies.

“Nobody’s watching, but I’m having a great time,” Spitzer said.

On Wednesday, the network announced it was acquired by Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, a kiss of death for most mainstream cable systems that are still unwilling to carry programming from a network the Bush Administration came close to calling ‘with the terrorists.’

Time Warner Cable dropped the network from its lineup the moment the sale was announced.

Current TV intends to gradually rebrand itself as Al Jazeera America, with a 24-hour English language news and information format. Al Jazeera has won respect for its international news coverage, but continues to be saddled with the perception it has a subtle anti-American bias.

But not every network with low viewer numbers is at immediate risk of being placed on Time Warner’s chopping block.

The Kremlin’s subtle hands of influence have kept RT — Russia Today — closely aligned with Vladimir Putin’s policies as relations cool between Moscow and Washington. But that network remains on the Time Warner Cable lineup.

The new owner of Current TV.

One thing all threatened networks have in common is that they are independently owned and operated and are not a part of a much larger network or studio conglomerate. That makes them low-hanging fruit for cable operators to pick off because the owners lack leverage to force renewal.

Fox Business Network, which has continuously turned in abysmal numbers since its inception is a case in point. Despite often having fewer than 15,000 viewers in its target demographic, it safely maintains its place on Time Warner Cable’s lineup because it was included in a carriage agreement deal that bundled the much larger Fox News Channel. As long as Time Warner agrees to contracts that tie the fate of both networks together, Fox Business Network will have a home on the cable system even if nobody watches.

With the writing on the wall, other low-rated networks have responded by easing their hard-line tactics at contract renewal time. The parent owner of IFC and WEtv have agreed to a temporary contract extension as the two networks fight to remain on Time Warner’s lineup. Hallmark TV and Hallmark Movie Channel may be in a similar position soon enough.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Citizens for Access to the Arts Fights to Keep Ovation 12-12.mp4[/flv]

Time Warner Cable is introducing customers to shorter wait times in several midwestern cities, in some cases offering appointment windows of just one hour.

“Our customers have better things to do than sit around and wait for cable service and installation,” said Shannon Mullen, TWC’s regional vice president of operations.

Customers in some cities can now request 15-minute appointment windows that coincide with various times technicians begin their shifts. Offering the first service call of a technician’s workday makes it easy to assure a cable truck will be in a customer’s driveway on time. Offering one-hour time windows the rest of the day is possible with better coordination with technicians and years of experience tracking the average times service calls usually last. The company is now prepared to share that knowledge with customers — providing an estimate of how long in-home installation or repair work is likely to take.

Appointments will begin at 8am and scheduled as late as 7pm. Service calls are also available on Sunday and holidays in some areas.

The company began testing the shortened windows in the beginning of 2012 and has gradually expanded them to different regions. Maintaining good service has proved important, especially in areas where the operator faces competition from community-owned providers, Google Fiber, AT&T U-verse, or Verizon FiOS.

Faster speeds.

Time Warner Cable is planning additional free speed increases for its customers, starting in Google Fiber territory — Kansas City.

The company has already boosted Standard Internet speeds, now at least 15/1Mbps in most areas of the country, up from 10/1Mbps.

With Google’s 1,000/1,000Mbps network now gradually rolling out across Kansas City, the cable operator decided it needed to compete, albeit not on the same scale. Here are the new speeds across Kansas City, which are likely to also begin turning up in other areas of the country eventually:

• Lite Internet — from 1Mbps to 5Mbps
• Basic Internet — 3Mbps to 10Mbps
• Standard Internet — 10Mbps to 15Mbps
• Turbo Pass Internet — 15Mbps to 20Mbps (No word on upgrades for customers already getting 20Mbps Turbo service)
• Extreme Internet — 30Mbps to 50Mbps
• Ultimate Internet — 50Mbps to 100Mbps
• Upload speeds remain unchanged, maxing out at 5Mbps for premium tiers.

Despite the upgrades, Time Warner denied there was much need for the kinds of speed Google customers are now getting.

“We’re really comfortable where our speeds are,” Time Warner Cable spokesman Mike Pedelty told the Kansas City Business Journal.