R-News is owned and operated by Time Warner.  There has traditionally been a firewall in place between R-News and Time Warner itself, and the reports have generally been far more balanced than the hackery at News 14 in North Carolina.  Still, they managed to use a broken up talking point from me about “loving the company.”  Of course, if the cap issue were dead and buried, as most of us in attendance were led to believe that afternoon, why not?  I’ve been happy with Road Runner since being one of the early beta testers back in 1998.  At the end of the press event that Thursday, I was thrilled for about … oh, 45 minutes, until getting home and reading the press release from Time Warner.

Senator Schumer’s very insistent point that “they are not going to use Rochester as a guinea pig for any tiered pricing plan, period” may come back to haunt Time Warner if they bring the dog and pony Cap ‘n Tier show back to the Flower City this fall.  There certainly wasn’t any wiggle room in the senator’s statement on the matter.  Will Time Warner defy the senior senator from New York?  We’ll be watching.

As we continue our journey across the cities that were originally intended to be part of Time Warner’s experimental caps, it’s not difficult to see that viewers had been complaining long and loud, not just to Time Warner, but also to area TV station news departments.

The temporary suspension announcement reached San Antonio late in the afternoon on Thursday, April 16th.  Same upset customers, same talking points from Time Warner that “education” is all that is needed to cram a rate hike and ration plan on customers.  They still don’t get it.

This was probably a quick report for the late afternoon newscast.  No packaged piece here.  But the anchor makes it clear customers didn’t like it, and also gave Time Warner’s views, making it balanced.

News 14 Carolina (Time Warner State Television) is back with another example of journalism excellence… if you lived in North Korea.  On News 14, there is always time for Melissa Buscher, Time Warner spokeswoman, to expand on her views about Time Warner shelving their trial in this second spectacularly one-sided piece.  Ms. Anchor is only too happy to volunteer that it was just like a cell phone plan (that nobody wanted).

I’d ask if anyone watching this, and other related pieces that include Time Warner officials, if it sounds like this tiered pricing plan is “shelved” or merely “postponed” until the Time Warner Re-Education Summer Camps open.

No customers are heard from, nor a single confirmation that the plan itself was radically unpopular with customers.  The Time Warner listening tour has never included them in the first place, so consistency is at least something you have to hand these people.

Wow….  “What displeasure with Time Warner Five Year Internet Plan to save comrades money who toil in the fields instead of using Interwebs?”

KBTV Beaumont broke the bad news to its viewers that despite the temporary reprieve in other Time Warner cities across the country, Beaumont was still saddled with the same usage caps and tiered pricing they’ve been dealing with since last summer. Time Warner elected to continue the “experiment” in rationing Internet service despite Sen. Charles Schumer’s announcement that the “experiment” was over.

KBTV produced this segment as part of an afternoon news roundup for April 16, 2009.  The Time Warner segment appears last.

Wallstrip condenses the entire bandwidth capping is a bad idea argument down to a few irreverent minutes and this:

Pretty soon we’ll all be over our 40GB limit.