Re: How Much Time Warner's Broadband Caps Will Screw You - Broadband caps

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Debi Jones <debi.jones () gmail com>
Date: April 10, 2009 12:47:36 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] How Much Time Warner's Broadband Caps Will Screw You  
-  Broadband caps
Reply-To: mojo () mobilejones com

The money quote comes from Time Warner's SEC filing as highlighted in  
this article and reveals the anti-competitive issue for consumers and  
video producers.

http://www.obsessable.com/news/2009/04/10/time-warner-makes-broadband-cap-concessions-unlimited-plan-for-150-month/

One position from Time Warner's COO,

Moreover it's clear that Time Warner fully expects its customers to  
keep climbing that bandwidth ladder over time, ratcheting themselves  
into sweeter and sweeter profit positions thanks to the tiered  
strategy plus known usage increases, thanks to a money quote  
(literally) from Hobbs: "Broadband data is such a great product. I  
think there will be some customers who don’t use much that will select  
the lower tier. But over time, they will use more and move up to the  
higher price plans." This too reveals that metered broadband isn't  
really about saving the internet or ensuring great customer experience  
for the more "polite," less bandwidth-hungry users on the network —  
it's about setting up a tiered scheme in which Time Warner stands to  
make an incredible amount of bank as general demand for internet usage  
is increasing.

And now the anti-competitive "money quote" from TW:

Thanks also to TW's SEC filing we know it's additionally about  
thwarting the increasing competition their cable video business faces  
from competitors delivering video content over the web: "TWC faces  
competition from a range of other competitors, including,  
increasingly, companies that deliver content to consumers over the  
Internet, often without charging a fee for access to the content. This  
trend
could negatively impact customer demand for TWC’s video services,  
especially premium and On-Demand services."

Time Warner's data caps could cost us much more than high monthly  
fees, if the company has it way.



On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 10:08 AM, David Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:

http://i.gizmodo.com/5206697/how-much-time-warners-broadband-caps-will-screw-you
Like the virus in 28 Days Later, Time Warner's internet-strangling  
broadband caps is spreading all over the country. They've got brand  
new pricing plans too and they yep, they suck. Let's look.

The old cap scheme was pretty limited, only going up to a max of 40GB.  
Now they've got a whole Skittles bag of caps. Here's how Time Warner  
Cable's COO Landel Hobbs breaks it down, all while breaking out the  
familiar warning that the internet is about to die if you don't limit  
your porn consumption to two times a day—MAX:
Internet demand is rising at a rate that could outpace capacity within  
a few years. According to industry analysts, the infrastructure may  
not be able to accommodate the explosion of online content by 2012.  
This could result in Internet brownouts.

• 1GB with 768kbps downstream for $15/month with $2/GB overcharges
• 10, 20, 40 and 60GB will go with Roadrunner Lite, Basic, Standard  
and Turbo packages, respectively, and maintain the same pricing.  
Overage is $1/GB.
• 100GB will be the new Road Runner...Turbo (I'm not sure why there  
are two Turbo packages) which is 10Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream  
for $75/month. This is still an order of magnitude more restrictive  
than AT&T and Comcast, who have caps of 150GB and 250GB, respectively.
• A 50Mbps/5Mbps down/up speed tier is coming for $100/month wh


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