Time Warner's Nefarious Plans Destroyed by Public Outrage
Posted 04/17/09 at 05:08:17 PM by Andy Salisbury
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Boy oh boy, what a tumultuous few weeks it’s been!
So, for those of you just tuning it, not too long ago the minds over at Time Warner Cable decided to experiment on placing diminutive bandwidth caps (as low as 1GB/month!) on not only their customers in Texas, but others as far out as Rochester, NY.
But, after much public uproar, Time Warner’s own Cable Chief Operating Officer took it upon himself to repeal the negative press by writing an open letter to all of Time Warner’s customers, as well as others interested in the matter. His claim was simple: providing the Internet gets costly, and without capping the bandwidth hungry beasts that broadband users turn out to be, it’s just not going to work out in the long run! Still, the public outrage wasn’t quelled.
And, now, thanks to the power of the geekerati, the absurd bandwidth caps at Time Warner have been completely removed. Ultimately this uncapping could be temporary, because, in their own words, Time Warner states that they are holding off on the trials “while the customer education process continues.”
Sounds mighty condescending to me, but at this point, a win is a win.
Image Credit: Time Warner Cable (again)
"customer education
Submitted by n0ctis on Sun, 04/19/2009 - 6:30pm
"customer education process"
Wow...
Corpations
Submitted by MeTo on Sun, 04/19/2009 - 8:10am
People need to treat corpations like corpations treat there employees. If you don't like what they are doing Fire them. There is always an alternative. Some times we stay with the status quo beacuse it's the easy out.
Not everyone has the ability
Submitted by I Jedi on Sun, 04/19/2009 - 11:51am
Not everyone has the ability to be able to "fire" their ISP and get a new ISP. Thousands, if not more, people are stranded with just one central ISP. Road Runner currently has a monopoly in my area, so when these 40GB bandwidth caps spring up, yes, they're scary. My only other choice is wireless Internet or AT&T, which only has DSL speeds.
Submitted by MeTo on Sun, 04/19/2009 - 7:48pm
"There is always an alternative"
Submitted by shellpc on Sun, 04/19/2009 - 9:37pm
Its a lousy alternative if there's no one offering the same or better speeds than cable and companies like TWC know and exploit that.
Submitted by I Jedi on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 3:45am
Yes, there is. However, when that alternative happens to offer lower speeds than the former, you have to ask yourself if you're willing to take it or suck it up and stick with your ISP. Had TW decided to go forth with their 40GB plan, then I WOULD HAVE been forced to go with AT&T. Mind you they only have DSL in my area, so lower speeds.
Sure, there is only SO MUCH bandwidth that you need to upload/download files because of certain things, like the connection to another server only giving you a 756k download speed per second, so not your true 6Mbps connection you have. However, when you're running multiple apps that require the Internet, yeah, you're going to need the extra juice to keep everything smooth and on the fly.
The truth is that a lot of cable companies have monopolies in certain areas and customers are forced to either choose that one great ISP, or go with another ISP that offers less performance. In Japan, EU, and South Korea, they don't have these problems, like we do here in the U.S.
Submitted by dragonfang18 on Sat, 04/18/2009 - 10:18pm
Customer Education!?!?! I thought the saying the Customer is always right, meant the customer is already educated.
Do they want to educate us on how to give them free money?
They need coporate re-education!
Submitted by I Jedi on Sun, 04/19/2009 - 3:05pm
A coporation is to its stock holders and profits first and customers second.
Submitted by jtancsi1 on Sat, 04/18/2009 - 6:52am
I live in the Rochester NY market where TW was planning on implement a test of the tiered pricing. I have been a RoadRunner customer since it became available, and jumped to RoadRunner Turbo as soon as it became available.
The problem we have in this market is that there is no real alternative for high-speed internet or cable tv. No Comcast, Verizon, or Cox. Our "high-speed" alternative is Frontier DSL with speeds highly dependant on distance from CO and quality of the wiring to your home. Real world, I would be looking at about 1/3 the speed I get from TW. I don't understand the politics of it, but from what I heard Frontier has totally locked Verizon out of this market, so there is no hope for FIOS any time soon. Hope that changes.
Did anybody else notice how NY Senator Schumer was so quick to grab the spotlight to claim he was responsible for TW cancelling plans to use tiered pricing. Gee, I guess the thousands upon thousands of customer complaints had nothing to do with it. The most dangerous place in the world is between that guy and a camera.
Yeah, Schumer's a pretty big
Submitted by jcollins on Sat, 04/18/2009 - 4:38pm
Yeah, Schumer's a pretty big attention whore.
Geekerati?
Submitted by Havok on Sat, 04/18/2009 - 4:39am
Gordon's gonna have a field day...
OMGWTFBBQ
Submitted by Asterixx on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 6:24pm
Nunc est bibendum!
"Customer education process"...
Is that anything like "Re-Neducation"? Has a certain Orwellian ring to it...
Submitted by spplutchok on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 6:09pm
How is it that my electric company, gas company, phone company (landline & cell) water, sewer, local gas station, local supermarket, etc., etc. all abide by strict governmental regulations regarding weights & measures BUT THESE ISPs don't?
How is it these ISPs think that they are exempt from providing accurate, metered service without oversight? How is my usesage determined? Where is my meter? How is my meter calibrated? What standards are used to determine the calibration? What guarantees that my service is metered correctly and accurately.
Why is it that these ISPs think that my exceeding an arbitrary threshold warrants punitive action? If I exceed my minutes allotment on my cell plan I pay for it. If I use more water this month than last, I pay for it. If my car is almost empty I fill it and pay for it. All of these are heavily regulated by strict weights & measure standards set by the government. IMHO it's the governments job to set and enforce these standards.
Who maintains and enforces standards for metered bandwidth? Frankly I don't trust the ISPs to self regulate.
All scales, meters, pumps, anything that a consumer would use to make a purchase from a utility or vendor is government regulated. Why is it that these ISPs have circumvented this? Do they think they are exempt?
The following is from NJs Office of Weights & Measures:
"The Office of Weights and Measures represents one of New Jersey's
oldest efforts at consumer protection and traces its origins to the
Code of Hammurabi, the Magna Carta and the United States Constitution.
Created in 1911, after an "epidemic" of fraud which shortchanged the
states' citizens, the Office of Weights and Measures is responsible for
ensuring that all commercial weighing and measuring devices accurately
measure the commodities sold to consumers."The following FAQ is provided: Most Frequently Asked Questions "FAQs"
What weighing/measuring device is employed by Time Warner and Comcast to determine my useage? Is the device registered with the state? Have registration fees been paid? Is it properly calibrated? By who? What regulations exist to ensure that the unit price is accurately accessed? What is the unit price?
I can easily determine unit pricing looking at any of my utility bills or commodity purchases. Why is it that these ISPs think they can skirt the law regarding their service?
Write, call or visit your states Office of Weights & Measures and find out.
Another thing...
Submitted by Cache on Sat, 04/18/2009 - 5:30am
What's really going to cheese people off is the amount of time they lose even when they are not at their PC--even when their PC is off! How many of us unplug the cable modem when we shut down the computer? Yet it's there--all day, all night, 24/7--pinging Time Warner? Sure, it's only a few kb at any given time, but that adds up at the end of 30 days. For people who might be skirting the edge it could push them right over.
Personally, though, the moment Time Warner puts a cap on my service, I'm turning right around to sue them for the cable modem pinging them every few seconds when my PC is off--I consider that an unauthorized connection on Time Warner's part. Even taking away a little of my precious bandwidth is stealing from me.
quite a good point
Submitted by pcwizmtl on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 7:36pm
quite a good point
Submitted by EpicEyes on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 5:53pm
CATV is what I do for a living. So believe me when I tell you that TWC is full of ish. They claim they cap bandwidth to save money on providing the service in the first place. Not even close to true. My company recently had a problem with too much traffic on a single frequency so did we implement a bandwidth cap? Of course not... what company that cares anything about customer satisfaction would? oh yeah, comcast, TWC.. the big dogs that know nothing about customer service. What we did was open a 2nd frequency to split the traffic. Problem solved. TWC can BS their customers all they want... but as somebody in the business... they're costs do NOT go up if they open a second frequency for internet traffic. They're still using the same CMTS, the same hardline, the same fiber, nodes, amplifiers and line extenders and they don't need to hire new employees to maintain it. Apparently they're in the business of lying to their customers. Top notch company.
Submitted by pcwizmtl on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 4:28pm
This is a perfect example of power in numbers
Very impressed!
One for the people!
PS: Geekerati = LMAO
Submitted by Balgaroo on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 3:43pm
I use TW as I have just moved to TX in the last half year. Ever since I have heard about the capping I have been looking into several different ISPs as alternatives. AT&T being the front runneras a DSL alternative. I do not watch TV, I watch all my movies, news, TVShows, ect on the internet. I will say this, I will keep TW as long as my speed does not go below a 3 meg connection and I am not charged one extra red cent because I went pass some limit.
If anyone thinks this is wrong of me then go ahead and think it, I signed up for a 7 meg connection for about 50 amonth and the TW employee that signed me up had no clue about the implementationof a cap on bandwidth. I agreed to pay my 50 a month for internet with no cap and that is what I expect to receive. For however long I keep theaccount.
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