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Time Warner Shelves Plans For Tiered Pricing
The FNP writes "Time Warner has postponed their plans to test tiered data caps in Greensboro NC, Rochester NY, San Antonio TX, and Austin TX. This announcement comes shortly after the media started reporting on Eric Massa's opposition and protests planned for this Saturday outside of Time Warner's offices in Greensboro and Rochester." There's also a good piece at Ars on the fall of the current tiered-pricing plans.
Anybody who tries to screw over their customers, gets called on it, and then says that they are defering until customers can be "educated"(no doubt with an expression of injured innocence) has a one way trip to the special hell waiting for them.
It's exactly like normal hell; but your nose also itches.
Here's why it will be back, or something like it:
From their recently filed 10-K report:
"Technological advancements, such as video on demand, new video formats and Internet streaming and downloading, have increased the number of media and entertainment choices available to consumers and intensified the challenges posed by audience fragmentation.
The increasing number of choices available to audiences could negatively impact not only consumer demand for the Companyâ(TM)s products and services, but also advertisersâ(TM) willingness to purchase advertising from the Companyâ(TM)s businesses.
If the Company does not respond appropriately to further increases in the leisure and entertainment choices available to consumers, the Companyâ(TM)s competitive position could deteriorate, and its financial results could suffer."
Full Document Here:
http://ir.timewarner.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=950144-09-1481
No, no, no, no, no, and heck no. Regulation in the style of power/water companies will end up with no innovation. Theres really no difference if I have water from utility A, B, C, or D. Neither really with electricity companies A, B, C, or D. On the other hand theres a heck of a lot of difference between NetZero, Time-Warner, Generic local ISP (which are a rarity these days), and Comcast. What this will lead to is board of regulators either approving rate increases for no real reason, or them not approving rate increases for increased speed. If ISPs had been regulated from day one, the fastest connection any of us would get would be possibly DSL. Regulation makes sense for utilities because just about everything is equal, you can't get really any faster water or electrical service and theres little need for more high-capacity lines to homes, so its all about reliability.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
However, the wires should be owned by a regulated entity that doesn't play favorites with interconnection carriers and data providers.
That won't happen. Every regulatory body will play favorites, heck, just look at MS basically buying out ISO, an international standards body. Congress is supposed to be in the favor of the people, that doesn't happen. The truth is, regulatory bodies don't do anything good. In fact, I'd rather be screwed by a company that I have a power (no matter how limited) to get into the market and make a better product then to be screwed by the regulatory bodies where I have zero control over them.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Pssst, Chuck.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Yeah?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Sure been tough lately being a Democratic member of Congress.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Tell me about it. Tea parties. Fox News.
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): I know a way you can get real popular.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Go on...
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): People hate Congress and are afraid we're spending too much. I mean we're just rewarding our constituents after 8 long dry years but...
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Yeah, I know.
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): But there's someone even less popular than we are.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Lawyers?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Call that one a tie. Think even worse.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Uhhh...where's my teleprompter? Oh yeah, loaned it to Barrack. Wait, I got it!
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Right, the cable television companies that we're supposed to be regulating to the benefit of the consumer.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Ha ha ha ha ha...
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Well Time-Warner just decided to screw over their customers even worse than before, and they're starting it in our own great state of New York.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): What are they doing?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Their costs are dropping and their profits are up.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Profits are up? Aren't we taxing them enough yet?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Probably not, but that's not the point.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): But raising taxes on other people and spending the money on pork is about all I know how to do - except to blame Bush for everything, that is.
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): This is easy. I'm just a small member of the House and they're not listening to me, but you're the senior Senator from a powerful state. They can't ignore your voice.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): What exactly are they doing.
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): They imposing caps that will raise the average user's bill by at least 66% while calling them pigs for using the Internet connections they actually paid for.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): God Forbid! We can't have that - unless they need the money for more campaign contributions [wink][wink][nudge][nudge].
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): I think they need new private jets.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): So what do I need to do?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Tell them to cut it out, or else - and you'll be a hero to millions.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): That easy?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): That easy!
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): And if I don't, what's the downside?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): They'll be protesting in the streets this weekend.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): We can't have any more of that. Except for NBC who is already in our pocket, I don't think we can shut down the rest of the news organizations a second time so soon. Not after the ratings Fox News got out of those tea parties!
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Then we've got a deal? You'll remember who brought this to you?
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Of course, kid. The check's in the mail.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
AT&T is metering Beaumont now? OMFG! Why do I have to live in the one place in the entire motherfucking country that has metered 'bandwidth' on every ISP available? And why has no one else on Slashdot pointed out that there is a city in the United States where TWO major corporate ISPs are capping their internet services? Why isn't Beaumont the internet's net neutrality battleground instead of these other cities?
It was bad enough when Time Warner started doing it, but now AT&T has done it, and quietly for sure. I simply had no idea, and it was not announced in any way. I thought AT&T's trial was in Reno only. This is a fucking outrage, and I think I will spend my day off tomorrow contacting my representatives in federal, state, and local government. Seriously, this is BAD. I was shopping for DSL as recently as LAST WEEK to try to get away from paying Time Warner anything, even though I am (quite luckily) still grandfathered in to their unmetered plan. I thought I had no options because DSL isn't even available where I live, but now I quite literally have NO FUCKING OPTIONS, they have all been stripped away. It's only a matter of time before they start billing me the metered rate, so I have to act quickly. Does anyone else here live in Beaumont? We need to protest!
Here's another article I found on the Beaumont caps.
I think you missed the point.
Yes tiered pricing is in place from a number of vendors, even cable vendors. The issue here is when your sum total amount of downloaded bits goes over a fixed limit you can't download AT ALL without incurring fees regardless of what speed plan you've signed up for.
I'm too lazy to do the math, but given predicted monthly caps could it be determined what the *effective* download speed over the month could be? my guess it would be pretty friggin slow.
Kinda like giving you a set amount of gas with your choice of cars: Yugo, Mustang, Ferrari. You can go different speeds but the faster you go the less time you have available.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people