Time Warner Boosts Broadband Customer Speed — But Only Near Google Fiber

An anonymous reader writes " Rob is a Time Warner Cable customer, and he's received two really interesting things from them lately. First, a 50% speed boost: they claim to have upgraded the speed of his home Internet connection. That's neat. Oh, and they've also cut his bill, from $45 to $30. Wow! What has prompted this amazing treatment? Years of loyalty and on-time payments? No, not exactly. Rob lives in Kansas City, pilot site for Google Fiber. Even though they have shut off people in other states for using too much bandwidth. Is Google making them show that it's not that hard to provide good service and bandwidth?"

Comments

Good

[stewsters]

This is what healthy competition is supposed to do to the market. Now, we need google fiber in more cities and the average speed and price of internet will get better for everyone (unless you live in a rural area).

Re:Good

[bmo]

>This is an unsustainable race to the bottom.

Bullshit. It's been established that caps and rate limiting are just a cash grab. And the customer has been raped enough through billing ever since we threw billions of taxpayers' money at the network providers in the 90s only to watch it go out as dividends to shareholders and board bonuses.

Competition is *always* good.

--
BMO

Re:Good

[wvmarle]

And that is why infrastructure is a government task (either direct or by government appointed company - which is how the POTS got rolled out and why it's available pretty much anywhere there is a public road), and everyone should be allowed to use that infrastructure at a fixed cost.

You want to run your car on a public road? You can do that, after you pay your vehicle taxes and get a driving license. You want to run a bus service? Sure, go ahead, just make sure you pay the vehicle taxes and have the proper licenses. Where those taxes are the same for everyone, and licenses are available for anyone who qualifies and passes certain exams. It's a level playing field.

I come from areas where data infrastructure is treated like that. Result? Excellent service at rock bottom price.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

http://gigaom.com/2012/07/26/the-economics-of-google-fiber-and-what-it-means-for-u-s-broadband/

Analysts say $670 / customer to provide fiber-to-home. On a $40 plan, the break-even point is 1.6 years and on a $70, 9 months.

Add in a few extra additional expenses, and double it for kicks... 2-4 years to profitability, depending on the service amount.

Considering the copper / cable they used has been laid over 30 years ago, I think their* copper/cable lines have been well paid for and that some of that profit could have easily been used to create a fiber network that will be in use for the next 20+ years?

Race to the bottom. Yes, please.

Re:Good

[erroneus]

Healthy from whose perspective? Yours, mine and the rest of the consumer public? Certainly. But there's another side, a tragic side, of this you are not considering. Many dinners, golf games, gifts, donations and contributions were made to acquire the exlusive access to customers in an area which enabled them to maximize their executive bonuses, inflate their stock values and, when the time comes, fill their golden parachutes.

Now, thanks to this "healthy competition" the fruits of all that hard work is in jeopardy.

Thanks for nothing Google!

In truth, this is not really fair competition. This is unfair competition similar to Mozilla vs. Microsoft. Microsoft used its monopoly on the desktop to kill any notion of a web browser that costs money. We don't need to go into whether or not the damage to Mozilla was intentional or not. After all, the car wasn't invented in order to kill the horse ranching industry. So here we have Google trying to work around the problems presented by the carriers who have managed to restrict and reduce the effectiveness of Google's business models. So rather than continue to engage in fruitless discussions on the matter, Google is routing around the damage.

And while these carriers have historically sued and won against municipalities attempting a similar feat, charging them with unfair competition, they have obviously decided not to challenge Google's deeper, more powerful pockets to a duel in the courts over this.

Re:Good

[afidel]

Yep, look at the cost per Mbps for colo bandwidth versus last mile, they were on a roughly parallel trajectory until the media companies bought up the cable companies and decided to increase costs to protect their existing models, they can only do that because in most markets they have a monopoly/duopoly position, give them some real competition and suddenly things get back on track.

Re:Good

[firex726]

Exactly, we already paid for these upgrades, but instead of doing them, the companies just pocketed it and claimed people were using too much and capped us.

They either need to do the upgrades or give back the tax money.

Re:Good

[SilentStaid]

They either need to do the upgrades or give back the tax money.

Could you imagine if the world worked like that? How awesome would that be? Unfortunately, their lobbying pockets are a bit deeper than yours or mine will ever be.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny part is that how much government is involved with a particular part of infrastructure is based directly on how old that kind of infrastructure is.

Roads, water/sewage, and postal service? Those date to at least the Roman Empire, so of course they're run directly by the government as a general rule. The Post Office is specifically enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, and "Postmaster General" used to be a cabinet level position.

Electricity? Heating gas? Ah, now we're only going back a little over a century, so we have heavily-regulated private companies providing the infrastructure.

Telephones? Less time still, with a commensurately less-regulated industry.

Cable TV? Even more recent, very little regulation. And, of course, residential Internet access is done on the incumbent phone and cable networks, so it ends up there on the spectrum.

Cell phone service? It's completely Wild West, with the government just divvying up spectrum. Is anyone surprised at predatory contracts and usurious rates and terrible service?

Here's the revelation: you go on that list in reverse order, newest and least regulated first, and I bet you're reading it from worst customer service to best. I've literally never had problems with my water utility, and rarely had problems with my electric service, but Comcast and Sprint? It is to laugh.

Re:Good

[guises]

That doesn't make any sense. What dirty tricks? The only dirty tricks that have been happening have been by private companies who hate competition. Those few municipal networks that have actually got up and running as utilities have had nothing but good press.

Re:Good

[mea_culpa]

I agree so long as the government doesn't choose winners and losers like they have done and still currently do.
AT&T prior to the breakup is a good example of how far this cronyism can go. Don't get me started on the industrial media complex. Right now it is cellular carriers and cable companies. Both are using public resources unfairly.
Your public road analogy is good, but if you were to accurately compare it to the telecommunication industry there would be roads that only Ford, Chevy, and Crystler vehicles were allowed to drive on. Chevy would make and agreement with Ford to allow eachother's cars on their roads but not Toyota, KIA and many others. The barrier to entry would be so high that newer better cars would not be allowed in.

When Cox bought out our local Cable America in Phoenix all they did was switch subscribers over, and charge 20% more. Did they use any of the infrastructure of the competitor that they bought out? No, they systematically dismantled it. All of those years of negotiations with various municipalities to get access to easements, poles, alley ways, etc. all gone. The millions of dollars spent to install that mostly redundant infrastructure also gone. There is no possible way now, unless you are Google, to come in and compete with them.

Re:Good

[strikethree]

Could you imagine if the world worked like that? How awesome would that be? Unfortunately, their lobbying pockets are a bit deeper than yours or mine will ever be.

Weird. I read your idea and had this thought that we citizens should get together and "unionize" so we can have a stronger voice... and then I thought WTF? The government is SUPPOSED to be OUR "union".

My brain hurts. :(

It's called competetion

[Dyinobal]

It's called competition, which is something that has been sorely lacking in the broadband market. It's actually missing in just about any market that is dominated by a few large corporations. See the publishing industry etc.

Re:It's called competetion

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what happens in industries where mergers are unregulated. Good regulation preserves competition. No regulation kills competition as much as bad regulation.

Competition is overrated

[SpeedBump0619]

I mean, look, it lowers corporate revenue and increases operating expenses! Competition lowers tax revenue and taxes are how corporations support our troops. This competition thing has *got* to stop!

Re:Competition is overrated

[RevDisk]

I did chuckle. Sometimes it does work, sometimes it doesn't. If the companies decide not to collude, then yes. Google has no interest in forming an unofficial cartel. Traditional carriers do, hence why they have.

Old Comparison

[Bill Hayden]

I'm not at all one to defend the Cable/Internet/Cell monopolies that currently exist, but the linked story about people getting shut off is 4 YEARS old!

Cancelled today

[methano]

I was one of the first Road Runner customers in the RTP, NC area. I've been a good customer. TW recently upped my rates and their remote is terrible. Unfortunately for TW, some real competition recently showed up for what once was a monopoly. I switched and just got off the phone to tell them that I am canceling. Amazingly, some promotions, that I was previously unaware of, became available to me. No way. A little competition can be a good thing.

Re:Cancelled today

[BitZtream]

I live in Cary. Canceled my service because they wouldn't give me a new subscriber rate on their own channels. First month after they sent me a letter, half the original price, more bandwidth, for one year. I had already switched to Uverse (which is shitty in my neighborhood unfortunately) so I didn't take it. The next month, as I as getting fed up with Uverse, I get a second letter. Sign back up and for $60/month will give you cable and Internet (second from the top tier) for 2 years.

I switched back.

In another year and a half, I will again cancel my service for as long as needed to get the price back down to where I accept it.

Having dealt with them intimately over the past few years, they make so much profit they could literally replace every single piece of equipment they own, EVERY SINGLE MONTH, and still make a comfortable profit. Can't lay new cables monthly, but its not off by month.

Re:Cancelled today

[dj245]

Don'y even bother switching next time. Usually you can get good results by haggling with the "customer retention" person. Keep it polite and friendly and good rates can be yours for only 1 phone call a year.

Re:Cancelled today

[PPalmgren]

They are petrified of Netflix. I got a lower rate than he did for the same exact service because I wanted to retain the iternet and drop the cable subscription, saying I don't watch TV enough and will use Netflix. My total bill is $55. I think they do this because while I don't watch much TV, it ups their subscriber number for advertising negotiations, and gives them an avenue to make a little money off me in on demand movies.

Not just Google.

[MachineShedFred]

I had my Time Warner Cable bandwidth increased without asking about a month ago here in Cincinnati because of competition from Cincinnati Bell laying down their fiber service all over town. That being said, if I could kick Time Warner to the curb and get Cincinnati Bell's Fioptics service where I live, I would in about three shakes of a lamb's tail.

This isn't only happening where Google is doing their fiber experimentation.

Re:I don't know which is worse.

[smg5266]

But cable TV companies are often the only option for decent home internet.

Re:I got that message too

[PlusFiveTroll]

Yeah, I got that message a while back. They claim a 50% boost, but I haven't seen it. Even after resetting the modem and router, everything seems to download at about the same speed as before. I suspect BS (hardly atypical for Time Warner).

Since you don't list what kind of router you have, what kind of firewall rule processing it's doing, and if you're using wireless it's hard to tell who the weakest link is.

I never use a ISP integrated modem/router(/wireless gack), too many of them suck and lock out too many options. If a regular router you can stick your own server on the WAN port and run something like http://www.speedtest.net/mini.php , across the LAN you should see 100Mbps (or more if it's Gb the entire way). If it's slower then 100Mb on wired your routers performance sucks. Test wired first then add your WLAN in, I have seen many wireless setups that where showing a 150Mbps (good) connection not even perform 30Mbps transfers.

Even more advanced tests would be to try to run 2 speed tests locally at the same time. Most equipment will starve one stream (one 99Mbps/one 1Mbps), some equipment will give bad jitter and the total speed will be less then 75% of line speed, and latency will be high, and very rarely the equipment will have decent queuing and the two streams will be close to even at around 95% of total line speed and latency will be decent.

Actually getting 20Mbps+ from the random internet host is not very common. Testing a close, fast host inside the TW network is the best way to tell. This might help.

http://www.timewarnercable.com/en/residential-home/support/speed-test.html/

I didn't realize Google Fiber was near Los Angeles

[PalmAddict]

I live in the San Fernando Valley, 20 minutes from downtown Los Angeles. It's a quaint 260 square mile community of 1.76 million of your closest neighbors. Two months ago I had my broadband boosted by 50% (the same 15 Mbps as the Consumerist article customer), I was given free telephone service free for a year (long distance included) and had by bill dropped by 20% as well (I am now pennies over $100/mo), without asking for any of it. My parents, living just a few miles from me, were offered the exact same thing. Does this mean that Time Warner is terrified that Los Angeles is next on the list to get Google Fiber?

For ALL TWC customers not just near google fiber

[Brownian Motion]

This is a story from last month (Dec 12 2012), and it's for all TWC customers. http://news.yahoo.com/time-warner-cable-boosts-internet-speeds-50-standard-022153999.html

Competing with Verizon FIOS up here in NY

[bratloaf]

Its amazing. For the past 10 years TW has been steadily increasing rates, "confusing" their billing (Oh, sorry sir for the $12/mo mistake for the past 3 years that was hidden in your "bundle"), and their service of ALL types has been getting crappier and crappier. To the point where I was ready to just ditch them all together and do ANY thing else.

Crappy cable box problems. Internet outages. S L O W internet (at times) and OK others. Finally FIOS came around here about a year ago, and several people I know switched. Initially they had some technical issues but nothing really bad, and NO one I know including myself has had any issues at all in the past year.

I called TW 4 times, and got all the way to a management type 3 of those times, to ask about a billing situation after our bill went up $60 a month. For no reason. They were NOT interested in fixing the situation and retaining me at ALL. In fact, the last words they told me, when I said I prefered to stay with them but was going to just go to FIOS if they couldnt fix it, were "Well, you have to do what you have to do". From a manager.

When I turned in my boxes, the girl said "wow, you have been a customer a LONG time, why are you leaving?" I told her, she just rolled her eyes and apologized and said "Thats typical (of the TW customer support folks)".

Now TW is running these commercials on the radio around here 24/7 trying to get people to "come back". "See the difference" "Your money back if you are not satisfied" etc. Too funny really. As long as VZ - another HUGE company - keeps their customer service and value where they are now, Im staying. For sure.

Competition is a GREAT thing....

how such low prices?

[Jodka]

So I live in Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City. Google fiber is not in offered in Overland Park yet, but because it is close by and spreading I checked out the prices and signed up for email notification when their service becomes available in my area.

The prices. Holy cow. It's free. A one time $300.00 installation fee but then it is free. So I was wondering for months how is that possible? Is Google taking a massive loss? Did Google invent a new technology which allows them to undercut their competitors?

Then on a drive across town to the local Fablab I was listening to the local public radio station which just happened to be interviewing Susan Crawford, author of the recently published book Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age. As the summary at Amazon states:

This important book by leading telecommunications policy expert Susan Crawford explores why Americans are now paying much more but getting much less when it comes to high-speed Internet access.

Well as you might guess from the subtitle of the book, what she finds out when she explores is that internet and cable service in the U.S. are regional monopolies. Even when multiple internet and cable service providers operate in the same city they divide up the city into regions of monopolistic coverage and only overlap on small percentages of territory.

So Google offers such spectacularly low prices by undercutting monopolists, having enough clout to overcome barriers to entry which block startups, and Moore's law has reduced the cost of providing internet service to something pretty close to free. The inflated prices for internet broadband service which we have paid in the U.S. have not followed Moore's law because service provider are monopolies. Now with the disruption of that monopoly in one regional market prices are back on track with Moore's law there.

Re:I don't know which is worse.

[yesurbius4822]

SHAW is no better than Time Warner in this regard. They whined and whined that they cannot keep up with the data needs of streaming video and then pushed through their new data caps. So we ended up paying the same amount as before - but now its capped. SHAW aggressively pushes their cable service and their On-Demand service. But its an obsolete business model - they need to get with the times. Lets asy I wanted to catch Game of Thrones on Shaw's On-Demand service.. I can't just subscribe to it - I have to pay for their Digital service .. then pay for the Movie Central service .. THEN pay for the On-Demand service. So $80/mo later I am able to pay the premium on-demand rental price which happens to be the same amount that I'd pay by renting from iTunes, Playstation, or XBox stores. Furthermore - I'd bet the farm that the only people that are being pestered about their data usage are the people using Netflix and competing services. Its Greed - plain and simple.

of course!

[tilante]

Of course they're doing it because of Google.

Where I grew up, we were close to a military base. The town allowed a cable company to have a monopoly. The base didn't, and had competing cable companies. Guess who got much lower prices and a broader selection of channels? Thankfully, the town council at least had enough sense to notice that the base was getting better deals, and to apply pressure to the cable company each time their monopoly came up for renewal. Thus, while they didn't have quite as good prices and selection as the base, my parents still get better prices and selection than I do, even though I now live in a city with about five times the population.

Competition does wonderful things to markets.

Same Here

[dnahelicase]

I live in a rural community that limited DSL through Verizon and cable through TWC. A company called Cinergy Metronet, now just Metronet, came in and started offering fiber-to-the-home. The day they went live, TWC doubled their advertised speeds and dropped their prices to match Metronet.

Re:I don't know which is worse.

[Nexzus]

Furthermore - I'd bet the farm that the only people that are being pestered about their data usage are the people using Netflix and competing services.

Which is absolute shit, at least now. Shaw is a member of the Netflix SuperHD program, which means they have (or otherwise directly hook into) a Netflix appliance on their network, so they don't pay any transit fees for netflix data now. If they're complaining about Netflix users "taking all the bandwidth" then it's because they've oversold their network.

Re:Insulting Gesture

[Nexzus]

You were lucky. When I left my last place for my current place (for 40% more), Senior Management offered 8% retention. I actually laughed at the CEO (a controlling, tight-fisted asshole). They then had to hire two people to replace me.