I work for GreenBayNet (of Green Bay, WI) which is one of the ISP's affected by this policy.
We've been fighting against the merger and this sort of thing for several years now. In fact, we were fighting to get access to Time Warner Cable lines for Internet access long before the merger was announced in January of 2000.
In Green Bay, and in much of the populated areas in Wisconsin, Time Warner has monopoly power from three major areas:
ISP Power - they have 60+% of the market with the standard AOL service
Subscriber power - they own Time Magazine and Time Warner Cable. By their own claims, 70% of ALL households subscribe to TWC
Bandwidth power - they are the #1 provider of broadband to homes (Road Runner) and businesses (TW-Telecom)
With their abuse in advertising that was already reported, I would like to add something that happened to our company:
Last summer, we placed an ad in a local newspaper claiming that "someday" we will have cable access and the price point that we planned on offering it. We received a call two days later from the regional head of TWC claiming that we were affecting their sales and they would threaten legal action if we didn't pull the ad.
Because they became the biggest advertiser in the paper shortly afterwards, we had no partners in our battle. We quietly dropped the campaign.
They must be stopped.
I don't know what anyone else considers a monopoly, but a company that can raise its prices with no follow-through from it's next 10 largest competitors smells like one to me. Worse, I think that constitutes abuse.
Elliot w/
GreenBayNet
Except that an ISP isn't a Cable TV or a telephone service.
SO? We're talking about cable advertising not Internet. I work for one of the companies in Wisconsin, and they are 85+% of the ISP market. They are also one of the major advertising mediums. If they block us, that is abuse of monopoly power.
We ARE WILLING TO PAY them, afterall. We're not lookng for FREE advertising.
Here, here! MS isn't exactly getting pulvarized, but there is at least healthy competition.
Red Hat and Mac OS X are both better in many ways, and they are probably gaining market share.
If nothing else, it helps to keep MS's prices in line.
AOL, of course, can raise their prices at will, and MS (the #2 ISP in the universe) needs to give away 3 MONTHS free and guarantee a locked in price...and I don't see people flocking to it.
The New York times nor the Mormons have legal right of way to dig up my yard to lay cable for my neighbors.
SBC/Ameritech/Verizon DO allow us to advertise in their phonebooks. They are competitors to the ISP that I work for. AOL does not allow it. They are also a similarly monopoly based competitor.
The 1-3% they pay in franchise fees is meant to offset the inconvenience of having poles in your yard, or having your yard dug into to have cable placed.
Why does everyone insist on fighting yesterday's battles?
OS doesn't matter, and we have a viable browser with Mozilla and other initiatives. Who cares what Microsoft says they're going to do. They've used all of their monopolistic muscle with Best Buy and Windows to push their way into a distant #2 in the Internet space - both in numbers of access subscribers and in the amount of time utilized by users.
This is not a Coke/Pepsi situation. AOL-TW dominates them. Looking to the future, AOL also has its fingers planted strongly into broadband and content. Microsoft ONLY has the OS. Remember Novell? Explain to me why Microsoft will gain momentum in the face of Mozilla, Linux, and, yes, even MacOS X? These products are all lower priced and BETTER than anything Microsoft can throw at us.
If we're talking about MS-Office being dominant...well, I, for one, still use Office 97 on my Win2k machine. Both are good enough to run anything that I will ever need. Once I need an upgrade, Linux/MacOS/StarOffice (or something better?) will work just fine.
I wouldn't be too afraid of these "other" initiatives. MS had to give away their service for half price (through rebates, 3 months free, etc.) to entice people away from AOL standard service. They only got to a distant #2.
Think about it.
The progression continues: Ma Bell, IBM, Microsoft, AOL. When regulatory pressures hold back the past monopoly, a new one quickly fills the void.
In our neck of the woods, through AOL and Road Runner, AOL-TW controls 85+% of the access market. That sounds dangerously close to the installed base of Windows that everyone claimed was a monopoly.
The difference is that MS's hold (especially in server spaces) is weakening while AOL-TW's continuously picks up steam. They are bigger in installed users than the 10 next largest competitors COMBINED.
I disagree that the price is a non-issue. It's not the ONLY issue, but it certainly is a valid issue.
(1) The idea that 56k Internet access costs as much as cable access is just pure FUD from the cable companies. The company that I work for offers $9.99 Internet access nationwide for $9.99/month. There are no other fees, so where does this $53 is the same as $9.99 come from?
(2) Most people do NOT care about always on. They use email. They don't even need it on when they are on the computer most of the time because they are so slow at composing their emails.:)
(3) These $30-$50 rates for cable access that are spoken of are usually "pie-in-the-sky". That is in conjunction with TV service. Do you REALLY need to be spending $100 between your TV and Internet services? Who uses EITHER, much less both (outside of the Slashdot audience) enough to justify this? Certainly not the mainstream.
(4) Most people don't cancel their landline. So, they are paying $9.99-$30 (for AOL pay by check acct) per month - but nothing more. MOST people do not get a second line.
(5) The economy is slowing. Have no doubt about that. While people may not have, in the past, cancelled their $30 cable television service...now that they are paying $1200/year for cable TV + cable Internet, I have a feeling that may get a few glances over on the family budget when something needs to go!
(6) Cable prices ALWAYS go up. Expect Internet over cable to be no different. Perhaps this is the nature of a service based business - or maybe a monopoly based business. Either way, $30 (bundled) is the low end of the scale. Expect it to NEVER be less. The prices have ALREADY gone up.
(7) As easy as cable may be, people are lazy and cheap. They don't bother to call us to change from AOL for a 3x savings. Why would they DOUBLE their payments for questionable benefits? It's not as easy as sticking in a disk (or MAYBE making a call), and typing some info in for 56K.
(8) People are also reluctant to change. Cell phones have taken years and years and still have not 100% replaced land phones. The advantages are obvious. For the *AVERAGE* consumer, they see no benefit in paying for high bandwidth - especially as most of the high-bandwidth services will soon be "pay per view". Double whammy!
In a nutshell, Dvorak is right. I've been saying the same thing for more than a year.
Slashdot Mirror
We've been fighting against the merger and this sort of thing for several years now. In fact, we were fighting to get access to Time Warner Cable lines for Internet access long before the merger was announced in January of 2000.
In Green Bay, and in much of the populated areas in Wisconsin, Time Warner has monopoly power from three major areas:
- ISP Power - they have 60+% of the market with the standard AOL service
- Subscriber power - they own Time Magazine and Time Warner Cable. By their own claims, 70% of ALL households subscribe to TWC
- Bandwidth power - they are the #1 provider of broadband to homes (Road Runner) and businesses (TW-Telecom)
With their abuse in advertising that was already reported, I would like to add something that happened to our company:Last summer, we placed an ad in a local newspaper claiming that "someday" we will have cable access and the price point that we planned on offering it. We received a call two days later from the regional head of TWC claiming that we were affecting their sales and they would threaten legal action if we didn't pull the ad.
Because they became the biggest advertiser in the paper shortly afterwards, we had no partners in our battle. We quietly dropped the campaign.
They must be stopped.
I don't know what anyone else considers a monopoly, but a company that can raise its prices with no follow-through from it's next 10 largest competitors smells like one to me. Worse, I think that constitutes abuse. Elliot w/ GreenBayNet
Except that an ISP isn't a Cable TV or a telephone service.
SO? We're talking about cable advertising not Internet. I work for one of the companies in Wisconsin, and they are 85+% of the ISP market. They are also one of the major advertising mediums. If they block us, that is abuse of monopoly power.
We ARE WILLING TO PAY them, afterall. We're not lookng for FREE advertising.
Here, here! MS isn't exactly getting pulvarized, but there is at least healthy competition.
Red Hat and Mac OS X are both better in many ways, and they are probably gaining market share.
If nothing else, it helps to keep MS's prices in line.
AOL, of course, can raise their prices at will, and MS (the #2 ISP in the universe) needs to give away 3 MONTHS free and guarantee a locked in price...and I don't see people flocking to it.
The New York times nor the Mormons have legal right of way to dig up my yard to lay cable for my neighbors.
SBC/Ameritech/Verizon DO allow us to advertise in their phonebooks. They are competitors to the ISP that I work for. AOL does not allow it. They are also a similarly monopoly based competitor.
The 1-3% they pay in franchise fees is meant to offset the inconvenience of having poles in your yard, or having your yard dug into to have cable placed.
It's NOT to pay for quality of life improvements.
Why does everyone insist on fighting yesterday's battles?
OS doesn't matter, and we have a viable browser with Mozilla and other initiatives. Who cares what Microsoft says they're going to do. They've used all of their monopolistic muscle with Best Buy and Windows to push their way into a distant #2 in the Internet space - both in numbers of access subscribers and in the amount of time utilized by users.
This is not a Coke/Pepsi situation. AOL-TW dominates them. Looking to the future, AOL also has its fingers planted strongly into broadband and content. Microsoft ONLY has the OS. Remember Novell? Explain to me why Microsoft will gain momentum in the face of Mozilla, Linux, and, yes, even MacOS X? These products are all lower priced and BETTER than anything Microsoft can throw at us.
If we're talking about MS-Office being dominant...well, I, for one, still use Office 97 on my Win2k machine. Both are good enough to run anything that I will ever need. Once I need an upgrade, Linux/MacOS/StarOffice (or something better?) will work just fine.
I wouldn't be too afraid of these "other" initiatives. MS had to give away their service for half price (through rebates, 3 months free, etc.) to entice people away from AOL standard service. They only got to a distant #2.
Think about it.
The progression continues: Ma Bell, IBM, Microsoft, AOL. When regulatory pressures hold back the past monopoly, a new one quickly fills the void.
In our neck of the woods, through AOL and Road Runner, AOL-TW controls 85+% of the access market. That sounds dangerously close to the installed base of Windows that everyone claimed was a monopoly.
The difference is that MS's hold (especially in server spaces) is weakening while AOL-TW's continuously picks up steam. They are bigger in installed users than the 10 next largest competitors COMBINED.
I disagree that the price is a non-issue. It's not the ONLY issue, but it certainly is a valid issue. (1) The idea that 56k Internet access costs as much as cable access is just pure FUD from the cable companies. The company that I work for offers $9.99 Internet access nationwide for $9.99/month. There are no other fees, so where does this $53 is the same as $9.99 come from? (2) Most people do NOT care about always on. They use email. They don't even need it on when they are on the computer most of the time because they are so slow at composing their emails. :)
(3) These $30-$50 rates for cable access that are spoken of are usually "pie-in-the-sky". That is in conjunction with TV service. Do you REALLY need to be spending $100 between your TV and Internet services? Who uses EITHER, much less both (outside of the Slashdot audience) enough to justify this? Certainly not the mainstream.
(4) Most people don't cancel their landline. So, they are paying $9.99-$30 (for AOL pay by check acct) per month - but nothing more. MOST people do not get a second line.
(5) The economy is slowing. Have no doubt about that. While people may not have, in the past, cancelled their $30 cable television service...now that they are paying $1200/year for cable TV + cable Internet, I have a feeling that may get a few glances over on the family budget when something needs to go!
(6) Cable prices ALWAYS go up. Expect Internet over cable to be no different. Perhaps this is the nature of a service based business - or maybe a monopoly based business. Either way, $30 (bundled) is the low end of the scale. Expect it to NEVER be less. The prices have ALREADY gone up.
(7) As easy as cable may be, people are lazy and cheap. They don't bother to call us to change from AOL for a 3x savings. Why would they DOUBLE their payments for questionable benefits? It's not as easy as sticking in a disk (or MAYBE making a call), and typing some info in for 56K.
(8) People are also reluctant to change. Cell phones have taken years and years and still have not 100% replaced land phones. The advantages are obvious. For the *AVERAGE* consumer, they see no benefit in paying for high bandwidth - especially as most of the high-bandwidth services will soon be "pay per view". Double whammy!
In a nutshell, Dvorak is right. I've been saying the same thing for more than a year.