Comments on: The chilling effect of bandwidth caps on Entrepreneurial Culture

By: LeeDrake

LeeDrake — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:11:08 +0000

David, I was an original beta tester. The original speeds were at 10mb/s down and 768up but they throttled them back shortly after the initial release, and then dribbled updates to speed out as DSL became more competitive. Unfortunately Time Warner deleted their technical support newsgroup and I don't have any copy of those original usenet messages, but believe me it did happen. Time Warner rarely posts rates for ANYTHING since in many cases different people are paying different rates (Depending on what they can rope them into), so it's hard to find a citation for you. Might look back at the dslreports.com forum history? I'm pretty sure that Phillip Dampier over at http://www.stopthecap.com can back me up on this, as he was also one of the orginal beta testers.

By: David

David — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:02:44 +0000

"When initially introduced the service was rolled out at 10mb/s but that was quickly scaled back"

[citation needed]. I don't think this is true.

By: LeeDrake

LeeDrake — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:07:32 +0000

Lance,

I certainly understand your point about not involving the Attorney General, unless there is an actual fraudulent or criminal act being invoked. The only reason to involve the Attorney General is that in this area, there is no competition for either high end broadband, nor cable television. For various reasons (Trees, etc.) Dish/DirecTV not an option for some, and no one provides speeds faster than DSL other than Time Warner. Thus they have a monopoly on those two resources in the area, and feel they can safely charge whatever they want. It\\'s not the size of the company, it\\'s the exclusivity of their arrangement. I would not invite the AG if there were competition from, say Verizon, in the area - but there is not, so no \\"open market\\" to rein in outrageous pricing. There is no coincidence that they\\'re not \\"Testing\\" this concept where there is significant competition. The TEST is to see if they can raise prices outrageously in monopolistic markets.

By: Lance Robinson

Lance Robinson — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:15:29 +0000

I do not agree with involving the AG as this is something that the consumers can handle on their own. They are not in office so that we can be a lazy or uninvolved people. I would not be opposed to the AG simply noting (to Time Warner and Frontier) the local financial impact that this will bring as a reiterating force, nothing more. Time Warner does NOT have a monopoly in the area in regards to broadband services. I worked for Frontier (recently) and know very well how many high speed customers they have. What size must a company reach before it is ok for the AG to start trying to dictate marketing or pricing strategies, because I am very sure that most small businesses would be strongly opposed and even hurt by such an edict imposed on them.
Let the consumer issue the edicts…and if we don't, shame on us.
I agree 100% on all of your other action items.

By: Lance Robinson

Lance Robinson — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:07:04 +0000

I agree that this will have a negative and immediate impact. We canceled our cable/dish providers service in favor of hulu (free) and netflix ($10) several months ago, and I'm not getting the shakes. Between family and other activities, who has time to justify the cost of such services (cable/dish)? If the same company wants to put the squeeze on this house we will leave them right away, and I am not the sort that would go back easily. They are already outrageously overpriced at $50/mo for internet service. I will go to Frontier and if they, too, are foolish enough to buy into this (by not seeing the advantage of being the only ones not screwing their customer base) then I will go to some free internet dialup comparable to the NetZero of 1999 just to maintain email. All of this tech stuff is nice, and you can even convince people that they need it, but push the home budget enough and the veils start to fall. I am guessing you will see more and more free dialup startups and also people with more time (and money) on their hands so some resources/business will shift.