Time Warner metering experiment

Our Rochester NY area is one of the chosen sheep flocks to be fleeced under an onerous bandwidth tier usage and overage charge($1 per month per gigabyte). Mostly the company line, mostly based on lies and spin is being shoved down our throats with the usual "it won't affect normal users!" -and- you are "paying for that other guy hogging the bandwidth" -and-(cry me a river)"The flat rate is costing TWC too much!" The local corporate rag at first uncritically relayed the TWC newsletter, then after irate readers clued them in, mentioned some of the real issues, the same "reporter" finished with the company rebuttal and general spin.

This trial will be extended swiftly nationwide and by more companies if successful. The obvious responses are to complain and criticize all concerned and get another provider. Someone mentioned we don't have FIOS here yet and I don't even know what that is.

In short the rate plan caps the current rate at 40 gigs with overage charges and higher tiers that fall far far short of Comcast's simple 250 gig cap. This is the usual coy horse-trading routine we have come expect with regard to cable tiers. No doubt our are was chosen as a quiet but muscular test while the 3 southern markets have already been easy marks.

What I can't get is HOW they measure bandwidth usage. Simply being plugged in and doing minimal things goes way beyond the low tier according to my own monitoring. You would literally have to unplug and strip your downloading capabilities to tread water. Gamers and and other "high users" are seriously perturbed.

monitor something like that from your computer? I'm in a southern market, and haven't heard anything of this.
And, how do you find out about it? TW's websites are worse than MS's.

If it's really low, one of my searches might use up the entire allotment. :shrug:

Where do I look? Thanks.

Control alt delete and Windows Task manager pops up, go to networking. There are some downloads online to actually get a streaming meter. Supposedly TWC will put a meter on your screen sometime, maybe. As for local pols and regulators there usually is a brouhaha over rate increases like this with mixed results(usually TWC getting what they want or "backing down" on the first outrage set intentionally as the high bargaining position.

The local phone line competitor(Frontiernet) has pretty much most the competition with TWC, especially for what they want to charge. Nothing else but satellite which is also insufficient.

makes move to cut Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and their ilk off at the knees. Conflict. Of. Interest. Let's see if there are any city councils honest enough to hold revocation of public utility perks over these bastards' heads and slap them back into line. I won't be holding my breath.

There was a "discussion" (and I use the term loosely) in GD a few months back about this. Threads like that one make my tin foil melt. I know that the industry at the very least encourages employees to visit places like broadbandreports.com and "put it a good word" for the company that pays your salary (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). I suspect that some people are paid to look for discussions on popular forums about various things that affect the industry and spread FUD or shout down critics.

I say that as a person who has been accused of being a shill, which I don't appreciate, so I avoid doing it in the midst of these discussions. But I say it as someone who was also encouraged to "put in that good word" and flatly refused to do it.

Anyway ... some people came out of the woodwork from gopod knows where to talk about "fairness" and bandwidth hogs all that garbage ... basically putting the best face possible on this. Slashdot was full of them too.

Bandwidth is *not* the issue.

The issue is competition, which you very succinctly and accurately summarized. The cable industry tried to head this off at the pass by bundling service levels with paid website subscriptions that kept the money all in the family, i.e. websites owned by Disney, et al, but that just didn't work. The FCC rules and the fairness (honesty ... I forget what it's called exactly) in billing act forced them to keep the charges separate, which meant consumers had to opt-in to subscribe to these things. Of course, very very few did ... I mean, like effectively no one. Cox in Oklahoma City had over 100K subscribers and about 50 people who actually subscribed to these services.

So, yeah. And, no, don't hold your breath.

Although, on that note, it'll be interesting to see what this does to the competition between UVerse (and similar services) and cable. In an incredibly ironic twist, if cable goes down this road, ATT will be able to come back at them and say, "Look at us. We don't meter your usage." This is what the cable companies did to the Bells with their phone service. Worked too. ATT just might find its opening to kill TW at least.

I've seen 'em too and now I know it's true. As you said, the guys who won't budge off the "fairness" point. Like Republicans stirring up resentments while they steal the furniture, they're patently flacks or too stupid for words. This is an industry that for 20 years has been able to send a bullet to any settop they think is signal pirating. They can't cull bandwidth hogs and restore "fairness"? C'mon.

I hope content providers (and not just the bigfoots) are paying close attention, because this can cut into their revenue. I allow Flash and javascript selectively, but allow ad images freely. If TW makes my bandwidth dear, I'm installing a hosts the size of a Gutenberg. I'll avoid sites that preface videos with commercials. Sorry local newspaper, you're going belly up just that much sooner because TW put me in the Information Ditch.

I'm as wary of ATT as I was of Ma Bell (they're dabbling in metering too, the idiots). But I'll put on pompoms if they do a full press to destroy TW. You know my loathing for TW-Roadrunner is deep (he said, absently rifling the 3" stack of pink work orders on his desk), but this is more than personal antipathy -- the AOL beast needs killing, at long last. What did TW ever know about online services? Nothing, until AOL swallowed them. AOL has caused endless widespread misery, yet they manage to KEEP COMING BACK from certain death. I hope ATT buries them, for all that is good and decent.

Then I won't mind waiting a few years for commodity wifi to bury ATT.

When I worked for Cox, we got an e-mail "newsletter" pretty much every day that was basically propaganda we were directed to feed to the masses. It wasn't so bad at first, but by the end of my employment there, they had hired a guy whose official duty was to conduct ongoing sales training. He took over one aspect of this newsletter. It was split into parts, with one part coming from the technicians who implemented things and thus gave accurate information about how it all worked and what we had to do to facilitate it. The other part came from this happy idiot. It was nothing but a list of talking points, only he called them things like "Selling Points."

The guy was a flaming moron. Not only could he not even spell, a fact I mentioned to my manager on several occasions as a reason I could never take him seriously, he didn't know the difference between a gigabit and a gigabyte and would liberally confuse the two in his "Selling Points" memos. I got sick of this at one point and called him on it (with a bcc: to his boss), saying I refused to use a specific talking point he'd given us because it was false advertising. This, as you might guess, started an uproar. Lordy he hated me, but he was never able to do anything about it because I got better numbers than the fools who walked around with their lips attached to his ass all day. I referred to it as my Hank Hill moment.

Anyway ... when I see these people pop up here and there defending TW and the whole metering business, all I see is a list of talking points, and they're all the same. And they're all wrong.

Tangent about AOL: In OKC the AOL call center, before it closed, was located across the street from my office. One of my reps had worked there before he got a job with Cox, and he told me horror stories. One day he drew my attention to the parking lot, where there was an ambulance waiting. The ambulance would show up two or three times a week, but I never knew what the deal with it was. There were a lot of businesses and agencies in that building, including the Social Security office and the OK Department of Rehabilitative Services. I had assumed the ambulances were there for people who had business with those offices who were already in poor health and had problems ... or perhaps they simply starved to death waiting in line. But, no ... On average, while he was there, at least one person a week on the call center floor at AOL was carted out on a stretcher either due to a panic attack or a bona fide heart attack due to the stress. There's a reason those reps are such bastards. Their jobs depended on it. The reps who staffed the disconnect department (there was a whole, separate department for disconnects ... chew on that for awhile) had a quota of saves to make, or they lost their jobs. That guy who worked with me hated them with a passion and got most of his sales with Cox by relating to former or current AOL customers who were fed up.

I don't trust any of these companies, be they ATT, Cox, TW, or whatever ... but I do like it when they go to war. That's the only time the consumer has a hope of getting a break. I would throw a party if TW went under, and I think I'd invite everyone who works for Comcast, just to watch them sweat.

Boy, if that doesn't make everything crystal clear. Pack everyone into a pressure cooker so they're compelled to do what AOL wants them to do, but can't legally force them to do. Like billing tens of thousands months beyond their disconnect dates! Kick culpability all the way down to the sad sacks on the shop floor -- hey, we only asked him to stuff 60 pounds of shit into a 40 pound bag, it's not our fault the seams burst! Bastards.

About market (non)competitiveness in the US -- here's a timely article that makes me despair:

Pretty much the fastest consumer broadband in the world is the 160-megabit-per-second service offered by J:Com, the largest cable company in Japan. Here’s how much the company had to invest to upgrade its network to provide that speed: $20 per home passed.

...

By contrast, Verizon is spending an average of $817 per home passed to wire neighborhoods for its FiOS fiber optic network and another $716 for equipment and labor in each home that subscribes, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Company.

...

The experience in Japan suggests that the major cable systems in the United States might be able to increase the speed of their broadband service by five to 10 times right away. They might not need to charge much more for it than they do now and they’d still make as much money.

The cable industry here uses the same technology as J:Com. And several vendors said that while the prices Mr. Fries quoted were on the low side, most systems can be upgraded for no more than about $100 per home, including a new modem. Moreover, the monthly cost of bandwidth to connect a home to the Internet is minimal, executives say.

...

The industry is worried that by offering 100 Mbps, they are opening Pandora’s box, he said. Everyone will be able to get video on the Internet, and then competition will bring the price for the broadband down from $80 to $60 to $40.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/the-cost-to-offer-the-worlds-fastest-broadband-20-per-home

A recap of my Japan experience: In the 90s Japan was a backwater. ISPs were split between 33/56K dialup offerings (and I couldn't get better than single-digits speeds at any price because of the Korean War vintage wiring in my house). ISDN was outlandishly priced.

Phone service was metered, 10 yen per 3 minutes, roughly 2 bucks an hour. For an extra fee, charges could be lowered to 10 yen per 5 minutes. There was also another plan for an extra 2000 yen -- you could designate 2 local phone numbers and they would be unmetered between 11pm and 8am. Guess when I did all my surfing.

My ISP had ridiculously small monthly time caps, so I had 2 accounts, switching over in the middle of the month. It was depressing. My online friends were all getting broadband and could have realtime discussions, while my posts were like intermittent eruptions of time-delayed noise.

Late 1999, some gov't ministers began making noises about the importance of connectivity to Japan's economic future.

In 2001, I get a flyer stuffed in my door. DSL is here, 1.5mbs! I streaked out, signed up, and 3 days later was zooming on the internet. Huzzah!

6 months later, we've got 8mbs, you want in? Hell yeah! Gazoooom!

6 months after that, 8mbs is now our base tier, so we're moving you up to 12mbs. Arigato!

6 months again, 24mbs is coming, sign you up? Okay.

6 months, we're rolling out the fiber, 48mbs. No thanks, I'm good.

A year later, how does 100mbs sound? No really, I'm good.

Now I'm back in the USA! USA! USA! (where at least I know I'm freeeeee) on a dodgy 5mbs connection, beholden to a money-sucking no-service behemoth, hoping another money-sucking no-service behemoth will move in and rescue me. Meanwhile, coffee shop connections in Tokyo are 100mbs and you can get 160mbs to your home.

It makes me weep.

a collection agency.. wouldnt terminate my bill.

so to any google of Vonage.. http://www.ripoff.com,vonage ripoff, vonage sucks,

may come back with a rebuttal. I work online all day using roadrunner and will keep an ear out because AT&T is available and I will gladly switch, until the next scam comes along.

because to most searchers there is no alternative to "high end" bandwidth users than the local telephone company, Frontiernet. Now slower loading Frontiernet would never give up its ruinous fee schedule modus operandi and I suspect few hoggish corporations do once they get into it even if it means extinction. Something about rate fees and cold dead hands comes to mind. The overpriced satellite dish option is shaky for "high bandwidth" internet users and flat out claims to be unable to serve a lot of gamers, for one thing. FIOS, of course is not here to reap anything.

They are being coy and "fluid" about these plans despite having done them already elsewhere, testing the waters as they usually do for heat, waiting until the harmless boil cools down and ramming through the main change. However, many ordinary people are quick to get on this even if the the intrepid news reporters give the corporate byline the happy thousand mile stare. This will cripple usage, lose business, but here they feel, I am sure the percentage losses are worth taking the beachhead.

I am sure they have a nationwide rollout plan must more firm and determined than their vague presentation to date of the process. they will meter each customer's usage and determine a package based on that, not choice, and dare you to change it. I wonder if the real firestorm that will come too late, one they will tamp down in the short run, is when small users with computers crammed with spyware, running processes and pricey bandwidth options realize they are far mystically beyond the unrealistic and stingy limits set by TWC. And then of course- as has happened(to us) in the early day of Frontier charging fees for early online, hackers will play havoc on victims of need and personal spite in local ISP's to grab bandwidth and rack up your bill. It would be nice if corporate victims like X-Box Live, Netflix etc. would pitch a helping hand into our usual sea of ignorance and murk.

The reason I posted here is not for the outrage but for some possible technical escape from the trap. I'll bet we are even paying for the intimidating running meter process TWC will employ to show us how much we using.

...or not wanting/having the money to upgrade their equipment yet.

One person locally thinks RR Turbo is a way to escape the trap albeit at a $10 higher fee rate. Despite national advertisement you have to be proactive to see and request this. It disappears from websites, is installed and doesn't work, gets canceled or changed with no notice. This is anecdotal and foggy but seems over and over again aimed at people using lots of bandwidth or the regions chosen for the guinea pig experiment.

Since I posted this waves of people have defected to Frontiernet(from Mephistopheles to Beelzebub) and have been researching options and finding none. If Roadrunner itself seems to offer an option this is hardly going to be a trustworthy escape route.

I think it is time for political action to bang the drums and blow the whistles hopefully to better effect than in the past. In some of the horror stories I detect a possibility for various lawsuits and evidence of fraud etc? I think they would dread publicity more than the subscriber or financial loses incurred here on the beachhead.

I'm familiar with their tech support.

I read somewhere that the 100Mb cable modems are around the corner, right now most cable modems download max 10 Mb.. and then they just let you have 3 Mb (nice of them :mad: )

I wouldn't count on it.

Cable companies have had the ability to deliver up to 40 megs in most major markets for a long time, but they don't do it. One of the most common Motorola modems in use today supports up to 40 Mb/s and has for about three years now.

There are a couple problems that have various sub-parts. One of the nominally legitimate ones is that some companies -- Comcast and TW being the worst of these -- spent most of their time in the past 5 - 10 years buying up smaller cable systems and then doing nothing with them to upgrade their infrastructure. Some of these small systems haven't been upgraded since the mid-90s and genuinely cannot handle the speeds.

The other, bigger "problem" is explored above with the conflict of interest issue. Cable companies have an interest in keeping speeds at a level where the quality and convenience of television is still superior to viewing content over the Internet. Sites like Hulu are a huge thorn in their side, and at breakneck speed they've managed already to work deals that delay the release of some shows days, weeks, or even months. Some shows appear on Hulu the day after they are aired, but the number of these has changed dramatically in the past few months. The NCAA really knocked them for a loop by broadcasting the tournament (ALL the games) online for free, almost totally undercutting these special PPV deals cable companies were offering to do the same thing that cost over a hundred dollars in some markets. They got a 10 second broadcast delay to soothe them a bit, but the winds there are shifting, and there will be some major battles over this in the near future.

And ... mark my words ... it'll be wrapped up in an issue that seems to be about piracy and intellectual property rights and on the surface totally unrelated.

Lotsa people want to REPLACE teevee with an Internet connection. I know I do.
They should expand their views of 'market'. Of course, I don't want to pay cable tv prices!

In the cable industry?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Short story:

My first day of training at Cox involved two hours studying the history of the cable industry. We were then tested on this history. If you did not pass, you did not continue with the training. There was no other element (not even the part on coding a phone install, which is regulated by the FCC and which can result in heavy fines if it is done incorrectly) that was that stringent with a pass/fail element.

Understand this history goes back to when the "cable industry" was a bunch of people who got together, bought up some land on a hill outside of town, put up a huge antenna, and ran coax from the antenna down to homes inside the town so they could get better reception and then charged people for the line. It then took the very same path of the steel, railroad, and oil industries in the latter part of the 19th century. A lot of related industries from content creators (channels) to equipment manufacturers grew up around this, and the cable companies swallowed them up or were swallowed up themselves by those other companies. Everything was merged, and these huge corporations were formed that controlled everything. Just like the railroads, agreements were formed between competing companies to sponsor laws that marked off territory for each. One company gets this part of the state, the other company gets another, etc. Then the Ma Bell was broken up, and the cable companies saw a new opportunity, not to find a new way of doing business but to expand and control even more.

For 30-odd years that's the way it worked, and that's the way everyone in charge is hell bent on it continuing to work. This is what they know, and it's the only thing they know. Control everything.

There's a reason that bit of history was so important to our training. We were supposed to believe there was one way of doing things and only one way, and that was the foundation of every individual bit of our training afterward.

The Internet is and will continue to be a game changer, but the cable companies will fight it tooth and nail while Ma Bell looks for her opportunity for revenge.

cable subscriber for MAYBE two or three years in my entire life. I remember when cable came into being. I was cutting my teeth on Wang word processors at the brand spanking new Sprint marketing offices in Dallas. Sprint was developing voice recognition (and fiber optic). Every time I make a phone call to a business, I regret that being on that ground floor. *tears hair out*

Heady times for all!

If my roommates haven't had cable or as in my last apartment where management provided it, I didn't have it. No biggie to me. I've got Internet ;) and before that it was VCR.

Your tech experience at Cox was different than mine at TW. You WERE the cable company. We were the middle, outsourced guys.
We didn't give diddly about the history.

Thought you might be interested because your thread has been on target. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5400157

After you've stirred everyone up with a ridiculously lowball offer, float a new one that looks magnanimous in comparison. For mo' money, natch. Haggling 101:

Time Warner Cable To Test 100 GB Plan For Mega-Downloaders, Too

Way down at the bottom, there's a pullquote from another article. A single offhand line inadvertently bares the heart of this nonsense:

Plans will range from $30 to $55 per month, depending on the cap -- 5 GB, 10 GB, 20 GB, and 40 GB caps are available, with a $1 per GB overage charge, according to BusinessWeek. Those caps are very low compared to rival Comcast's (CMCSA) 250 GB cap. No word if Time Warner Cable's forthcoming Web video service will count toward its caps.

Meanwhile, Japan's national telcom imposed their first caps late last year -- NTT customers are limited to uploading 30 gigs per day.

That's UPLOADING, not the other way. PER DAY. That's as generous as the MONTHLY bandwidth allotment for an average webhosting plan.

mostly play Frontlines Fuel of War on a private server, but i was thinking of a subscription to a gaming website to play other games. but i don't know which one is best yet
..
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how many Gb they use..but they need to provide a meter

Caved after losing thousands of angry subscribers, getting Shumer and Massa sicced on them and website action groups hitting them on several fronts. The same thing that happened when Frontiernet wheeled out their own metered bandwidth limits last year(also without telling their local office anything).

This is pretty big considering the submissive victories in the other cities. Of course it is only suspended pending further study how to sell their crappy rationale and restraint of trade. I put in a consumer's complaint to the state DOJ.

Frontiernet(DSL satellite internet) of course is wallowing in its first success against TW in years, giving away laptops, great initial rates etc. although the fine print warns you their "summer of love"(I think that is exactly the wrong word) will last only until their next creative round of rate increases comes up.

I remind the computer fans that elections matter. Imagine Kuhl joining his voice to our local media dishrags, humble commiseration for the miserable rate slaves and nothing but nods to TW's ludicrous reasoning.