Cancel Cable: How Internet Pirates Get Free Stuff I’m not sure this book needs any further comment…
In an article on WIRED News, Dylan F. Tweney writes that there are three problems with the FCC’s proposed position in favor of net neutrality. His first alleged problem is that bandwidth is not infinite, and that providers “need the flexibility to ban or mitigate high-bandwidth uses of their network [...] Take away their ability [...]
In The Guardian Cory Doctorow writes about the possible chilling effect of usage-based Internet billing schemes: But the real problem of per-usage billing is that no one – not even the most experienced internet user – can determine in advance how much bandwidth they’re about to consume before they consume it. Before you clicked on [...]
The New York Times looks at quarterly results, and comes to the same conclusions as everyone else: broadband is getting cheaper for the cable companies, but licensing fees for TV programming keep going up, which is why cable bills keep going up. That’s also why Time Warner wants to prevent people from ditching their cable [...]
Consumers Union are the publishers of Consumer Reports. They’ve just published their comments on the Time Warner usage charges. When TWC released its first quarter financial results this week the hard numbers completely contradicted the company’s argument that it was being forced to go to a metered broadband model. In fact, the numbers showed that [...]
You might have noticed a news story this week predicting that the Internet will start to melt down in the next year due to streaming video and other high bandwidth applications. The “study” was by a mysterious organization called Nemertes Research. You might be forgiven for assuming that it was part of the “education” Time [...]
Another New York Times article repeats previous comparisons of the USA’s broadband costs with other countries, but adds a couple of interesting data points: Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, has told investors that doubling the Internet capacity of a neighborhood costs an average of $6.85 a home. [...] Comcast told investors that the hardware [...]
The Economist talks about the future of television: At your correspondent’s home-from-home in Japan, he can get broadband at 160 megabits a second from his local cable company for Y6,000 ($60) a month. [...] Meanwhile, Time Warner Cable remains in the dark ages with its Road Runner service dribbling out three megabits a second (if [...]
It doesn’t surprise me that in the latest customer satisfaction rankings, Time Warner was 110th out of 113, with their Road Runner Internet service slightly higher at 99th place.
From this week’s Austin Chronicle: Once Time Warner has its hand on the faucet, the cable company can exert huge power over the flow of the Internet. A quick reconfiguring of the tiers, a heartfelt note, and customers will be squeezed for a few more dollars, simply because they like to watch Saturday Night Live [...]
