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Politicians oppose Time Warner Cable caps

Modelworks

Modelworks

Lifer
I was surprised to see that writing and emailing politicians actually gets results . I would at least fire off a email or letter to the politicians in your area letting them know you oppose the caps.

If you just sit and do nothing , then don't complain when they put caps in your area.


Email: http://massa.house.gov/?sectionid=7&sectiontree=4,7
Rep. Eric Massa (D-New York) today announced his opposition to Time Warner?s broadband Internet cap, calling it monopolistic and outrageous.

Massa said he will be taking a lead in Congress to oppose Time Warner?s move to impose limits on customers at a time when access to information is driving our economic recovery. He accused the company of ?stagnating 21st century technology needed to rebuild America.?

?Internet access is as essential to our economy as water is to our survival,? said Congressman Eric Massa. ?With limited choices in broadband providers, and virtual monopolies in many market areas, I view this as nothing more than a large corporation making a move to force customers into paying more money. I firmly oppose capping internet usage and I will be taking a leadership role in stopping this outrageous, job killing initiative.?

Massa predicted that cell-phone style pricing of broadband would lead to a steep decline in Internet usage or else middle income families would see outrageous Internet bills. He also expressed concern about sweeping First Amendment issues that are at stake from the artificial limiting of access to what has become an essential communications tool used by most Americans.

Massa represents New York?s 29th District which extends from the southern tier into the southern suburbs of Rochester.

Contact Rep. Eric Massa:

Washington DC Office
1208 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-3161
Fax: (202) 226-6599

Corning District Office
89 W. Market Street
Corning, NY 14830
Phone: (607) 654-7566
Fax: (607) 654-7568

Olean Office
317 North Union Street
Olean, NY 14760
Phone: (716) 372-2090
Fax: (716) 372-2869

Pittsford District Office
1 Grove St
Suite 101
Pittsford, NY 14534
Phone: (585) 218-0040
Fax: (585) 218-0053
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Once again, politicians have no idea what they're talking about.

The caps won't stop the average customer from doing anything. It will simply stop a very small minority of people from gorging on available bandwidth, affecting the ISP and everybody else. As a generalization, many who actually use that much bandwidth in a given timeframe, also download quite a bit of illegal content.

Only legitimate uses I can see this hurting are of gamers. If anything, this will get them off their asses to either work more to pay for the bandwidth, or upset them enough to simply pick up another hobby. 😉
 
I have no problem with fair caps (as in they are targeted at preventing the current top ~1% using an inordinate amount of bandwidth), as long as they are made clear in all advertisements and in TOS. I don't want to see these cable companies advertising 10Mbps or 20Mbps and then you see in ridiculously fine print that only 100GB bandwidth is allowed a month.
 
Originally posted by: SagaLore
Once again, politicians have no idea what they're talking about.

The caps won't stop the average customer from doing anything. It will simply stop a very small minority of people from gorging on available bandwidth, affecting the ISP and everybody else. As a generalization, many who actually use that much bandwidth in a given timeframe, also download quite a bit of illegal content.

Only legitimate uses I can see this hurting are of gamers. If anything, this will get them off their asses to either work more to pay for the bandwidth, or upset them enough to simply pick up another hobby. 😉
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Nope. If internet companies get away with limiting bandwidth it will seriously delay improvements to the internet structure in America, causing us to fall farther and farther behind many other countries.

and btw did you notice their proposed caps? It will affect many, many users.

 
Originally posted by: SagaLore
Once again, politicians have no idea what they're talking about.

The caps won't stop the average customer from doing anything. It will simply stop a very small minority of people from gorging on available bandwidth, affecting the ISP and everybody else. As a generalization, many who actually use that much bandwidth in a given timeframe, also download quite a bit of illegal content.

Only legitimate uses I can see this hurting are of gamers. If anything, this will get them off their asses to either work more to pay for the bandwidth, or upset them enough to simply pick up another hobby. 😉
Click to expand...

Excuse me but the bandwidth constraints that TWC is implementing is VERY limited. 40gb is the limit for their top tier at the moment and legitimate use, you can easily go over 40gb. I use a lot of netflix streaming and I routinely use a shade over 100gb. Comcast's caps of 250gb are more in the realistic realm. I also think ISP's should be tiers of 500gb and even 1tb for the heavy downloaders - obviously at a higher cost, say of 60-70/month and $100/month for 1tb. I do think heavy downloaders should have to pay more but 40gb cap for top tier for $60/month....no way, unrealistic. Bandwidth does NOT cost that much especially when they charge $1/gb overage charges.
 
Not sure what legal recourse the government really has (though they could always... you know... make one 😀). Who knows, maybe they can bully TWC around a little more since they're allowing them to operate as a protected monopoly.

However, I pointed out in the other thread that TWC is charging much more than the typical going rate compared to other services. A Comcast user gets 250 GB a month for $60, whereas a TWC user gets 40 GB a month for the same $60. TWC is essentially charging 6x as much per GB as Comcast... over $1 per GB! When they're price-gouging their customers so badly AND they're a monopoly, maybe the government can get involved.

Originally posted by: Dark Jedi
I remember seeing this image a long time ago. All of a sudden it looks a lot more possible...Text
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Reminds me of the old AOL/CompuServe days.
 
If caps were set to about 3250GB/month I'd be fine with that. That roughly equates to sustained 10Mbps 24/7 for 30 days.
 
Originally posted by: kevnich2
Originally posted by: SagaLore
Once again, politicians have no idea what they're talking about.

The caps won't stop the average customer from doing anything. It will simply stop a very small minority of people from gorging on available bandwidth, affecting the ISP and everybody else. As a generalization, many who actually use that much bandwidth in a given timeframe, also download quite a bit of illegal content.

Only legitimate uses I can see this hurting are of gamers. If anything, this will get them off their asses to either work more to pay for the bandwidth, or upset them enough to simply pick up another hobby. 😉
Click to expand...

Excuse me but the bandwidth constraints that TWC is implementing is VERY limited. 40gb is the limit for their top tier at the moment and legitimate use, you can easily go over 40gb. I use a lot of netflix streaming and I routinely use a shade over 100gb. Comcast's caps of 250gb are more in the realistic realm. I also think ISP's should be tiers of 500gb and even 1tb for the heavy downloaders - obviously at a higher cost, say of 60-70/month and $100/month for 1tb. I do think heavy downloaders should have to pay more but 40gb cap for top tier for $60/month....no way, unrealistic. Bandwidth does NOT cost that much especially when they charge $1/gb overage charges.
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So what? It is their infrastructure and they should be able to run it as they see fit. If you don't like it, change service providers.
 
I think the legal angle they are going to put on this is the virtual monopoly. They could try something like, either use our guidelines to keep your monopoly or allow other companies in and charge what you want.

Right now they have a monopoly in most cities and no control over what they can charge. If they want to start tomorrow charging $10 a day they can. People would be forced to either pay up or stop using.

Email your reps at least. It can't hurt.
 
Originally posted by: SagaLore
Once again, politicians have no idea what they're talking about.

The caps won't stop the average customer from doing anything. It will simply stop a very small minority of people from gorging on available bandwidth, affecting the ISP and everybody else. As a generalization, many who actually use that much bandwidth in a given timeframe, also download quite a bit of illegal content.

Only legitimate uses I can see this hurting are of gamers. If anything, this will get them off their asses to either work more to pay for the bandwidth, or upset them enough to simply pick up another hobby. 😉
Click to expand...

I can think of several other scenarios:

People who work tech-related jobs from home
Web developers (I backup 3GB+ data/week and prob upload 2GB+, meaning 50% of 40GB cap used without doing anything else)
Downloading the latest DVD image of X linux distro sets you back 12%+ on bandwidth cap
Steaming video (Netflix, Hulu, etc)

It will affect a lot of people, and the cap system will be an excuse for ISPs to delay infrastructure improvements that we desperately need to compete with other countries.
 
Originally posted by: Linflas
So what? It is their infrastructure and they should be able to run it as they see fit. If you don't like it, change service providers.
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That will work, until the other service providers follow suit.
You would think that most companies would choose not to impose caps, to keep competitive edge, but they wouldn't.
It's not exactly collusion, but these companies realize they can all benefit and profit more from imposing caps - if they can get away with it.

Problem is, internet access, particularly broadband, is becoming more like a utility that people feel (whether rightly or not, I don't know) they have a right to. You know, like those old NetZero commercials (before those bastards starting charging)... except with paying nominal fee for access. No one wants ISPs to charge too much for access, especially when we aren't getting the same level of speed and service that other countries (like Japan, for various reasons) get for cheap.
 
Originally posted by: Linflas


So what? It is their infrastructure and they should be able to run it as they see fit. If you don't like it, change service providers.
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And what if there is no other provider ? Their infrastructure a large portion of it was paid for by taxpayers. Try starting a second cable company in your city.

Read about the $200 Billion telecom companies got that never did anything.
http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm
 
Originally posted by: Spartan Niner
Originally posted by: SagaLore
Once again, politicians have no idea what they're talking about.

The caps won't stop the average customer from doing anything. It will simply stop a very small minority of people from gorging on available bandwidth, affecting the ISP and everybody else. As a generalization, many who actually use that much bandwidth in a given timeframe, also download quite a bit of illegal content.

Only legitimate uses I can see this hurting are of gamers. If anything, this will get them off their asses to either work more to pay for the bandwidth, or upset them enough to simply pick up another hobby. 😉
Click to expand...

I can think of several other scenarios:

People who work tech-related jobs from home
Web developers (I backup 3GB+ data/week and prob upload 2GB+, meaning 50% of 40GB cap used without doing anything else)
Downloading the latest DVD image of X linux distro sets you back 12%+ on bandwidth cap
Steaming video (Netflix, Hulu, etc)

It will affect a lot of people, and the cap system will be an excuse for ISPs to delay infrastructure improvements that we desperately need to compete with other countries.
Click to expand...

I just made a post in the Console Gaming forum about an article about this subject from Gamers with Jobs. The article detailed how the couple easily exceeded Time Warner's 40GB cap for $54.99/month just by downloading a few demos, buying a couple of games to download, and watching Netflix streaming through their Xbox 360.

This didn't include any of their normal internet activity such as browsing, watching Hulu, etc.

There's supposed to be a 100GB tier too but that one wasn't priced out.

and yes, contacting your politician by mail or phone can work if done so in large enough volume.
 
Originally posted by: SagaLore
Once again, politicians have no idea what they're talking about.

The caps won't stop the average customer from doing anything. It will simply stop a very small minority of people from gorging on available bandwidth, affecting the ISP and everybody else. As a generalization, many who actually use that much bandwidth in a given timeframe, also download quite a bit of illegal content.

Only legitimate uses I can see this hurting are of gamers. If anything, this will get them off their asses to either work more to pay for the bandwidth, or upset them enough to simply pick up another hobby. 😉
Click to expand...

Actually, you don't have any idea of what you're talking about. Remember when Bill Gates said we wouldn't need more than 512kb of ram? Why don't we use you as a test subject. 5GB per month. GL.
 
Originally posted by: Crono
Problem is, internet access, particularly broadband, is becoming more like a utility that people feel (whether rightly or not, I don't know) they have a right to. You know, like those old NetZero commercials (before those bastards starting charging)... except with paying nominal fee for access. No one wants ISPs to charge too much for access, especially when we aren't getting the same level of speed and service that other countries (like Japan, for various reasons) get for cheap.
Click to expand...

I know some people here think that but I see a lot more people who are fine with caps as long as they're reasonable. A 250 GB/mo cap is reasonable as it will stop only egregious BitTorrent uploaders but it is unlikely to interfere with anyone else.

People will accept reasonable caps, not unreasonable ones. Especially when TWC has a monopoly, preventing people from switching to a more realistic ISP. For many people, cable is the only high speed access available - while I'm lucky to be in an area with fast 7 Mbit DSL, many DSL users are limited to just 1.5 Mbps, which is more like 800-1000 kbps in practice and feels noticeably slower.
 
Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
Originally posted by: Crono
Problem is, internet access, particularly broadband, is becoming more like a utility that people feel (whether rightly or not, I don't know) they have a right to. You know, like those old NetZero commercials (before those bastards starting charging)... except with paying nominal fee for access. No one wants ISPs to charge too much for access, especially when we aren't getting the same level of speed and service that other countries (like Japan, for various reasons) get for cheap.
Click to expand...

I know some people here think that but I see a lot more people who are fine with caps as long as they're reasonable. A 250 GB/mo cap is reasonable as it will stop only egregious BitTorrent uploaders but it is unlikely to interfere with anyone else.
Click to expand...

Yeah, personally I have no problem with reasonable caps (see my first post).
 
Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
Originally posted by: Crono
Problem is, internet access, particularly broadband, is becoming more like a utility that people feel (whether rightly or not, I don't know) they have a right to. You know, like those old NetZero commercials (before those bastards starting charging)... except with paying nominal fee for access. No one wants ISPs to charge too much for access, especially when we aren't getting the same level of speed and service that other countries (like Japan, for various reasons) get for cheap.
Click to expand...

I know some people here think that but I see a lot more people who are fine with caps as long as they're reasonable. A 250 GB/mo cap is reasonable as it will stop only egregious BitTorrent uploaders but it is unlikely to interfere with anyone else.

People will accept reasonable caps, not unreasonable ones. Especially when TWC has a monopoly, preventing people from switching to a more realistic ISP. For many people, cable is the only high speed access available - while I'm lucky to be in an area with fast 7 Mbit DSL, many DSL users are limited to just 1.5 Mbps, which is more like 800-1000 kbps in practice and feels noticeably slower.
Click to expand...

Once we get to HD content on the web, its not going to be enough. VOIP+Streaming TV+Regular browsing(lolflash) is going to destroy 250GB. All legal. No torrents.
 
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