
Time Warner Boosts My Speed, Cuts My Bill - cjaredrun
http://consumerist.com/2013/01/30/time-warner-boosts-my-speed-cuts-my-bill-i-just-happen-to-live-near-google-fiber/
======
krazybig
This article is factually inaccurate. Time Warner is rolling this change out
across the country, not just in the Kansas City area.

Here's the announcement from December:
[http://www.twcableuntangled.com/2012/12/we-are-boosting-
down...](http://www.twcableuntangled.com/2012/12/we-are-boosting-download-
speeds-by-50-percent-for-standard-internet-customers/)

Frankly, Time Warner needs to increase their internet speeds to keep up with
LTE. I have one of the higher speed options and my LTE speeds are about twice
what I experience on my Time Warner connection.

~~~
jrockway
I have a 50mbps Time Warner connection and all I got was a letter telling me
that I would have to pay $8 a month to rent a $10 modem.

One thing I've noticed since moving to New York City from Chicago is that
nobody has to even try in New York because the captive audience is so large
that even the worst-run business will make tons of money. ("We don't take
credit cards." "A $5 fee will be added for paying your bill online." "No
laptops allowed at this coffee shop.") I'm surprised JFK isn't a Ryanair hub
yet. </rant>

~~~
apaprocki
Buy this from your favorite online site:

[http://www.motorola.com/Video-Solutions/US-EN/Products-
and-S...](http://www.motorola.com/Video-Solutions/US-EN/Products-and-
Services/Voice-and-Data-Consumer-Premise-Equipment/DOCSIS-Modems-Gateways-and-
eMTAs/Cable-Modems/SB6141-US-EN)

Call the service # and tell them you have a new MAC address to give them for
your subscription and the fee gets removed. All-in-all it took 5 minutes.

~~~
mnutt
I'm glad TWC allows this. My parents (who are on Comcast) began getting a
$5/mo fee added because they did not rent Comcast's cable modem. (which also
costs $5/mo)

~~~
colanderman
I'm on Comcast and have my own modem (the one linked above, it's great) and
have no such fee.

------
js2
Let's see what TWC's response is to [http://wunc.org/post/universities-work-
together-bring-ultraf...](http://wunc.org/post/universities-work-together-
bring-ultrafast-internet-nc)

They already got the NC legislature in their pocket
[http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/22/nc-governor-will-let-
cabl...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/22/nc-governor-will-let-cable-backed-
bill-restricting-municipal-bro/)

------
LarryMade
When there's a chance of serious competition they will act.

Years ago in our spot in rural California Sierra Nevada foothills we were
patiently waiting for DSL... Every time we called AT&T they said DSL was a
year or two away. According to rumor it took a fire for it to finally happen.

Around 2001 we had a major wildland fire that burned off a lot of trees and
such which cleared off line of sight for satellite reception for TV and
internet to a lot of folks. According to some, that possibility prompted
Comcast to stretch out their cable access to beat the satellite service to the
punch, and at the same time they started working on digital cable service
here-which meant high speed internet, and lo and behold DSL was available in
mere months!

Not to say it was a total roll out - there are still some areas beyond the
5000 meters from the CO and too far from the cable routes that have to suffer
with satellite - and its really lousy, just above dial up - unless cable or
DSL moves in I'm sure Hughes/WildBlue wont bother on improving that.

~~~
atdrummond
For those beyond 5K meters, they should try Exede. The latency is still high
but speeds average around 10 mbps.

~~~
jlgaddis
FWIW, Exede comes from ViaSat, which owns WildBlue. I've heard from folks
inside that the reason for the name change is due to the less-than-stellar, to
put it nicely, reputation of the WildBlue brand.

I'm glad the service is working out for you, but a quick search of
dslreports.com shows that not everyone is as happy with Exede as you are.

------
Sami_Lehtinen
For $29,90 USD you should get at least 100Mbps. 10 to 15Mbps upgrade made me
laugh. Here in Helsinki, Finland 100Mbit/s unlimited connection without caps
costs 19,90€/mo, including 24% tax.

Gigabit connection got premium price of 99€/mo (including taxes).

There are no additional fees, like device rents, connection fees or what ever.

~~~
jyrkesh
I realize that the cable monopoly is underinvesting in infrastructure and
overcharging for service, but it's still unfair to compare the service of a
country as small as Finland to a country as large and sprawling as the US.
There's simply that much more ground to cover, and coverage is definitely a
higher priority than speed or cost.

~~~
Sami_Lehtinen
Err, Finland is not that densely populated country at all.

In Finland there are 17,6 people/km^2 and in US there are 33.7 people/km^2.
Densely populated small?

Netherlands (491p/km^2) or Belgium (353p/km^2) would be very different story.

50Mbit/s 4G connection seems to cost 19,96€/mo (including 24% tax, without
data caps or prioritization limits) 100Mbit/s 4G connection seems to cost
40,13€/mo (inc tax). But with those connections you won't get full speed all
the time, as you do get with fiber.

Naturally our rural areas got whole different pricing policy and fiber
connections aren't often available. In worst case you could get 1 Mbps ADSL or
similar 3G connection.

~~~
rdl
US "rich people who can afford high speed Internet" tend to live in suburbs,
which are low density. In places like SF where there is higher density of rich
people, there are services like webpass who do 100M/$40/mo.

In Europe, they tend to live in either cities or high-density towns (small
population but very small area). The UK is an exception, but also has
relatively crappy Internet, too.

------
lancewiggs
"But the bill says $29.99, so that’s what I’m putting on the check."

I really hope he is not serious - is this true? I've not seen a checkbook in
years and years.

~~~
ariwilson
You must not live in the US.

~~~
n3rdy
Apparently we're not just behind in internet speed, but payment methods as
well.

~~~
fghh45sdfhr3
Compared to Germany, US banking _consumer_ services are in the stone age.
Investor level services on the the other hand... We lead the world in
inventing ever new investment types.

------
kennywinker
Meanwhile in Canada, internet prices trend upwards, and google fibre-esque
offerings are nowhere to be seen.

~~~
jrockway
Startup opportunity?

~~~
calciphus
Not sure how Canada's laws are, but in the US it is heavily regulated. You
can't just become an ISP, even if you could get the city to let you trench
fiber. FCC licenses are heavily policed.

We don't have duopolies in internet throughout most of the country by accident
or because no one has noticed. It's because it's illegal to operate otherwise.

~~~
jrochkind1
Huh? You only need an FCC license for radio and other over-the-air, not for
running fiber.

I know people who have started local ISP's in the US (10+ years ago, not
recently, because it's hard to get into the market now for business reasons)
-- they needed no FCC license. Although, yes, by renting fiber from the
teleco's not by running their own. But that's a capital issue, and a right-to-
run-fiber-through-the-public-way issue (permission from muncipality, as you
note), not an FCC issue.

I'm not sure what you're referring to.

~~~
skyraider
A lot more than statutory law is at play here in the US: Court cases,
regulations and states' implementations of the law matter greatly.

Basically, there's often a tacit (or even explicit) understanding that the
winner of a bid to supply cable or Internet services to a municipal area will
have the exclusive right to do so (mainly, the service providers argue, to
make the capital investment involved in supply said services worth it).

There has been a long-running debate over whether or not last-mile networks
and local cable are natural monopolies - i.e., whether or not it is most
efficient for the industry to have a monopoly. If such services are public
utilities with high capital costs, service providers might argue, they should
have the exclusive rights to sales in an area.

In fact, it got so bad that the Supreme Court said that municipalities could
be guilty of antitrust violations if they explicitly gave monopoly power to
such providers (see Community Communications Co. v. City of Boulder).

So municipalities and service providers moved to implicit guarantees of
monopoly - RFP processes that are hard for less-well-resourced companies to
win, for example. [1] What I'd like to know is whether or not these implicit
guarantees are still a problem.

Some states (like North Carolina) set up a 'franchising' process for service
providers to get the right to serve an area. So it's not always just about
permission from the municipality. It might be about whether or not your
state's equivalent of a franchising process is exclusive on the local level.
For cable, North Carolina's is supposedly non-exclusive, though I wonder how
many times Time Warner runs into trouble getting approve to serve an area, and
whether they end up developing small natural monopolies in some locations. But
regardless of whether or not those monopolies develop, you have to think about
who gets to run lines on whose land.

The fact is that the big companies have an easier time running lines for any
data/media service (cable, Internet, etc) through easements and public areas.
(This is the part some people refuse to believe. 'Oh, but anybody can purchase
land!' Sure, but do you have the capital to do that, or does Time Warner?)

A truly competitive market would involve setting up the infrastructure and
having the public own _that_ , instead of owning or operating actual ISPs,
which, to any rational observer, constitutes unfair competition, even in light
of the desperate need for competition in some markets.

States and municipalities would hand out licenses to the infrastructure, not
to the land. That'd be really cool, and possibly really efficient.

[1] - <http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa034.html> (Good summary of the debate;
pretty fair)

~~~
jrochkind1
Absolutely, it would be really difficult for a small company to somehow become
an actual fiber-owning ISP (as opposed to renting fiber from a giant company).

But it's got nothing to do with any "FCC licenses", as the post I was replying
to said, there aren't any involved.

(Slightly more feasible practically, although still capital-intensive, would
be starting your own over-the-air ISP with blanket wifi or point-to-point
microwaves or whatever, I don't know the tech details, but THEN you've
possibly got FCC licenses involved!)

------
jasonkostempski
I think TWC needs to double down on providing good, affordable service in
areas where they still have a monopoly instead of doing these panic offers
every time a new player moves into town. When they do that, it's much more
obvious to the customer they've been being way over charged for years. FiOS is
sparsely available in my area and I move around this area a lot, sometimes
FiOS is available, some times not. If you're lucky enough to have the
competition in your area, TWC will give you massive discounts if you tell a
rep you're switching. I never take the offer, I'd rather take my business
elsewhere just to loosen the stranglehold they have on the area.

------
ck2
Every six months I call my cable company and get my bill cut by nearly half
the regular price.

I don't think people know that most service providers have retention
departments designed specifically to give you far better rates to keep you
around.

Sure it's annoying and the price still goes up every year but there are also
people who refuse to use coupons so thank you for funding my discounts.

Admittedly if you live in a monopoly or duopoly isp area it's significantly
harder to get good performance for a low rate.

Now we need to figure out why server rental rates are so much higher in the
USA vs elsewhere.

------
jebblue
Way to go Google! Chase 'em with a hot stick! I'm so sick of charges that
don't make sense. We bought Roku and a cool HD antenna, we are now Cable
Free!!! TV not Internet.

------
sunwooz
My mom got cheaper price on the phone bills after she complained the price was
too high. Maybe everyone should start complaining.

------
cjaredrun
funny how that happens...

/me tips his hat to capitalism

~~~
betterunix
Why give the credit to capitalism? Suppose the government were to provide
quality broadband service -- would that not also force the ISPs to act (e.g.
how UPS competes with USPS)?

This is a win for _competition_ , not _capitalism_. Not all competition is
capitalism, and capitalism does not always imply meaningful competition (it
does, however, generally fail to serve people best in the absence of
competition).

~~~
ImprovedSilence
be cafeful yourself not to conflate capitilism with corporatism.

------
mosselman
That is so cute, getting excited about 5mbps extra.

<http://www.speedtest.net/result/2475450363.png>

Now, could someone explain to me why this is on hacker news, and so high in
the list? It only remotely references something new that Google is doing, is
that the requirement these days?

~~~
Ao7bei3s
I disagree, actually -- according to speedtest.net we are both in the 1%. A
5Mbits upgrade to a 20Mbits connection is significant.

<http://imageshack.us/scaled/landing/11/speedtestga.jpg> (edit: does anyone
here have a faster connection to the place where he lives?)

(Typically its much slower (esp wrt latency, but throughput too, around
25ms/90Mbit/s down) though because for normal surfing I usually just use
WLAN.)

~~~
mosselman
If the original post were about the difference between our connections I would
have found it somewhat shocking, but honestly, a top rated hacker news post
about a 5mb/s increase in speed from 10mb/s to 15... who cares?

------
sergiotapia
Link title should be changed. The Google Fiber relation is pure speculation
and NOT FACT. Title as is, is link bait.

~~~
Gilipe
It's the freaking title of the article!

