Lucky us. Rochester is one of 4 cities nationwide in which Time Warner Cable will be testing their tiered pricing model. The fun starts this summer.

This may actually be a boon to people who use the Internet pretty sparingly. They may well see a monthly rate reduction. But that’s a small percentage of the user base. People like me will be paying a minimum of $20/mo more for the high end cap. Even then, the cap is only 40GB/month. And while that seems like a lot, averaging just a few hours of online TV or video or high end MMORPG gaming a day will chew through that in nothing flat. And if you go over 40GB? Well, then it’s $1/GB from there. This means that extra Netflix video download could wind up costing you $4. The reality is that all of us are going to have to start watching the meter in our houses to assure that we stay under our caps. That will be fun. “Sorry kids, you’ll have to stay offline until the 1st of the month since we’ve already blown our cap.”

What’s behind this? Well, TW is claiming that this is necessary because a few of us are hogging the Internet and forcing them to increase their infrastructure. But the reality is that there is no bandwidth shortage. Keep in mind that that same bandwidth that your Road Runner is using is also delivering all those new digital TV channels you don’t watch. If there was really a concern about bandwidth, maybe we could do without all 7 flavors of CNN? This bandwidth crunch is a sophistry created by network providers to line their pockets. And that’s the real motivation here.

These bandwidth caps don’t really impact most people who are using the Internet for email, Facebook, and Google. The people the caps hit are predominantly those who use the Internet as a source of video content and as a telephony service. Gee, guess what other services TW sells?

As people give up cable TV and traditional phone service for Internet based equivalents, companies like TW feel the pinch. So what do they do? They jack up prices for their data services to push people back to cable TV and their expensive digital phone service.

This wouldn’t be so bad if their were a viable alternative. But here in Rochester, there is not. Frontier offers a paltry DSL service and have made noises about caps of their own. So they are no help. And while Verizon’s FIOS service is being installed in Buffalo and Syracuse, there are no near term plans for our area. FIOS is not only faster than Road Runner, but at least so far has made no mention of capping data. Small wonder that in cities where FIOS is going in, customers are fleeing TW in droves.

I would think that given TW’s effective monopoly of service in the area that the public service commission would have a say in this. So far, I’ve not seen anything suggesting they feel this is in their jurisdiction. In part this may be because I don’t think they yet consider Internet access an essential service like electricity, phone, or cable TV. But in our present society does that really make sense? Having an Internet connection is not really an optional service for most households anymore.

I have submitted a complaint to the NYS Attorney General’s office. I would encourage you to do the same. The submission form is online here. For reference, my complaint is below. Feel free to use it as a guideline.

Website Address: http://www.timewarnercable.com/Rochester/

TW has announced plans to implement metered usage in Rochester, NY this summer. The proposed usage caps are anti-competitive behavior against online high bandwidth service offerings such as Hulu, iTunes, Vonage, Netflix, Skype, Carbonite, and others. TW is trying to force users to pay for their video, music, telephone, and storage services by forcing competitors out of the market.

Further, the proposed pricing of $1/GB is gouging in a market where the cost of service is only a few cents/GB and TW has an effective monopoly on high speed broadband service. Note that TW is only introducing metered usage billing into markets where they have no competition.

There is also a Facebook group titled “BOYCOTT TIME-WARNER ROCHESTER ROADRUNNER INTERNET USAGE CAPS!!!!” that you may want to join. If I find any other good ways to oppose this, I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, another good source of information is Stop the Cap.