Time Warner Cable really needs to work on its public image.
We've talked at length about the high costs of its proposed Tier-based broadband pricing plans, and it did back down from those (for now) after public pressure and a bit too many glances from government officials. Then came the rumors that, since they couldn't push the tiered pricing through, they were scrapping plans to roll out much faster DOCSIS 3.0 equipment in those test areas (at the same time that Comcast is actively rolling out DOCSIS 3.0 with plans to have 65% of its customers on the higher speed gear by the end of 2009).
Now comes TWC's third strike. In Wilson, NC, there's a city-owned and operated cable service called Greenlight which is offering higher speed internet and better tv channel selection than TWC does, for less money. Greenlight came into being when the City of Wilson approached TWC and local DSL provider Embarq and requested faster service for the area. TWC refused the request. And so Greenlight was born.
Now Time Warner Cable and Embarq are upset that they've got competition, and rather than try to go head to head with Greenlight on price and service, they've instead been lobbying the state government of NC to pass laws to put Greenlight out of business. And apparently they're having some success, as the NC State Senate have proposed bills that would do TWC's bidding. DailyTech has all the details on the story, and Brian Bowman, Public Affairs Manager for Wilson, has set up a blog to disseminate information about the situation. I love the blog's tagline: Broadband IS an essential utility - just like clean water and good roads. Rock on, Mr. Bowman.
I'd love to hear comments from someone who lives in Wilson. I can't imagine how frustrating it'd be to have 10/10 Mbps internet service ($99/month, and the package comes with 81 TV channels and telephone service) and have my speed cut back and my bill go up, because my state government passed laws protecting the interests of a behemoth like Time Warner Cable. And then, of course, to have to turn around and pay the very people who caused you this misfortune in the first place? Ugh.
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TimeWarner's government influence ruined Nebraska.
Several years ago... Time Warner was diligently working to roll out Road Runner cable Internet in Lincoln, NE. They had a deployment window of 10 months or so and were lighting up neighborhoods as they completed installation of infrastructure.In the months leading up to this point, the TW execs stooped low enough to team up with Alltel execs whom then lobbied the state legislature to pass a law to prevent municipalities (city governments and city/state owned organizations) from offering ISP services.
The threat was the public/city owned power company, Lincoln Electric Systems. Through the years, as LES has upgraded their power infrastructure, they ran fiber. Lincoln, NE has the most complete fiber mesh network of any city in the country, however most of it's dark fiber.
At one point 10 years ago, we thought we'd have fiber to our homes. Silly us, all of a sudden Time Warner and Alltel came with gus a blazen with all this FUD about how our nationally low power bills would go sky high. They lobbied the state legislature, and laws were passed. In response to the higher bill FUD, the elderly quickly voted the law in.
We are now left with dying rural small towns who still have dialup, 33.6k dialup.. Alltel never updated their equipment. Towns like the one I grew up in which are plagued by abandoned houses. As the elderly die, so does the town. Topic of discussion is always there about how the young people move to the big towns/cities. I am an IT Manager and fall off the grid when I visit my mother.
We now have a non-profit organization which is trying to overturn this legislation.
Write your rep
I hope everyone that reads this, and is upset, takes 2 minutes to write your State representative an email. You can get your representative's email from http://www.ncleg.net/ Enter your zip code on the right hand side of the page and send something as short as "I support Wilson, NC's community internet service. Please don't side with Time Warner's monopoly."It is really easy and makes a difference.
WHO IS THIS NON-PROFIT!
I also live in Lincoln NE, and I'd love to know who this non-profit is as I'd love to get involved. It's utterly ridiculous that we have 1 cable company. Sure, we have other options for internet...but they either use TWC's lines, or they use crappy DSL. DSL hasn't been a viable option since cable came about. I'm hoping Verizon can bring FIOS since they have a nice call center here now.