Man, Time Warner Cable -- you are some shady players. Hot on the heels of the ISP's decision to
withdraw DOCSIS 3.0 trials from areas that have
rejected its tiered billing plan, we're hearing that TWC's teamed up with Embarq to persuade the North Carolina state government into banning community-owned broadband services. Why? Well, turns out the 47,000 residents of Wilson, NC got tired of paying for slow broadband, so the city government launched its own fiber ISP called Greenlight that offers some pretty solid packages ranging from $99 for 81 cable channels, unlimited phone service, and 10Mbps (down
and up) internet to $170 for every single channel including premiums and 20Mbps up/down internet. (There's even a "secret" 100Mbps up/down internet plan.) Of course, these prices blow TWC and Embarq out of the water -- the comparable basic Time Warner plan has fewer channels and less bandwidth for an "introductory rate" of $137 -- and rather than compete, the two giants decided to lobby the North Carolina legislature into proposing bills that outlaw community services like Greenlight. The argument is that the big companies can't turn a profit and compete against a community-owned enterprise that essentially sells service for cost, but we're not buying it -- if anything, TWC and Embarq can invest the extra profits they've been earning in other areas into building services that would blow Greenlight out of the water. Yep, it's definitely some dirty pool -- does anyone have any positive feelings left for these behemoths?
[Thanks, William; image courtesy of IndyWeek]
Read - DailyTech article
Read - IndyWeek article
Read - Greenlight home page
Read - Save NC Broadband blog
posted Apr 22nd 2009 7:03PM
Calling TWC rightnow to cancel my standard cable for Boxee, Zinc. I get my live sports online anyway. All the time via various sources....p2p etc.
TWC only have me in the balls w/HS plan..otw, if Verizon Fios was around, i'll be long gone..
Did anyone notice the "1 Megabit = 1000 Kilobits" nonsense? o_O
How would they feel if you paid them the $35 USD by only 2000 cents?
@engadget.com (the commenter, not the website)
From Greenlightnc.com
Will my taxes go up because this project is so expensive?
No. The funds for constructing the fiber network come from bonds issued by the City of Wilson. Tax revenues are not being used to fund this project in any way.
Maybe the article was one-sided because the argument is inherently one sided. Before making accusations, do a little research.
Chad, who's paying off those bonds? What if the subscriber base can't make the bond payment in the future? Oh yeah, the tax payer will be picking it up then!
@engadget.com
"The downside of charging subscriber fees is that even though all residents must pay for some part of costs - only those willing or able to pay for the complete suite of services are allowed to reap the benefits of the taxes or fees that fund it."
You do realize all big telecoms/cable receive government funding to extend their networks to areas that "need" them, except the government doesn't define what "need" is and then they just basically pocket the money with minimal improvements?
You are already having some of your tax money given away to these companies by the national government, and these companies are recording ridiculous profits.
An organization that shows it can provide good service for a fair price is nothing but a good thing for the consumer. Frankly, any competition in an industry as overpriced as TV/internet is good because competition drives down prices.
@engadget.com (commenter)
WOW some americans are really fucking paranoid eh?
suckling from the teet?
ahh the guvernmentz! run!
Please please please Wilson, extend this service to Clayton, we're only about 30mins away, less if you are talking city limit to city limit.
I am so fed up with TWC. In Austin, where I recently left, the tiered garbage is either there or coming, and I want no part of it.
All big business handles these situations as follows: "If someone else comes out with a competing product, we do not attempt to compete. We SUE them or we get the state to declare their version illegal."
Maybe "Sue unto others before they sue unto you"?
North Carolina kicks ass. I'm in Goldsboro, not far from Wilson at all.
god i hate goldsboro. shithole.
(no offence to you)
@quantumphysics
I can't believe that internet is so expensive in the US. I pay £18($27)/mo in the UK for 24Mb/s down and 8Mb/s up and thats the going rate for broadband here.
Its even cheaper/faster if you get cable
I get off I-95 at Wilson! Who knew it was more than just an exit? Now I'll be pissed off every time I drive past it.
You yokels are getting robbed blind!! Time warner sux!! NC sux!! NJ FTW!!
@ Dopefish
you think they have it bad?
have you seen the prices for broadband in Australia?!
for AU$30 dollars you get 512kbps down/128kbps up and you have 5gb of download per month... then pay more if you go over 5gb
it's ridiculous.
although it is better in some city centres, that's pretty much it everywhere.
then you can pay more and get "unlimited" internet, such as I have... which means when you get to a certain limit (12gb/month for me) on the "unlimited" plan your internet gets shaped (slowed down to dial up speed)
These prices are more an issue with logistics (not to say the providers aren't lazy). The UK is much smaller than the US and Australia, the total FIOS grid in the US is probably larger than the UK. Australia is also large, but has a limited amount of bandwidth coming into the country, and almost all traffic is international.
Since when are corporate profits more important than the needs of the citizens? (Oh, I forgot, this is the United States.)
From a purely capitalistic standpoint, though, any company that offer a better quality product at a substantially cheaper product is probably going to get more business than its competitors. I am not for monopolies, but at the same time, if no competitor can offer a better quality product/service or offer me a better price, then I am probably not going to care how many other "choices" I have in the marketplace.
TWC and Embarq are not making any claims about their services being better. They are suppressing competition by saying their competitor is impairing their own ability to compete. I have not heard of Embarq before, but I know TWC has been around for a while. They could have gotten to the point of offering this level of service by now. Instead, they chose to squeeze every last penny they could out of customers. Now, they're getting slapped in the face.
What we need is for this to happen in other industries (e.g., cell phone carriers).
Before anyone rips me for wanting people to lose their jobs, keep in mind that the community's service is going to require people with the same skills as the people that administer the corporation's service. If I worked for TWC in Wilson, NC, I would have put in an application at Greenlight weeks ago.
Um.....yea. I guess that would make up for the outrageous other fees the state charges. I'd be more than happy to ditch charter for this any day. Which I probably will anyways once I get my ridiculous balance paid off.
and TWC, if you can't make a profit, quite whining and going after the little guys and change your services to something people will actually want to buy or leave. Geez. :rolleyes:
God, It's so nice to see that people hate Time Warner as much as I do.
I would actually know what oppression feels like if TWC was the only ballgame in town. Thankfully our local cable provider in AZ (Cox) haven't descended to the pits of hell with TWC yet.
I sure hope we have the prospect of FiOS before they do.
What you can get from Time Warner and its cost:
10 GB of monthly data: Way too much.
Customer Support: Calculated randomly by how many times a fish's gills flair in a minute.
"Oh, you wanted the PACKAGE?": 400 dollars in phone calls.
Hating the -------s at TWC: Completely ----ing priceless.
I hate TWC with a freekin' PASSION.
Sadly, they have a monopoly. DANG IT VERIZON, RUN SOME FIOS THROUGH MANHATTAN!
:(
Have you guys forgotten about comcast?
I have comcast... Not much better man
Speaking of FiOS, why's it missing from the chart? I know it's not too widespread yet, but I live in the boonies (eastern So Cal) and I even get it. 15mbps is pretty sweet.
The day FIOS comes to my area is the day I give the finger to TW.
i live in wilson, NC and we love greenlight.
time warner used to be a huge monopoly and charged whatever they wanted. and they services were balls.
i seriously dont know ANYONE who uses timewarner / embarq
I live about an hour away, in Chapel Hill. It's almost worth moving... Any chance this community-ISP scheme will catch on to neighboring cities?? (please)
Kerber, I would do the same if they'd move the university too!
This also makes me think about moving from Chapel Hill. Maybe we should start out own community ISP.
On the upside, students in CH have access to a ridiculously fast connection that is much faster than what Greenlight offers. That said, no one else has access to it, so it doesn't really count. Last test I did (2 seconds ago) 30 mbps, though I have gotten 80 before streaming Vista ISOs off of Akamai servers.
You should tell whoever is running this whole Greenlight thing to spread their services to the Raleigh-Durham area and the Triad area!
Now that's what I call a Triple Play!
We need to stand up against big companies such as TWC, and make them give us best product for best price. I do not believe that Greenlight is offering their products at cost, how are they maintaining their info structure. I want more competition and better options.
TWC been screwing people over and over. We need government to step in and take care of this shady business.
"Cost" can mean after paying for everything with no "profit" attached. Even for "info structure."
Monopolies never give the consumer the lowest possible price. The only advantage TWC et al. should have in their favor is economies of scale. They should have a massive infrastructure. It makes you wonder where their profits are going. In cases like these, the market should be opened to competition. Either other companies, communities, or local government can enter the cable/phone/internet market.
do u mean we the people after all if it was no customers no one cannot collect nothing
Dude, just cancel your subscription with them.
i don't even have twc i got northstate in high point, nc i hope the triad gets something like this soon, real soon
Although this is kinda BS since you can't have DirecTV or Dish with Greenlight unless you pay for a crappy cable service you'll never use just for the privilege.
What the hell? A government doing something productive? I never thought I'd see the day.
don't worry, the lobbyists are hard at work to change that
Is it productive? Hoe do we know the municipal isn't selling the service at a loss? Are the funneling funds from property taxes or sales taxes to subsidize this system? How can any private company compete with that in the short term?
As I understand it, Greenlight is a community project, not a state project. It's TWC that is trying to get the government involved, in order to hobble Greenlight. And they will be lobbying HARD, because if Greenlight projects start multiplying, TWC (et al) will be waving goodbye to a large chunk of their their profits.
TWC really sucks, i'm calling right now and switching to AT&T. I was on the fence before when the tier pricing was mentioned. But now this, well this has made up my mind.
AT&T isn't any better, and in my area they both cost more and are even more unreliable. We need to get rid of these Cable-DSL duopolies and give everyone the right to use whatever service they want. No government should be allowed to grant monopolies to private industry.
It's a waste of a comment but want to make sure Fred gets backed up:
The issue here is government granted monopolies to cable and phone line/dsl companies. Granted, TWC clearly has no issue playing this game; they're perfectly happy using the government bludgeon against competitors. But, the answer is not "community" cable, which really means government cable, but removal of government from the market altogether. No protection, no intervention. No helping when you fail and no harming when you succeed.
"...the answer is not "community" cable, which really means government cable, but removal of government from the market altogether. No protection, no intervention. No helping when you fail and no harming when you succeed."
Absolutely. Just because it's something that every citizen needs, that doesn't mean it should be a government service. I've got a little business providing sewage pickup a couple of times a month, but how can I compete when the government offers access to sewer pipes 24-7 for practically nothing? The government needs to get out of the sewage business and let us private businesses charge whatever the market will bear. For $100, I'll give you a monthly limit of 30 pounds of sewage. If you go over that limit, I charge $10 a pound.
Now, about my fire and police businesses.... I charge $150 for a service call, plus labor at $50 an hour per responder. Also, my 911-call service is staffed out of India.
Didn't the government sanctioned monopolies come about because of a deal they did with the companies regarding the infrastructure?
Instead of paying for the infrastructure themselves, the government got the companies to pay for it, in return for a time-limited monopoly, in order for the telcos to be able to recoup their costs.
If that's the case, then TWC may actually win the case against Greenlight, because if the local government doesn't act to protect TWC's monopoly, TWC may turn around and say that the government has broken its contract, and demand compensation.
I really hope this wont happen, but you should never underestimate the power of corporations (just watch "The Corporation").
@MarkG
That only depends if the time has expired for TW. Given that there already is a second company co-lobbying with TW, I'd assume all expectations of a monopoly are off.
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah, we can't bend customers over a barrel. Waahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh please intervene for us this time, government. We know that as corporate assholes we usually bitch about government intervention but that's just the kind of hypocritical douche bags we are."
"Waaah. We can't have "Free Market" with us as a Monopoly."
Gosh. Capitalism is so hard for corporate entities that don't abide by the rules of Capitalism.
Not really, BigD. If there was real competition in the broadband market, prices would fall. As it is, there's only a monopoly, and a free market cannot thrive under monopolies.
"The argument is that the big companies can't turn a profit and compete against a community-owned enterprise that essentially sells service for cost"
Oh, cry me two tears in a bucket and **** it!
Offer a better service then!
"The argument is that the big companies can't turn a profit and compete against a community-owned enterprise that essentially sells service for cost"
Let me just change a few words here a bit....
"The argument is that the big companies can't turn a profit and compete against GOVERNMENT that essentially sells service for cost"
not exactly analogous examples but : FedEx/UPS/DHL etc and Blackwater come to mind......
"Government doesn't create jobs or anything at all. They just create taxes."
they should try that wording with people in DC
TWC would see everyone laugh their ass off
Now way they will win in court , so what they can't turn a profit , whos fault is that? Its shocking the city owned ISP is actually any good, wish we had them here
Maybe someone could call Time Warner and explain to them what "competition" means. They certainly understand "monopoly".
Unfair they say? To them maybe but for the consumer it definitely is not. And since when cas business and capitalism been fair?
If they can't compete in price (since the community enterprise is being sold at cost) maybe they can compete in quality of service?
Better cutomer service?
.......... yeah right, this is a cable company. What was I thinking............
I got family in Wilson, spent many summers there, and I'm really glad to hear this. Even though my mom isn't savvy enough to take advantage of this, there are plenty of people living there who will. I'm hoping that this is the spark in the forest that starts the fires everywhere.
"...does anyone have any positive feelings left for these behemoths?"
What a bait...
This is messed up. TWC sucks.
Here is my time line for the cable company:
1. cable company lobby the government to track big specific p2p users, loss in court.
2. they create usage data cap in a monopoly area where they can charge whatever the heck they want.
3. If a community boradband service (non-profit I assume) try to compete, they lobby the state to outlaw it.
I am buying pigeons to deliver my mail and get me movies...
You're onto something...PigeonFlix. I have a Nigerian friend with money to invest...Think about it.
I am actually a secret Nigerian Price myself, all I have to do is to mail an Money order of 10K via Western Union to claim my fortune, so excited... LOL
Finally RFC1149 and RFC2549 get the attention they deserve.
Sounds like a Credit Union, only for cable instead of banking.
Sounds like a awesome idea!
I say irony when big companies whine about the smaller companies selling stuff at low prices.
I'm sorry, but that isn't the definition of irony.
Irony!
"we can't compete" tends to not be a good argument when you're trying to obliterate all competition with an unethical law.
This just in: TWC is in fact, Satan himself.
here, in Romania, the community isp was the starting point of quality internet. usually it's 10euros (13-15usd) for up to 20mbps down / 5 mbps up (90%+ of the time), 100mbps metropolitan (locally peered internet providers - most of them), and some voip telephony thrown in for good measure.
until people started building such networks, the big isps constantly screwed us over.
get 100 people together, put 20$ each, see what kind of broadband u can buy for 2k, then share it and make money.
jkudlacz is right. TWC along with other big cable companies are screwing people and reaping profits for outdated services. There should be no reason why everyone in a city can't have at bare minimal 10 down and up. I personally would pay for the 100 mbps especially if it was down and up. Depending on the price I would even pay gigabit. I have only one choice for internet other than dialup and that is Sudden-Unlink. I think a municipal owned ISP's is a great idea and a chance for them to get more money to do more projects or pad their pockets more which is the likely case.
HEAR HEAR!
I am a NYorker for 27 years.
I SWORE I WOULD NEVER LET TIME WARNER GET A DIME OF MY MONEY.
I've got Verizon Fios. 20,000kbps download/ 6000kbps upload (average on Speakeasy.net)
$84 per month.
Is TW trying to see how big of a PR hole they can dig themselves into? True the general public will never hear this story but damn they either have some serious balls or are just flat incompetent. I am going with the latter.
Just looking at that, I am reminded that my $30+$5 for 3 Mbps and modem rental from Clearwire is not a bad deal at all, especially since I have no contract.
Wow, those people get screwed.
I have Cox and I get a legitimate 14 Mbps down and about 1 Mbps up... for $47 a month.
asshole. :-)
Actually Qwest isn't much worse than that.
So... if competition is essential for capitalism and private enterprise always wins out against state run bureaucracy, then how do you explain this?
Competition does tend to bring prices down, but right now Time Warner is fighting tooth and nail so that they won't have to compete. If there's no competition, they can charge whatever outrageous amounts they want for inferior service and their customers will have no choice but to pay it.
I would think this would be a pretty clear lawsuit for "unfair business practices"
lol hope you have great lawyers..
How can we get cities across the country to start doing the same thing? We need to get this going grass roots style. Even a little momentum on this and the big boys freak and start upping the rates or lowering charge. Ideas?
Does it really matter?
I strongly suspect these companies didn't do the math on the backhaul. If you liked Excite@Home, with theoretical speeds of 4mbps and real-world of 0-0.2mbps, then you'll love Greenlight.
You guys should make a chart of how many other places around the world get 100mbs for like 20-30bucks a month
Time Warner keeps trying to bill me for a cable modem that I returned to them four years ago.
They should've just let it go (since it's their own fault), but now I will never return (just two months of service would've more than paid for it if I did want to come back) plus I am also warning other people not to go with Time Warner. So... was their $90 mistake of a modem I'd have no use for if I had kept it worth the price of new/returning customers? No, I don't believe so.
Don't trust Time Warner with anything. I'm happy with my DSL.
75$ gets me 50Mbs and unlimited bandwidth...poor Amreicans for a first Canada gets it alot cheaper...
Looks like Canada should be spending their $ on education.
Ahh...the good old American way to do business: If you can't beat them, lobby (aka bribe) the politicians to outlaw them.
In other countries, this may be known as corruption.
someone should do that stuff as an international comparison
If TWC cant Compete ... then they need to Cut costs and get lean so that they can compete. Or Fail. thats their right too. I don't see how lawyers and Lobbyist are helping them to cut costs and compete. stop Whining and get out there!! INNOVATE! CREATE and maybe consumers will reward you. I'm so Sick of this corporate (and social) attitude of laziness. HEY TWC get off you @ss and do something instead of lawyering and whining about it.
I'd love to see this model of Community owned infrastructure take off ... it would be a good kick in the pants for all these ISP's. Japan has an average broadband speed of 100Mbps with packages available now up to 1000Mbps! Why is it that the Great USA cant do the same? I'll tell you why ... companies like TWC and Comcast Lawyering up to combat competition instead of putting their big boy pants on and actually developing something that people will be happy to pay for!!
We can't compete so make the competition illegal? That's called dirty business. I don't see TCW or Embarq winning because they just can't compete. What kind of bs argument is that? This is a perfect example how competition can kick them into gear and deliver better services. STOP with the regional monopolies!
Wow how about we just disband time warner for being the grimiest company on earth.
Can we add Comcast to that list too? Or cable giants all together?
I worked on a project like this Northern Kentucky 10 years ago to provide a fiber network to 12 communities. The idea was to provide the pipe and then let all competitors use it to provide services to customers. By the government doing it, we could ensure that it would be built out to the entire community and that we would have true competition.
Think of the highway analogy. Let the government build the road and then let the competition ensure that everyone has access to it.
It would have worked then and would still work now...
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att, cox time warner all all against it ATT tried banning municipal networks
Sounds nice, wish they would do something like that in BR.
Wow, so it's not just mobile phone service that Americans are getting ripped off on, it's broadband as well.
10 Mbit cable broadband in the UK comes to about $30 - and we're supposed to be the consumer broadband backwater of Europe too.
That'll cost you about $42 in the U.S. + assorted fees and taxes
It's really sad and indicative of the regulatory mess that is last-mile networking that they have to start a government run ISP just to get some decent tubes.
It's depraved that Time Warner feels it necessary to petition higher levels of government to kill it's competition. If you can't compete, then you should die.
TWB doesn't understand the concept of competition. If you can't follow, then that is it.
They can do way better things, like focus on more on Internet speed, and quality of service instead, to justify their higher cost.