New Time Warner Strategy: Cut Off Customers That Use 'Too Much'

Time Warner's snide attitude over consumer backlash against their euphemistically named 'consumption based billing' [read: BANDWIDTH CAPS] proposal has apparently reached new levels.
First we see the snarky tweets from the likes of @AlexTWC (Alex Dudley, VP of Public Relations) suggesting DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades would now not take place because they were 'scheduled as part of cbb [consumption based billing] trial, but we all know how you feel about that.'
Now it seems that TWC Roadrunner customers in Austin are reporting their service being disconnected without warning and without a reason given.

Austin StoptheCap! reader Ryan Howard kicks off our premiere edition with a report that his Road Runner service was cut off yesterday without warning. According to Ryan, it took four calls to technical support, two visits to the cable store to try two new cable modems (all to no avail), before someone at Time Warner finally told him to call the company’s “Security and Abuse” center.

“I called the number and had to leave a voice mail and about an hour later a Time Warner technician called me back and lectured me for using 44 gigabytes in one week,” Howard wrote.

Howard was then “educated” about his usage.

“According to her, that is more than most people use in a year,” Howard said.

Howard questioned the company representative about what defines an acceptable amount of usage so he doesn’t get cut off again. He pays extra for Road Runner’s premium Turbo tier, so he already hands more money to Time Warner than average subscribers for his broadband service.

“All she would commit to is less — perhaps half or as quarter as much,” he said.

Another Austinite, Cory Finnegan, also complains of being cut off by TWC.

I live in Austin and I have also had my internet cut off for downloading 40-50 gigs in a week. One morning I opened firefox and there was a message telling me that I needed to call Time Warner’s security center to reinstate my connection.
I called and left my number and was called back within the hour. The woman on the phone informed me that I was using for too much bandwidth and that what I had downloaded was about as much as a normal person does in a year. Even more so than a “power user.” I asked her to define a power user and she said it was someone who “spends every waking moment on the computer, watches a lot of streaming video and downloads video game demos.” She told me that I would have to watch the amount of data that I downloaded and to keep it under 40 gigs a month.
This was actually a month or so before Time Warner was talking about their tiered internet cap so I guess they have had the idea for awhile. The worst part is that in my apartment building you cannot get any other cable internet service but Time Warner without huge installation fees. It all just leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

We know that TWC is still in the 'data collection phase' of bandwidth cap rollouts and has only delayed implementing their plan. Is this part of a plan to skew that data, by cutting off users it deems 'use too much' bandwidth so they can show data favorable to their bandwidth cap schemes?
Makes me wonder if blowing through a couple of television seasons on Netflix in two weeks will have TWC cutting off my service...
Full story at Stop the Cap!

Golden Girl Bea Arthur Dies At 86

Beatrice Arthur, the star of the hit shows Maude and The Golden Girls, died Saturday at age 86.

Arthur died peacefully at her Los Angeles home early Saturday with her family at her side. The actress, who had cancer, would have turned 87 on May 13.

Arthur had been a television actress since the 1950s, but really came into the national zeitgeist with her portrayal of the outspoken, liberal Maude Findlay; first in two episodes of All in the Family, then in the spin-off Maude. Maude ran for 141 episodes from 1972-1978; Arthur won an Emmy for the role in 1977. During the show's run, the character Maude famously underwent an abortion, creating a firestorm of controversy and making the character a symbol of the feminist movement.

After Maude concluded it's run Arthur appeared in the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special as Mos Eisley cantina bartender Ackmena.

In 1985, Arthur resurfaced as one of the Golden Girls in an NBC comedy that would go on to earn 10 Emmys, including two for best comedy series and individual kudos for Arthur and costars Estelle Getty (who passed away last July), Betty White and Rue McClanahan.

In a 2001 episode of Futurama, Arthur provided the voice of the suspiciously familiar sounding headstrong Femputer.

Arthur's accolades also include a Tony Award in 1966, for her portrayal of Vera Charles opposite Angela Lansbury's Mame.

Green Lantern Movie To Film In Australia

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Warner Bros. and DC Comics' next big-budget feature, "Green Lantern," will be made at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees said Thursday.

Director Martin Campbell will be at the helm of the comic book's big-screen adaptation, working from a script by Greg Berlanti and Michael Green. Donald Deline will produce with a reported budget of $150 million.

Rees said the film will create about 500 jobs and include a "substantial investment" in digital effects work in Australia.

"The decision by Warner Bros. to locate the production in New South Wales is tangible evidence that having a competitive incentive scheme in place returns positive results," Fox Studios Australia CEO Nancy Romano said.

The project is the latest film also to be attracted by the decline in the value of the Australian dollar.

Preproduction on "Green Lantern" is set to begin in July, and filming is scheduled to start in November. Warners is aiming to release the film in December 2010.

Star Trek Clips

The latest TV spot reveals that Star Trek has received a rating from the MPAA. PG-13. Was there ever any doubt?

17-Year-Old Behind Massive XSS Attack On Twitter

A second worm has emerged as a threat on Twitter today, after a previous worm showed up yesterday spreading advertising, and its author said more could be on the way. 17 year-old Mikeyy Mooney from Brooklyn, New York has claimed responsibility for both worms.

The first worm emerged on Saturday when Twitter profiles began posting messages which encouraged people to visit StalkDaily.com. The owner of the website, Mikeyy Mooney, told BNO News that he was responsible. "I am aware of the attack and yes I am behind this attack," he said. Mooney said he created the worm to "give the developers an insight on the problem and while doing so, promoting myself or my website."

Later that evening, Twitter said they had resolved the problem. "We've taken steps to remove the offending updates, and to close the holes that allowed this worm to spread," a statement read.

Hours later, a new worm which appeared to be similar to the first one, made its way into the Twitter community. Infected users spread messages such as "Mikeyy is done" and other Twitter users start doing the same if they are logged on to the site and visit an infected profile, which makes the worm unusual as no action is required to get infected. A review of the script by BNO News showed it is the same worm from Saturday, except for the fact that it is spreading a new message and is hosted on a different server. Mooney confirmed to BNO News that he is behind the two worms and said more could be on the way. "[It] seems they still haven't sanitized their input fields for the XSS," he said. It is currently unknown if he may face legal action.

The worm is more of an annoyance that a real threat, as no passwords or sensitive information are stolen. Here are the steps to remove it if you find this on your Twitter account:

1. Go to www.twitter.com.
2. Log in to the infected account.
3. Go to "Settings" in the menu.
4. Under "Name", remove the text in the field (which has been edited by the worm).
5. Remove the text under "More info URL", which has also been edited by the worm.

When you completed those 5 steps, the worm is no longer active on your profile but you can get easily re-infected. For now, until the problem has been solved, BNO News recommends that you not visit any accusation Twitter profiles.

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Conficker Worm Finally Stirs

The dreaded Conficker computer worm is stirring. Security experts say the worm's authors appear to be trying to build a big moneymaker, but not a cyber weapon of mass destruction as many people feared.

As many as 12 million computers have been infected by Conficker. Security firm Trend Micro says some of the machines have been updated over the past few days with fake antivirus software - the first attempt by Conficker's authors to profit from their massive "botnet."

Criminals use bogus security software to extort money. Victims are told their computers are infected, and can be fixed only by paying for a clean-up that never happens.

Conficker gets on computers through a hole Microsoft patched in October. PCs set up for automatic Windows updates should be clean.

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Austin Fans Given Surprise Showing Of Star Trek

Last night Paramount pulled off one of the coolest stunts in fan history.
A free screening of the film Star Trek II-The Wrath Of Khan was scheduled at the Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Austin. Promoted to appear after the film was a 10 minute preview of JJ Abram's new film Star Trek, which opens May 8. Read what actually happened from TrekMovie.com:

According to our man on the scene, the evening started off normally at the Fantastic Fest Star Trek event at the Alamo Draughthouse Theater in Austin, Texas on Monday night. Star Trek filmmakers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof kicked things off by telling the crowd of around 200, that they would be seeing the Star Trek preview after Wrath of Khan. Two minutes in to the showing of TWOK, the film appeared to have ‘melted’ and the guys came back out on the stage and appeared to be stalling for time while the film was fixed…and then, wearing a ball cap, Leonard Nimoy came out in front of the audience holding a film can.

Nimoy noted to the crowd that it just didn’t seem fair that people in Australia were the fist to see the film and asked them "wouldn’t you rather see the new movie?" And apparently the crowd went wild. After that they showed the entire new Star Trek movie. Nimoy stayed for the entire event as did Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof.

According to a friend who called in to TrekMovie after the event, the audience reaction was very positive. There were "genuine laughs" at the jokes and "quiet moments" with the serious character stuff. And apparently the crowd applauded at the introduction to each character. The film ended with a standing ovation.

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NY Times Exposes Time Warner Bandwidth Cap Nonsense

The New York Times just published this article from Saul Hansell that compares broadband service here in the US to to that in other countries like Japan. Bottom line: telecoms like Time Warner Cable could provide broadband speeds 5-10 times faster than they are now almost right away, if they wanted to, at little additional cost.

If you get excited about the prospect of really, really fast broadband Internet service, here’s a statistic that will make heart race. Or your blood boil. Or both.

Pretty much the fastest consumer broadband in the world is the 160-megabit-per-second service offered by J:Com, the largest cable company in Japan. Here’s how much the company had to invest to upgrade its network to provide that speed: $20 per home passed.

The cable modem needed for that speed costs about $60, compared with about $30 for the current generation.

By contrast, Verizon is spending an average of $817 per home passed to wire neighborhoods for its FiOS fiber optic network and another $716 for equipment and labor in each home that subscribes, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Company.

Those numbers from Japan came from Michael T. Fries, the chief executive of Liberty Global, the American company that operates J:Com.

His larger point: “To me, this just isn’t an expensive capital investment,” he said.

The experience in Japan suggests that the major cable systems in the United States might be able to increase the speed of their broadband service by five to 10 times right away. They might not need to charge much more for it than they do now and they’d still make as much money.

The cable industry here uses the same technology as J:Com. And several vendors said that while the prices Mr. Fries quoted were on the low side, most systems can be upgraded for no more than about $100 per home, including a new modem. Moreover, the monthly cost of bandwidth to connect a home to the Internet is minimal, executives say.

So what’s wrong with this picture in the United States? The cable companies, like Comcast and Cablevision, that are moving quickly to install the fast broadband technology, called Docsis 3, are charging as much as $140 a month for 50 Mbps service. Meanwhile other companies, like Time Warner Cable, are moving much more slowly to upgrade.

Competition, or the lack of it, goes a long way to explaining why the fees are higher in the United States. There is less competition in the United States than in many other countries. Broadband already has the highest profit margins of any product cable companies offer. Like any profit-maximizing business would do, they set prices in relation to other providers and market demand rather than based on costs.

Pricing at Liberty varies widely by market. In Japan, its 160 Mbps service costs 6,000 yen ($60) per month. That’s only $5 a month more than the price of its basic 30 Mbps service. In the Netherlands, meanwhile, it charges 80 euros ($107) for 120 Mbps service and 60 euros ($81) for 60 Mbps. Mr. Fries said that he expected these prices would fall over time.

“Our margins go up,” he said. “But we are delivering more value.”

Cable executives have given several reasons for why many cable systems in the United States are going very slowly in upgrading to Docsis 3. There’s little competition in areas not served by Verizon’s FiOS system, which soon will offer 50 Mbps service. And some argue there isn’t that much demand for super-high speed.

Mr. Fries added another: Fear. Other cable operators, he said, are concerned that not only will prices fall, but that the super-fast service will encourage customers to watch video on the Web and drop their cable service.

The industry is worried that by offering 100 Mbps, they are opening Pandora’s box, he said. Everyone will be able to get video on the Internet, and then competition will bring the price for the broadband down from $80 to $60 to $40.

Aren’t you worried that the prices will fall too? I asked.

“Maybe,” he said very slowly. “We’ll see how it happens. We want to keep it up there for now. It is a premium service.”

So there we have it. Bandwidth caps have nothing to do with additional costs of bandwidth or any kind of strain on their system and has everything to do with 1)lack of competition and therefore little incentive for them to upgrade their systems or provide competitive pricing; and 2)the fear that consumers are now beginning to watch content online from other services instead of subscribing to expanded basic, pay channels, and cable pay-per-view.
Happy with Time Warner's proposed bandwidth caps? Let them know:
Contact realideas@twcable.com with all complaints/comments for TWC.

Rochester TWC Contact Information:
Customer Service 585-756-5000 or 1-800-756-7956
Level 3 support number: 1-585-756-1119
Colleen Bernard at TWC Customer Care: 585-756-1202

Austin TWC contact info: Customer service: 800-418-8848

San Antonio TWC info: Customer service: 210-244-0500

Time Warner Cable Bandwidth Caps Update

The TWC reps are on Twitter in force, it seems, trying to assuage our concerns over 'bandwidth based billing' aka bandwidth caps. Some of the reps I've found are melissaTWC_TX, AlexTWC, GaryTWC, jeffTWC, and of course TimeWarnerCares.
In a statement released on Twitter via Long Reply dated April 1, TWC said:

There have been recent reports of our expanded plans for consumption based billing in Austin and San Antonio, Texas. There are some reports and posts of customers’ bills automatically increasing that are not true and we hope the following clarifies some of the inaccuracies out there.

Consumption based billing will enable customers to choose a tier that makes sense for them. The vast majority of our customers will see no difference in their monthly bill.

When this does roll out in late summer, all customers will have access to a “gas gauge” that will enable them to track their consumption against their current plan. They will have three months to get comfortable with the gauge before bills hit.

This three month grace period will also allow customers to gauge their monthly usage to find a plan that fits their needs. We don’t want our customers to have any unpleasant surprises.

Some of our customers may actually save money by “right-sizing” to a plan that meets their needs and we will be happy to help them choose a plan that works for them. Customers will be free to adjust their consumption tiers at any time and no longer will average users have to subsidize the heavy use of the few. This concept allows customers to decide how much they need or want from their internet service.

As you may know, we’ve been trialing consumption based billing in Beaumont, Texas for several months now. This test has been successful and we now know we can make this work from a technical perspective to accurately measure our customers’ consumption. Our customers have requested larger usage limits to fit their internet usage needs and we’re taking this into consideration as we build a variety of tiers. We do plan on adding a super-tier, with 100 Gigabytes.

Ultimately, there will be something for everyone at a price point that they can be comfortable with. We’ll keep you posted on further developments.

Later that day, a secondary statement said:

While we understand there is interest in this program, just as there was interest when it was first launched in Beaumont last year, we want to stress we are only in the data collection phase for the San Antonio and Austin areas.

It is inaccurate to equate the published data usage in Beaumont with the data usage in San Antonio and Austin, especially since the data has not been collected for these areas.

By testing the program in Beaumont, it gave us the opportunity to fine tune the technology we need to accurately measure consumption usage.

What we found in Beaumont was customers had more available options that best fit their internet usage - very similar to mobile phone calling plans.

Our goal is to provide all our customers with a plan that accurately creates tiers that work best to meet their internet needs.

Let these people know what you think about their proposed bandwidth cap 'tests' (which have already taken effect in Rochester, NY) by email, Twitter, or plain old phone call.

Contact realideas@twcable.com with all complaints/comments for TWC.

Rochester TWC Contact Information:
Customer Service 585-756-5000 or 1-800-756-7956
Level 3 support number: 1-585-756-1119
Colleen Bernard at TWC Customer Care: 585-756-1202

Austin TWC contact info: Customer service: 800-418-8848

San Antonio TWC info: Customer service: 210-244-0500

Time Warner Cable Bandwidth Caps Coming

Time Warner Cable is planning on introducing a tier based bandwidth allocation system in Austin TX, San Antonio TX and Rochester, N.Y.

Similar to recently implemented cell phone data plans that most carriers now enforce, TWC is introducing 5GB, 10GB and 40GB plans priced from $22.95 to $54.90 a month in these markets. Users that exceed the limit will be charged $1 for each GB they go over. TWC will be spinning this price structure as an opportunity for consumers to realize a cost savings if they drop to a lower priced tier. However, a look at the chart below reveals that even the maximum 40GB cap offered is so low that consumers could easily exceed it and encounter huge fees.
Think about everything we use the internet for. Phone calls and video chat on Skype; downloaded music from iTunes or Amazon; streaming music from Pandora; video entertainment from Hulu and Netflix; online game play on Xbox Live or WOW and the list goes on.
What this is really about is that cable and phone companies are seeing the coming obselesence of their services. Many consumers including myself have already dropped all cable TV and landline phone subscriptions. The cable companies don't like that consumers are obtaining free or cheap phone service over Skype instead of subscribing to their expensive VOIP services. Almost all TV shows can now be watched online on Hulu, Netflix, or the TV network sites. Hollywood hits can now be watched online from Hulu, Netflix, Blockbuster or Amazon making cable's expensive premium channels obsolete.

Interesting Facts

40 GB is:
Around 9 hours of high def video. (Hulu HD, Netflix HD, etc)
Around 45 hours of SD video. (Standard Hulu, Netflix, etc)
Around 4,000 hours of X-Box Live/PS3 Network
The average American watches around 150 hours of TV per month
The average size of a song on iTunes is 4MB
The average size of a SD movie on iTunes is 550MB

Contact realideas@twcable.com with all complaints/comments for TWC.

Rochester TWC Contact Information:
Customer Service 585-756-5000 or 1-800-756-7956
Level 3 support number: 1-585-756-1119
Colleen Bernard at TWC Customer Care: 585-756-1202

Austin TWC contact info: Customer service: 800-418-8848

San Antonio TWC info: Customer service: 210-244-0500

Many thanks and kudos to http://stoptwc.info/

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FBI Called In Over Wolverine Movie Leak

The FBI are investigating the online leak of an almost finished copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a month before the film's theatrical release. The Hugh Jackman film was downloaded an estimated several 100,000 times from file sharing and video streaming websites on Tuesday.

20th Century Fox confirmed the copy had now been removed and the FBI informed.

The studio behind Wolverine stated: "The source of the initial leak and any subsequent postings will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

"The courts have handed down significant criminal sentences for such acts" the studio noted.

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