Sanders Media

As exciting as this new age of technology is for me, I can’t help but be leery as well. Between the MPAA and RIAA’s misguided witch hunts and Comcast’s internet throttling, sometimes I think my head will explode. Time Warner Cable is the new object of my ire.

TWC has been trying to convince the press and it’s customers that heavy downloading is sending it’s broadband bill through the roof. Wired.com’s Epicenter blog refutes that claim. The company’s broadband bill fell 20% between 1st Quarter 2008 to 1st Quarter 2009. That’s the same time period that TWC claimed it’s customers were using 40% more broadband. To me, it seems as if TWC is paying less for the bandwidth it uses, but wants to make money off the discount.

They recently attempted to test market bandwidth caps. They had this to say in defending the program:

Internet demand is rising at a rate that could outpace capacity within a few years. According to industry analysts, the infrastructure may not be able to accommodate the explosion of online content by 2012. This could result in Internet brownouts. It will take a lot of money to fix the problem. Rather than raising prices on all customers or limiting usage, we think the fairest approach is to move to a tiered model in which users pay more if they use more.[...]

We have increasing variable costs and we have to continue to invest in the network itself. [...] If we don’t act, consumers’ Internet experience will suffer. Sitting still is not an option.

TWC only shelved this program after some heavy political pressure. They promised to reintroduce it once they come up with a better PR campaign. Basically, they want to try to manipulate us better.

They don’t seem to understand that people aren’t dumb. Pricing for digital storage, bandwidth and other technologies are plummeting. The less they pay, the more profit they receive. Trying to pile profits on top of the lower prices is just plain greedy.

Have any of you seen the recent ad campaign from Verizon? It shows a new service that allows your home phone to communicate with the wireless phones of your entire family. Comcast is developing a device that allows a shared phonebook, as well as instant messaging.

These products highlight the convergence of our digital services. Where we once had completely separate services, we now find them coming together. These include our television, mobile & home phones and internet access. This has surely been aided by the relaxing of regulations regarding cable television. In my community, Comcast fought tooth and nail to prevent AT&T from providing their television service.

While there are certainly concerns about all of our eggs being in one basket, it is exciting to see where this technology will take us. Let’s hope the competition in local markets will be a win for consumers.

Greetings from Montauk, NY. My southern accent is definitely getting me some curious looks.

I finally caved. I can’t take my slow DSL uploads anymore (downloads aren’t that much better). Fortunately, I don’t have to change ISP’s.

For those that don’t know, U-verse is a product offered by AT&T. It provides telephone, television and internet service to it’s customers. The beauty of this is the use of Fiber Optics. I will be jumping from 1.5 mbps to 6.0 mbps. While cable can do that already, I’m not in love with our cable provider, Comcast. I know some have beefs with AT&T, but I’ve chosen the lesser of the evils.

For me, the most exciting thing about U-verse is the way the DVR will be used. We’ll have one DVR in the house. However, every other TV in the house will be able to access that DVR. This will allow my family to watch recordings on any TV in the house.

AT&T hasn’t rolled out service everywhere, but when they do, it might be worth your while to try it.

Broadband has truly reached mass appeal. We are now seeing issues come up that we never could have imagined 5 years ago. With the prevalence of video and audio online, bandwidth has become a hot topic. To deal with the burden on their networks, some ISP’s are putting caps on usage. Users may now face the prospect of rationing their internet use. 

Currently, the country’s second largest broadband ISP is Comcast. In this article in the recent issue of Wired magazine, Daniel Roth talks about how they are trying to rebuild their image. Comcast’s reputation was dragged through the mud after it was revealed they were slowing down the connections of customers who were using large amounts of bandwidth without telling them. What followed was a very public repudiation from the FCC.

That incident brought forth an interesting question. Do we have a right to internet access, or is it simply an extra in our budget? In other words, is it a utility or a luxury? Utility is defined as the state of being useful or beneficial. Luxury is defined as the state of great comfort and extravagant living. Initially we considered the internet to be a novelty. A source of entertainment. Now we use it for everything from shopping to government services. Can it still be thought of as a nonessential?

I think it would be in the best interest of everyone involved to enhance our existing network infrastructure, rather than cut usage. Instead of curtailing innovation, the ISP’s need to create an environment that fosters it. They only stand to gain. Let’s hope they understand this.

I usually try to keep this space free of hot button topics. Here I like to discuss things that help you understand how the web works in a practical way. However, the more the web expands into our lives, the more these issues come to the forefront. I’ll touch on a couple.

One such hot button topic that has been bantered about is internet filtering. Certain sections of the US government, as well as a large portion of the telecommunications industry, want the ability to force an ISP (Internet Service Provider) to divulge our internet habits. They say this can help them root out terrorists, stop child pornography and stop sharing of copyrighted materials.

These seem like noble ideals, and they are in their simplest form. My fear, however, is there will be a compromise of our privacy. The right to privacy is a very American one, and a right we must defend rigorously. I fear the temptation to use this information in ways we can’t comprehend and wouldn’t approve of will be too great. I cannot condone large organizations (governments, corporations, etc.) with seemingly endless resources being able to spy on me.

Another big issue recently in the news is internet throttling. Internet throttling is the practice of slowing down the connection speeds of users taking up a lot of bandwidth. An example would be people who upload large amounts of video to the web.

The ISP’s call this practice reasonable network maintenance. They claim these users are slowing down connections for everyone else and are overloading the network. Whether or not this is true is up for debate. Comcast just received a stinging rebuke from the FCC for throttling users without their knowledge. Instead of stopping internet throttling altogether, they are now just being upfront about it.

This is a Pandora’s Box. Once we allow some content to be blocked or inhibited, where do we draw the line? Deregulation has put the power in fewer and fewer hands. The FCC rebuke aside, there has been very little in the form of accountability. The telecommunications industry is a very powerful lobby, and has large resources available to petition our government. We need checks and balances to make sure our rights and freedoms are observed.

Wherever you stand in the political realm, these are issues that have and will continue to affect you. I encourage you to contact your US and state representatives. Ask them where they stand on these issues, and if they plan to protect your privacy.