[TriLUG] TWC "Existing Customer Promotion"

matt at noway2.thruhere.net matt at noway2.thruhere.net
Fri Mar 14 09:41:28 EDT 2014


Just this morning, Arstechnica has an article directly related to this
discussion:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/5-discount-to-give-up-unlimited-data-time-warner-cable-customers-say-no/

"He was also asked about competition from Google Fiber. "We take them
seriously. They're a real competitor," "

"Time Warner has increased speeds and deployed Wi-Fi products more
aggressively in those markets to compete against Google, Marcus said."

This industry should not have been artificially deregulated.  Regulated
monopolies suck.  Unregulated monopolies suck even worse.  The
deregulation move has been nothing but a ruse by right wing politicians'
"free markets" mantra.  Competition, my foot. At best we have an
oligopoly, or few suppliers market and we all know how well the consumer
fares in those: typically even worse than a regulated monopoly.

The problem with TWC is quite systemic of what is happening across all
businesses in America: a privatizing of the profits and a socializing the
risk and the losses.  Companies have made short term "shareholder value"
the mission objective rather than the actual business.  They don't
reinvest and when their is a loss, they make sure that the speculators, I
mean share holders, I mean owners, don't take the hit, the customers do.

There is a reason that "broadband" in the USA is far behind speed and
pricing even compared to most 3rd world countries.


>> AT&T recently started offering up to I think 6mbps, but that is not
>> exactly 'rampant' competition.
>
> This was the point I was trying to make earlier about cable/DSL/WiMAX not
> being truly in competition.
>
> Fastest cable speed available to me at any cost: 50Mbps/5Mbps
> Fastest DSL speed available to me at any cost: 6Mbps/??? (Frontier does
> not advertise their upstream bandwidth)
> Fastest WiMAX speed available to me at any cost: 5-12Mbps/2-5Mbps
>
> Tell me exactly how 6Mbps competes with 50Mbps, or with 5-12Mbps that
> might drop to .001 when it rains or the wind is blowing or I walk through
> a particular room in the house.
>
> If I'm a 50/5 Wideband customer with Time Warner Cable, there *is no
> alternative.*  Even in the case of reality (I'm a 15/2 Broadband customer)
> there's no alternative.
>
> Where are these "competitors" you speak of?
> ~B



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