(excuse my horrid paint skillz)
I have Time Warner for tv & internet. Unfortunately, I have no other options where I am except for DSL and Satellite TV, and my balcony doesn't have a clear line-of-sight to any of Dish Network's satellites. BellSouth\AT&T's DSL is too slow (and roughly the same cost as TW), so that's not really an option either.
I've been on a Time Warner promotional rate for the past 11 months – RoadRunner Turbo (10mbps down, 512k up) and Digital Cable + DVR. I have no premium channels or anything, so it comes to about $108/month. Not terrible, but highly undesirable that it go up.
Today, I spoke with a Time Warner rep who told me my promotional rate ends on Sept 9, and that my bill will increase by $31.95/mo, meaning it will be $150. Horribly overpriced, but not as significant a jump as I had expected.
That's all well and good, but this is why it sucks: no competition. I looked at BellSouth for DSL, but their best plan is $45 for 6 mbps. I looked at Dish Network for TV, but I can't see their satellites.
So I decided to call Windstream, since they have a 12mbps DSL service for $40. That was looking like a good option until I found out that my apartment complex 'sold' their lines to BellSouth, meaning that the only way to get Windstream would be to have this place sell all of their lines to BellSouth.
So where's the consumer choice? Why aren't there any other cable providers here? Where's the competition?
Competition is precisely why Time Warner gets away with the garbage it does.
I looked at some feature sets/speed ratings for Time Warner in other major markets. Manhattan is probably the most interesting, as they have a new 'Extreme' tier, which boasts a 20mbps speed limit. Another interesting item shows that the 'turbo' speed is 5mbps higher in other markets than it is here. So why is Time Warner screwing us?
| market | std | turbo | extreme | Monopoly? |
| Charlotte | 7mb/384kb | 10mb/512kb | n/a | yes |
| Manhattan | 10mb/512kb | 15mb/768kb | 20mb/1mb | no |
| San Diego | 10mb/512kb | 15mb/768kb | n/a | no |
| Central TX | 7mb/384kb | 15mb/768kb | n/a | no |
| San Antonio | 7mb/384kb | 15mb/768kb | n/a | no |
While I have no explanation, I really just wish that we had a little competition here. As a side note, and some great further reading, read about the lengths Time Warner is willing to go to stamp out competition – they've spent quite a bit of cash lobbying to boot out Wilson, NC's city-owned broadband initiative, only because they choose not to compete.
Read here (Consumerist) and here (Save NC Broadband, Wilson, NC) about Greenlight and Time Warner.