Broadband Internet Fairness Act
New York Congressman, Eric Massa has introduced a bill called the “Broadband Internet Fairness Act“.
In short, the Congressman was acting in response to Time Warner Cable and their attempts to experiment in certain markets with tiered broadband bandwidth plans. Time Warner found in this experiment that putting caps on bandwidth availability is much more profitable, especially when the maximum caps ( 40 gb ) would ensure that customers routinely exceed their caps and then are charged accordingly for the excess.
As of April 10, 2009, the latest news from Time Warner and a concession they have planned because of customer complaints was an unlimited plan with no obvious caps that would cost the subscriber $150 per month, but no plans to abandon the concept of metered broadband billing. Time Warner argues that without caps there will be “clogs” and “internet brown outs”.
Time Warner has claimed that the payment scheme is necessary to cover “infrastructure cost”
Time Warner’s 2009 SEC filing gave share-holders a different picture than what they were previously reporting in which broadband revenues rose while infrastructure cost’s fell over the past 2 years.
With the introduction of the “Broadband Internet Fairness Act” we should see some significant changes in how the major carriers are able to charge subscriber’s for this service.
Some of the major points of this bill are:
* Requires internet service providers to submit plans to the Federal Trade Commission in consultation with the FCC if they plan to move to a usage based plan.
* Prohibits volume usage plans if the FTC determines these plans are imposing rates, terms, or conditions that are unreasonable or discriminatory.
* Performs public hearings for plans submitted to the FTC for public review and input.
* Affects only those Internet Service Providers who have 2 million or more subscribers.
* Imposes penalties for ISP’s that do not comply.
Notice that this only applies to ISP’s with 2 million or more subscribers and it is subject to opinion whether the plans submitted are unreasonable or discriminatory.
Related posts:
Comments
Leave a Reply
