Time Warner Cable early leader in capping customers

Whoops, missed this! - first reported on DSL Reports, in January '08 and confirmed in June, 5-40GB caps by Time Warner in its Beaumont Texas trial with $1 per GB excess fee:

Pricing plans will range from $29.95 a month for a 5GB cap [ed: on a FIXED line!!!] and 768kbps download speeds to $54.90 for a 40GB cap at 15mbps. There's also a 10GB cap option, but that's only available alongside phone and TV service.

If customers exceed their bandwidth cap - which covers uploads as well as downloads - they'll be charged an extra $1 per extra gigabyte. "It's just a like a cell phone plan," Dudley says. And they can track their usage via a "gas gauge" on the company's web site.

AT&T set to impose severe bandwidth caps in Reno

El Reg reports on caps between 20GB and 150GB for new customers, extending to existing customers next year - on a 750kb/s link, 20GB is not going to last long at full speed. But at least it is now relatively transparent and results from discussions with soon-to-be-former FCC Chair Kevin Martin.

A classic example of ISP lying

The Register confirms that Virgin advertises "maximum burst" uploads at 256Kb/s but can only manage 200Kb/s for many customers - does it tell them? Does it hell!

Scare stories on Euro-NN

It seems both Copenhagen Economics and the Centre for European Policy Studies have new papers - the former commissioned by the incumbents has a headline-grabbing enormous figure for what 'it' (presumably heavyweight NN) would cost Europe.

Hidden in the Guardian piece, Ofcom is actually quite sensibly adopting what I call 'net neutrality lite' (and thanks to Martin Cave for popularising the term):
Ed Richards, Ofcom chief executive, said today: "We don't think we should bring it over from the US lock, stock and barrel. We have quite often got more competitors in Europe than in the US. The key for us is transparency. Consumers must know whether there are different arrangements for different ISPs and network providers must have the freedom to make commercial decisions about how to run their networks and invest in new-generation networks."

Well, quite. ISPs stop lying, consumers stop abusing, and we will all be happier.

Bell Canada decision delayed until November

The CRTC explains its complicated...

Re: How will government regulate...?

With Lord Stephen Carter of Convergence, formerly noted control freak boss of Ofcom.

But never fear:
"I wouldn't worry too much.The current bunch of losers couldnt regulate a tap let alone the web. It would probably involve some outside supplier charging the government squillions to do it and then leave all the work they had done on a 1gb memory stick. Oh dear we sem to have lost all the information but we did do it honestly so can we have the rest of our squillions please." From offensive free speech libertarian comment on Guido Fawkes.

Paradise postponed indefinitely - NGA and meltdown

Its perhaps rather obvious but we aren't going to get consumer FTTH any time soon - James Enck reports the gloomy analysys by Masons.