Perhaps you haven't heard about the upcoming battle in several congressional districts around the country. Time Warner Cable is planning to introduce a tiered pricing system in select markets where it has a monopoly that could make internet usage cost as much as $150 per month for heavy usage. (link)
In NY29 there was what seems a thinly veiled threat against the local congressman who is challenging this policy: (link):
"We have not seen the proposed legislation; however, we do look forward to Congressman Massa having a full understanding of Time Warner Cable’s continued investment in the greater Rochester community," said Time Warner Cable Spokesman Jim Gordon in a statement.
Industry insiders accuse politicians like Massa of oversimplifying the issue to score cheap political points. (link):
Time Warner's plan is turning into a slab of red meat for a few politicians who seem intent to create a divisive political issue out of it. In doing so, they ignore the fact that broadband is a job creator as cable operators continue to invest heavily in their networks. The fact is, if you want to kill job creation and reduce the quality of service to everyone, pass a law to prohibit companies from finding ways to fairly distribute the cost of providing world-class broadband service to all users, large and small.
It's very costly to have customer usage continue to rise exponentially. Large amounts of capital must be deployed to upgrade networks in order to keep up with the demand. Those investments are being made to expand capacity in our technical centers (headends), in the neighborhood nodes and throughout the community (the fiber optic cables) connecting the two.
Some of those who agree with Massa argue that stopping Time Warner and other internet providers from limiting usage also argue that the next step would be to introduce competition. (See comments here for example.)
I would like to hear what the community at dailykos can contribute to this discussion. My instinct is to say that Time Warner and other insiders are exaggerating their longterm investment costs as a coverup for price increases. But I also believe that we as a nation should be investing in broadband internet as part of a longterm stimulus package. We are woefully behind much of the developed world in this regard.
What say ye?