Time Warner Cable has been pretty quiet ever since they tried to force a
pricey new metered billing broadband model on their customers, who saw the move for what it was (a money grab), generated a national media firestorm, and collectively sent the company running for the hills. That victory essentially put all ISPs who are interested in this model (again, not to be confused
with value, or true per byte billing) into a holding pattern. It's pretty clear from
interviews this week that Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt still dreams of imposing expensive overage fees on his customers:
"Our physical plant is very capable and we invest in it in a steady way, so I think we're able to keep up with demand. I think the other question you're really raising is who pays...is an evolving thing. Also the history has been everybody pays the same for unlimited access. I suspect that will change going forward to some more usage based model, but that in itself is controversial so we'll have to see what happens."
Earlier this year, Britt and Time Warner Cable executives spent months scaring people with
tales of Internet brownouts, arguing that a flat-rate business model they've made a fortune off of was not profitable, and proclaiming that customers
really wanted metered billing despite unprecedented, Internet-wide public backlash. When the execs finally did back off the plan, they
heaped the blame on their customers -- arguing that they were simply confused and needed "education."
You can tell from Britt's quote that his mindset really hasn't seen a course correction. The question of "who pays" for Time Warner Cable's network upgrades ignores,
again, that Time Warner Cable already makes more than enough money to upgrade to relatively inexpensive DOCSIS 3.0 technology. However, he's at least aware of the "controversial" nature of the company's decision -- so perhaps the company's second expected push toward low caps and high overage fees has been mothballed-- for now.
Remember those SMC combination cable modem and Wi-Fi routers used by Time Warner Cable that a blogger highlighted could be
easily hackable? Well, they're still hackable. According to
Wired News, despite Time Warner Cable's assurances that a resolution had already been deployed, the devices still appear to be at least partially vulnerable. A quick nmap port scan of a random Time Warner subnet by blogger
David Chen found hundreds of marginally-secured devices that were still vulnerable. SMC says they
have created a patch, but Chen insists the patch doesn't fix the problem entirely. Best bet? Ditch the hybrid SMC device, get a regular modem from Time Warner Cable, and go buy a real router.
A vulnerability in a Time Warner combination Wi-Fi router and cable modem could allow a hacker to remotely access the device's administrative menu over the internet, according to
blogger David Chen. Time Warner Cable has confirmed the flaw, which impacts some 65,000 Time Warner Cable broadband users. According to Chen, he discovered the vulnerability when trying to change the unit's default encryption from WEP to WPA2, only to find the unit's administration functions were disabled via javascript. Chen simply disabled browser Javascript:
The extra features that I now had access to included a little item called "Back Up Configuration File".
story continues..Time Warner Cable launched faster $99 50/5 Mbps service
in New York City late last month, though only in limited portions of the city. This limited footprint has proven to be a little confusing, as we've seen
several customers complain that even Time Warner Cable isn't entirely sure which portions of the city have been upgraded yet. There appears to be some early
technical annoyances that need resolving as well. You can read our user impressions of the new service and their install experiences in
this thread.
As
expected given their investment into Clearwire and Sprint's Mobile WiMax joint venture, Time Warner Cable today announced plans to offer wireless broadband service. The service is going to be launched December first in the so-called North Carolina Triangle -- Raleigh, Durham, Cary and Chapel Hill -- as well as in Charlotte and Greensboro. Time Warner Cable is offering a variety of service tiers for the up to 6 Mbps wireless broadband service:
Road Runner Mobile 4G National Elite: gives customers unlimited access to both Time Warner Cable`s 4G Mobile Network and Sprint's 3G EVDO network for $79.95 if you're a Roadrunner Standard or Turbo customers.
Road Runner Mobile 4G Elite: gives customers unlimited access to the Time
Warner Cable 4G Mobile Network for $49.95 if you're already a Roadrunner Standard or Turbo customer.
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