The way I see it… the new GigaOM paid for research service is no different than tiered internet. Why should I have to pay more to access ANY Om content? Isn’t information and bandwidth free?

And why do I have to put up with ads on your site… why just not content?

All rhetorical questions of course…. its okay to drum up conspiracy and ‘the man’ theories/accusations when it is someone else that wants to charge but when it comes to your livelihood… go figure.

This is not true of an Internet download. Every download is individualized. Every one involves two-way communication, not just reception. And every one takes up more resources. A LOT of resources if it’s a big file or a video stream.

This is why ISPs need to meter bandwidth. And because receiving a file or video program via the Internet is thousands of times more costly than receiving it via a broadcast, they also need to charge you more for it. It isn’t some deep, dark conspiracy. There is no magical “bandwidth fairy” out there; bandwidth costs money. Especially when you get even a few miles outside of a major urban center.

If the cable company is your ISP, it needs to cover its costs whether you get your video via conventional broadcast or via an Internet download. And so, you should expect to pay more for the luxury of using a much less efficient and more expensive way of receiving the video. This isn’t anticompetitive; it’s simply aligning prices with costs.

The entire “process” story about what we did yesterday on this is now attached to the original article. I believe it’s more important to keep readers updated with as much information as possible, regardless of whether it ends up conflicting with something in our original piece. If something we write turns out to conflict with facts we receive later, readers should always be told, even if it doesn’t exactly flatter us.

In this case, the timing issue for us was secondary to the implications of the language, regardless of the exact date it was inserted. But at the same time, the timing issue is not unimportant, and when we felt no longer confident of the original information we had received, readers deserved to know that too.

In the last 24 hours, we heard at least three different explanations on this point ourselves from Time Warner Cable and from those talking with the company. One said the language was changed “months ago.” Another stated the language was changed at an “undetermined” time awhile ago. Another said it was changed and by the way, here’s why. The media is also getting varied responses. Alex Dudley refused to say when the changes were made in a piece for the San Jose Mercury News: http://www.mercurynews.com/businessheadlines/ci_12497966.

Regardless, we feel the language and its implications are critically important, so we stood by our original report on these questions.

Thanks for everyone’s attention, and I appreciate your understanding.

I currently have digital phone and told Time Warner that I would go back to Road Runner completely if they where reasonable and not trying to rip of their own customers.

1 – Had Road Runner, Digital Cable and Digital Phone
2 – Got rid of cable, prices where getting insane. Kept Road Runner and Digital phone.
3 – Left Road Runner for Earthlink because I can see the prices becoming outrageous like cable. Talk about running a business into the ground. Still have digital Phone.
4 – When they do this metered bandwidth then this is where I say goodbye to Time Warner completely. With a few colorful words. I will move everything back to our local phone company. Who for now, hopefully they keep it this way, is not doing this insane bandwidth capping.

It is only a matter of time that they will start to “Meter” Digital Phone. They say no now, they will never do that. But they have said no before, they have said one thing and then done another. They can’t be trusted. They care only about lying to people and getting as much money as they can at our expense.

This government had better NOT give Time Warner and companies like them any money AT ALL. These companies deserve nothing and I will fight to make sure the get no stimulus or grants of any kind.

Time Warner should not have all that they have. They have too many things to run and ruin at our expense. The paying customer and tax payer.

The “good” part for an ISP comes from the fact that it would require all ISP’s to convert to a metered rate at the same time and silence consumer groups as they would simply be told to “take it up with the PUC; it is out of our hands.”

They don’t care about your wallet, but they sure do care about theirs.

Michael’s rollover bits may just be the right approach!