To: Time Warner Cable
Preface: Feel free to appropriate this letter to send to your local Time Warner Cable representatives (and don’t forget adudley@twcable.com, twc.cotp@twcable.com, and realideas@twcable.com). If you’re not in Rochester, make sure to change the location. It is also good if you put the points of this letter in your own words, but not strictly necessary. Always be polite and courteous when communicating with TWC employees. Remember that they are humans, and have not likely had any personal voice in making this decision. The important thing is to communicate to them that they will lose your business if this goes through.
To Whom It May Concern: (use a real name if you have it)
This letter is to politely inform you that, should your company’s intended bandwidth capping plan roll out with its currently announced pricing structure in Rochester, New York, I will cease all business with your company.
Furthermore, I believe this to be both anti-competitive to other content providers, such as Hulu, iTunes, Netflix, etc., and the overage charge is tantamount to price gouging, when your wholesale price of a gigabyte of bandwidth is known to be less than 10 cents. It is also readily apparent that Time Warner is only “testing” such a plan in cities that do not have significant competition in the broadband ISP sector. Rochester and those other cities are being unfairly singled out because Time Warner knows their customers have nowhere to turn for comparable service. I have stated this opinion the New York State Attorney General, will encourage others to do so, and will look for other official entities that may have the power to shut this down, such as the FCC.
I would like to note, however, that I am not opposed to the simple principle of metered pricing. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, and it is in some ways much fairer than a flat-rate pricing method. However, the proposed cap tiers, and the amount being charged for overage, are just unacceptable.
I have already been encouraged by one Time Warner Cable employee to “consider staying to see if the new plans even impact you,” but, to be frank, it does not matter whether or not they would impact me. Per my second paragraph, I find the business practice as it’s laid out to be unethical and possibly illegal (specifically with regard to the pricing, not the methodology). I will cease business with Time Warner on principle.
Regards,
Scott Cranfill
