Charter Communications (Etilities Forum) apparently didn’t want Comcast (Etilities Forum) to have all the fun, recently announcing they will place monthly bandwidth caps on their cable Internet customers. Entry tier users (15Mbps) will have just 100GB per month – less than half that of Comcast. Customers at the next tier up will be capped at 250GB (on par with Comcast), while those at the brand new 60Mbps tier will enjoy fully unmetered access.  That last privilege comes at a price of $130 or more per month, though.

These caps will affect all Charter customers effective Monday, February 9th.  Charter has not yet announced plans on how they will address overuse.  Extra fees, decreased network speeds, or even loss of Internet connectivity could be on the table.

As with all bandwidth caps, consumers will see the impact as they increase the use of their Internet connections by voice and entertainment services.

©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

The state of New York has not escaped the current economic downturn and has seen its budget deficit swell.  In a recent proposal, NY Governor David Paterson announced his intent to implement a variety of new taxes – 88 in total – covering everything from gas and beer, luxury items like $60,000 cars or $500,000 planes and entertainment services such as movie theaters or sports venues.  Overall, these new taxes are expected to bring in an additional $4 billion in revenue for the state and plug some of its deficit.

As with the TARP program, Gallop Services performed an in-depth review of the specifics of the Governor’s Budget Briefing Book and 2009-10 Executive Budget Economic and Revenue Outlook.  Paterson’s proposed budget identified several areas which may impact technology services users including Cable and Satellite Television and Radio, Digital Content, Telephone and Internet Sales.  

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©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

You’re most likely familiar with bundled technology services.  Your cable provider probably offers you “a better value” if you subscribe to their Cable TV, Internet, and Telephone services.  If you’re lucky, you may also have the choice of FIOS service from Verizon (Etilities Forum), which provides the same package deal, just through the phone company.

Now, cable companies are planning to expand their bundled offerings by putting wireless data services into the mix.  Om Malik reports on his GigaOm site that Comcast (Etilities Forum), Cox Communications (Etilities Forum), Cablevision (Etilities Forum), Charter Communications (Etilities Forum), and Bend (Etilities Forum) have all announced some degree of planned wireless service.  Certainly, their competitors won’t be far behind.  In addition, the recent sale of a wide swath of the wireless spectrum to some of these and other providers will boost their ability to provide ever further-reaching coverage to mobile devices at home and on the road.  Since those spectrum purchases cost hundreds of millions of dollars, there’s no doubt that providers will be aggressive in selling services to recoup their expenses quickly.

At first glance, this seems to be a great benefit to consumers, and in many situations that may be the case.  However, the other side of this development is that your choices may be inefficiently limited to those that come with the provider’s specific bundles.  Consumers need to remain far more aware of exactly what services they are paying for and at what cost.  For example, I do not use a landline telephone enough to justify bundling the cable company’s VOIP service with my other services solely because (according to them), it will “save me hundreds of dollars per year!”  Instead, I use a third-party VOIP service that costs a few dollars per month.  This is perfect since the service is to call 911 if ever needed.

Instead, the widening bundle represents a potentially cost-saving mechanism for consumers whose usage of all of those services warrants the consolidation.  There will certainly be those that feel paying a little more for the convenience of fewer bills is worth the cost as well, but in a leveling economy (or whatever it’s being called this week), the number of folks able to take that route are dwindling.

©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.