New York Democratic Representative Eric Massa called TWC's proposal to switch its 8.4 million cable broadband customers to metered internet billing an “outrageous plan to tax the American people."
Massa, a longtime blogger at the liberal site DailyKos, says he will be joined by a “legion of activists" and called the fight against usage caps a “national issue of generational consequences." However, Massa's fight will not get far without support from powerful House members,including Virginia Democrat Rick Boucher who now controls a key committee on telecoms and the internet.
Critics say usage caps will cost users more and hurt innovation on the net especially in new video services, as subscribers begin to calorie-count their internet usage.
TWC's new tiered pricing structure for its Roadrunner internet service starts with a $15 for 1GB a month usage plan with a overage charge of $2 per GB. The company say that bandwidth hogs need to pay their fair share and that if the company doesn't get enough money to build new infrastructure, “internet brownouts" will be inevitable.
In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Massa dismissed those arguments, describing TWC as an greedy, unregulated monopoly providing a utility service. His yet-to-be released bill would seek to increase competition among broadband providers and regulate monopolies, he said, though he declined to give specifics.
“They are providing a utility and frankly you should not be able to impose cascading rate increases without justifying them," Massa said. “What Time Warner is saying is not true and their own SEC filings show that. This is AIG-style greed."
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