It looks as if the days of Time Warner Cable resting on its laurels while laughing all the way to the bank are coming to end, particularly in NYC. Although Chief Operating Officer Landel Hobbs was quoted as saying that TWC was "effectively positioned in Manhattan" while "[Verizon] was
just getting started," we'd say it has plenty to fear. The outfit is expected to ramp up marketing in order to push its services over those offered by competing telcos and satcasters, though without a significant boost in HD options in a significant number of markets, we can't see the spots really making much of an impact. Additionally, said exec said that the firm plans to roll out
DOCSIS 3.0 "surgically" in order to compete in FiOS areas, and given that this is the company who is actually mulling
consumption-based internet billing, we don't find its hesitation to go full-bore shocking in the least. [
Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Andrew @ Sep 11th 2008 10:16AM
Yet again, Time Warner will KEEP UP with Verizon. Right now, RR Turbo is 8 Mbps here in Raleigh, and I believe the same all the rest of the country, EXCEPT areas with FIOS, which get... 15 I think?
Why not take the incentive to be the leader rather than saying screw you to all of your customers until they have a choice. All that's going to make me do is say screw you when we get a fast alternative.
Jeff @ Sep 11th 2008 10:34AM
Wow this is sooooo GREAT!!! Oh wait, DOCSIS 2.0 standards have up to 30 down and 10 up. We aren't even close to the current max. How about they up the rates to that before implementing a new technology.
Kevin @ Sep 11th 2008 11:16AM
Yeah I'm in NYC and RR Turbo is currently 15/1 while standard is 10/512. PowerBoost goes up to around 20 but I've never seen those speeds besides in speed tests.
Randy @ Sep 11th 2008 10:26AM
Andrew: you read my mind.
Ya, wake me up when they get to Northern New Jersey. Rather than spreading the Love, they pick and choose so that they don't hemorrhage customers.
Eric @ Sep 11th 2008 10:51AM
I have one of these. I'm going to give it to my dad since I got a PS3. Glad to see it's still up-to-date!
I payed $400 for it new. So $600 does not sound cheap.
Eric @ Sep 11th 2008 10:54AM
Sorry about the previous comment. 1Password sent it for me before I could stop it. (Fixed now.)
What I MEANT to say was that here in San Diego, the TW RR speed is 10mbps. And it's really fast.
I've been beta testing a well-known application that's about to be released, and the downloads were in the 1 gig plus size until the debug code was removed. Now it's simply in the 900megs + size. And this fast download was very handy. It downloads it in about 18 minutes.
FreshJulius @ Sep 11th 2008 1:14PM
Does it rhyme with Bah-doh-bee?
And if it does, is it the beesknees?
bull3964 @ Sep 11th 2008 11:02AM
It's funny, everything that cable companies do to stem the tide of losses to competitors always just end up pissing me off more and makes me less likely to use the service.
It's likely because they always try to use FUD and suspect statistics to make them look like the superior alternative when they are most certainly not. I find Comcast's Jeopardy HD commercials to be infuriating. "Oh at any point in time we have 500 things in HD where DirecTV only has 79." Never mind that they are taking content totally out of the equation. I could give a rats ass if I can watch a nasty transfer of a 25 year old one star movie in HD when a currently running series I watch is showing a new episode in HD at that moment and I can't watch it because I don't have the channel.
You can't polish a turd. Cable does have it's place but they need to stop billing it as the BEST SERVICE EVER when it's not anymore. How about charging fair prices for the lower level service that you do actually offer and then play off the strengths of the service in your ads instead of just alienating anyone that has more than passing knowledge about technology.
Jeff N. @ Sep 11th 2008 11:03AM
TWC is the worse cable company. That new software on their HD DVR is flat out awful and they have not done one darn thing to fix it.
I really can't say anything positive.
greg1ban @ Sep 11th 2008 12:47PM
So again TWC customers in the socal area get the least HD channels.. Maybe it is time to switch to FIOS.
Conquest3.0 @ Sep 12th 2008 11:15PM
I work for TWC...Socal doesnt get the least amount of HD Channels, so stop complaining