A DSL company is abandoning its plans to offer tiered Internet pricing in Rochester, NY, after observing the negative publicity surrounding a similar approach by Time Warner Cable.
Stamford, Conneticut based Frontier Communications' pricing plan, outlined last fall, would have been similar to that of Time Warner, with plans based on varying bandwidth caps, plus overage charges for going over the monthly limit. Now, the company is reversing course, according to the Associated Press.
"We have gotten hundreds of calls from Time Warner customers into our call centers," Ann Burr, the head of Frontier's Rochester unit, told the news wire. "I guess it's been a public relations crisis for Time Warner."
To be fair, Frontier expects very low bandwidth use from its customers. The company's service terms state that 5 GB per month is a "reasonable amount," and Burr said caps are still on the table if infrastructure can't keep up with demand. It's also a much smaller company, serving 579,900 to Time Warner's 8.7 million.
Still, the move by Frontier points out the importance of Internet service providers playing along with Time Warner Cable in order for tiered pricing to catch on. Frontier likely saw the opportunity to pick up a wealth of new customers and decided that charging voracious Internet users wasn't worth it.
Trials of a tiered plan from Time Warner Cable will begin this August in Rochester and in Greensboro, N.C., and this October in San Antonio and Austin, Texas. In another interesting development, the San Antonio Express-News reports that the October start date was actually later than Time Warner originally intended.
The trial was delayed until October due to reactions from customers.
