Comcast and Time Warner's Attack on IPTV

Recently Comcast and Time Warner began trials of tiered internet service. Basically, they would have different price levels offering different bandwith caps. If you go over the cap during a service cycle you would be charged a fee. Both companies are stating that 5% of the users use 90% of the available bandwith. This would be an effort to make more bandwith available for everyone.

This sounds good on the surface, but what they are really trying to do is limit streaming video and in the process kill IPTV. Everyday more people are watching video on the web and everyday more sites offering streaming videos launch. Personally, I spend twice as much time watch video on the internet as I do watching television.

To Comcast and Time Warner, streaming video over the internet is a huge threat. The cable companies make a huge amount of money on advertising. They need you to watch their content on your tv and not on your computer.. If people watch video over the internet rather than through their signal they lose money. The idea of being able to watch The Office on hulu.com rather than NBC must be frightening. The idea of being able to watch netflix movies through a set top both rather than pay-per-view must scare the living crap out of the cable companies.

Comcast and Time Warner are hoping to kill IPTV through these bandwith caps. If you currently have Comcast or Timewarner and they are thinking about implementing these caps in your area, please complain. Complain to whoever will listen. These caps are a huge threat to the net. A huge threat to net neutraility.