CNY man says Time Warner Cable wants to charge $20,000 for broadband Internet | syracuse.com

CNY man says Time Warner Cable wants to charge $20,000 for broadband Internet | syracuse.com: Think your cable and Internet bill is too high? Jesse Walser might disagree with you.

Walser, who lives about 20 miles outside of Syracuse in the rural town of Pompey, told Ars Technica that Time Warner Cable wants to charge him more than $20,000 to hook him up with broadband Internet. What baffles him is that he can see TWC lines from his house, just 0.32 miles from the road.

"I didn't think it would be that difficult, because the cable was on my road," he told the tech news site. "I have phone. I have electricity. It's not completely 'Green Acres.'"

As this blog has previously pointed out, many Americans lack wireline Internet access because of this kind of arbitrary redlining by legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies. It's difficult to make a credible argument that living less than a half mile from existing infrastructure puts a customer premise out in the middle of nowhere, making it cost prohibitive to serve. As Mr. Walser points out, his circumstance bolsters the argument that last mile Internet service providers be classified as common carriers.

This situation has existed unchanged throughout much of the United States over the past decade (and isn't likely to change anytime soon), leaving some 19 million homes offline according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is currently considering common carrier regulation of Internet service providers.