The relevant passage from the FT:

Apple has contacted other broadcast and cable networks, including Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting System and Viacom, which have so far been unconvinced by Apple's proposal. The computer maker has also courted the book publishing industry, sector executives say.

Cooperation with Time Warner and Viacom would be essential if Apple wants to get this cable replacement off the ground—they own a plurality of basic cable channels between them. As far as the tablet is concerned:

Apple is preparing an announcement next month that many anticipate will be the official unveiling of its tablet, but the company has so far declined to confirm the existence of the device. Wall Street analysts expect mass production of an Apple tablet to begin as early as February.

That's some serious confidence right there, but it lines up with what we heard yesterday. This is all speculation at this juncture, but the WSJ and FT are big dogs who can (for the most part) be trusted; we'll have to see whether 2010 really is the year of the tablet. [Financial Times]

According to Time Warner, unless you have at least 7Mbps internet, you can't download music, or even "Windows Media Player software." And you need their most expensive plan for "Super Fast Shopping Concert Tickets & Online Auctions" and watching videos. No wonder I couldn't snag Momofuku Ko reservations when I still had Time Warner!

And then there's Cox. By being vague, they're a little less bad, but still perpetuating the idea you can't share photos or download music without at least a 10Mbps connection. And WTF is PowerBoost? (DOCSIS 3.0?)

Verizon is the least offensive here—while they still say you need at 7.1Mbps for streaming video, their other claims aren't totally unreasonable, and just below the chart they give you access to what the bandwidth translates to in real-world experience at each tier, like that a 50MB album would take over 6 minutes to download with their 1Mbps connection, so you see what you're paying for.

Here's AT&T's ridiculous chart again, which says you need at least 3Mbps to use Facebook, and at least 18Mbps to download movies.

Comcast doesn't merit going into the wall of shame, surprisingly, since they just show you how fast stuff downloads at different (theoretical) speeds, so there's no real fear-mongering involved.

The bottom line is that you have to know your own internet habits and what kind of speed you really need—don't let your prospective ISP scare you into you paying for more bandwidth you'd actually use. Personally, I'm pretty comfortable with around 20Mbps down, and 10 up. But six is definitely tolerable, and I'd wager for most people, unless you've got a bunch of people watching Netflix and downloading music and playing games all at once (like me).

Image via YsteJam Photography/Flickr

At this point, file sharing warnings via snail mail and e-mail are pretty commonplace. But this is the first time I've heard of an ISP taking the matter straight to the browser. At first I was worried, and then I was a bit annoyed, but I have to say, I give them credit for giving me the benefit of the doubt here.

The purpose of this email

and by email they mean the electronic message they forced onto my screen

is to remind you that the distribution of copyrighted material in this fashion may violate both copyright laws and Road Runner's terms of service, and to tell you a bit about peer-to-peer programs, the dangers they can pose to your computer and our network, and the steps you can take to protect yourself.

Considering all of the horror stories you hear, this was a pretty reasonable intervention. All I had to do was click, "I am aware of this issue and will take steps to resolve it," and I was on my merry way. Whether those steps should be deleting all the copyrighted material off my computer, removing my P2P software, getting my shit together and using a private tracker, or just trying a little bit harder to resist the urge to download Nic Cage's entire filmography on Mininova, they don't say. But as Road Runner didn't treat me like a criminal, I'll respect them by not being one. Or at least being a sneakier one.

For some people, one copyright violation notice from their ISP is enough to scare them straight forever. Others wear their warnings like badges of honor. What are your experiences with ISPs and copyright infringement? Weigh in in the comments.

Update: Apparently Time Warner has put a "temporary patch" into place while they figure out a permanent solution. [Wired]

How does that stack up to other companies? It's still not close to Microsoft, but it's pulling away from Time Warner. Here's an update from our April chart.

Note: We've used analyst estimates for Q3 for Microsoft and Time Warner.

Now it appears they're at it again, although what the target(s) will be this time around is anybody's guess. A few of the names floated so far are Viacom Inc and Time Warner Inc.

It's most likely not Disney, said former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. "They may want to recapture their dreams of going after Disney, but not with Disney specifically," he said. "I am sure [Comcast] Brian Roberts and Steve Burke (COO) have Time Warner high on their computer screens."

The analysts, in a word, were weary of such a move. [Reuters via Slashdot]

Sounds crazy, but he cites the historical example of rural telephony, where the public owned the wire, not private companies. It'd work like this: A city or neighborhood would all have fiber run to it at once, and then you'd purchase a share of the fiber and connect to whatever ISP you want. There'd be a connection point where any company could pay to set up equipment and offer service, which is sort of how it works in Amsterdam, Slater explains.

Once a normal thing, it's now a pretty powerful idea, choosing your ISP—in most places, you don't have a choice. There's Comcast. There's Time Warner. Or whoever the local monopoly is. Choice breeds competition: Where do you think cable companies are rolling out fiber-fast internet? It's not a coincidence it's where Verizon or AT&T are offering high-speed internet. And this could be the way to speed up the painfully slow rollout of Godzilla internet in the US, especially in those rural areas. [Fora.TV via digg]

This guy HAS to be related to Christian Slater. I was like, "Hey it looks like Christian Slater giving a lecture." And then the name "Derek SLATER" popped up. Speaking of, did anybody that watch show he had on NBC, where he had the split personality, before it got canceled? Surprisingly not bad.

The package includes 15Mbps upstream, and it's $100 a month. And everyone in Cablevision's service area—suburban New York—will be able to get a piece. Verizon FiOS's speediest package now looks comparatively pokey: 50Mbps down, 20Mbps up.

On the other hand, while we're dazzled by insane internet speeds that were previously exclusively to cradles of technology like Korea and Japan, we shouldn't forget the otherwise miserable state of broadband here. As Cablevision deploys DOCSIS 3.0 with full force, Time Warner is pulling back on it following the backlash to its proposed caps in cities outside of Beaumont, Texas. Meanwhile, Comcast employs caps and throttling, while AT&T tests caps on its U-Verse service.

So it's still going to be a while before we can pat our ISPs on the back for the wonderful, speedy service they're providing. [Bits]

"What happened as we're continuing to listen was we worked in some of the comments and ideas that got sent to us," Ramos said. "We came to the realization, let's do this in October."

Meanwhile, the AP has a story detailing customer pushback in Rochester, NY, another potential test zone. Although no delay has been announced for Rochester, angry customers are getting their legislators involved. Showdown!

[San Antonio Express-News, AP via Register]

The old cap scheme was pretty limited, only going up to a max of 40GB. Now they've got a whole Skittles bag of caps. Here's how Time Warner Cable's COO Landel Hobbs breaks it down, all while breaking out the familiar warning that the internet is about to die if you don't limit your porn consumption to two times a day—MAX:

Internet demand is rising at a rate that could outpace capacity within a few years. According to industry analysts, the infrastructure may not be able to accommodate the explosion of online content by 2012. This could result in Internet brownouts.

• 1GB with 768kbps downstream for $15/month with $2/GB overcharges
• 10, 20, 40 and 60GB will go with Roadrunner Lite, Basic, Standard and Turbo packages, respectively, and maintain the same pricing. Overage is $1/GB.
• 100GB will be the new Road Runner...Turbo (I'm not sure why there are two Turbo packages) which is 10Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream for $75/month. This is still an order of magnitude more restrictive than AT&T and Comcast, who have caps of 150GB and 250GB, respectively.
• A 50Mbps/5Mbps down/up speed tier is coming for $100/month when they launch DOCSIS 3.0. I'd expect this in FiOS-competitive markets first.

Overages are capped at $75 a month, meaning $150 a month gets you unlimited internet with the Turbo package—or really, you could just get a lower package and use as much as you want and pay less. The only real consideration is speed. GigaOM astutely notes that $150/month for unlimited internet is the exact amount Time Warner would need to pull in to make the same amount of money if you killed the cable box and switched to watching all of your video online—as we've long crowed that much of this is about their fear of internet video.

It's notable that Time Warner's not rolling this out anywhere Verizon has FiOS deployed—where in certain markets, for under $150 a month, you can get 50Mbps downstream and 20Mbps upstream (yes, that's more upstream than downstream in any of Time Warner's packages) and it's totally unlimited. Oh, competition, why can't you be everywhere and save the internet? I'd like to hope we don't have to rely on legislators like Eric Massa in NY to do it, since more bad than good would probably come out of the government getting involved. [Long Reply via Business Insider]

Austin, San Antonio, Rochester, NY, and Greensboro, North Carolina are the next cities to suffer Time Warner's comparatively draconian 40GB caps at the high-end—Comcast's is 250GB, AT&T's is 150GB, and all of them suck.

Every gig you overshoot your cap costs a dollar, meaning an HD movie download from iTunes could end up costing another $5 on top the $20 you're paying for the movie. Just four HD movies (assuming a conservative 5GB per flick) would swallow half of your allowed data for the month. You might wanna lay off the high def YouTube and Hulu too. Oh yes, the squeeze on high def video that doesn't come direct from your cable box is here. Actually, can I just say the internet is dead? OK. The internet is dead. [BusinessWeek - Thanks Joshua!]

The key is "paying" customers, but the other key is "free with purchase." That is, if you already pay for, say, CNN or HBO, then Bewkes says you'd be able to get it on your PC, and maybe on your phone, for no additional cost. If you are among the 15% of Americans who don't pay for TV, you'd presumably be able to grab a web-only option.

Bewkes presents this as a program he is cooking up with Comcast and his ex-ward, Time Warner Cable, but what this move does is turn content owners into content providers. The cable companies—and the wired and wireless phone data service providers—become dumb pipelines, whether they're signed on or not.

Boy do they love that. (Their industry expression is "over the top," meaning that content piggybacks on the connection rather than being part and parcel of the connection itself.) Saul at the Times, who was citing an Advertising Age article, makes a point of saying that Bewkes can only do this now that TWC isn't under his protection.

It's a good plan, if it means I can just buy a damn HBO subscription when the shows are good (as in, better than Eastbound and Down), have Nick and PBS on demand for the kid, and can do away with 90% of the cable crap that I have to wade through now. But just visualizing the convenience makes me realize the industry will never really let it happen. [NYT]

One of the first being, if cable companies are seriously considering a headfirst dive into the world currently being cultivated and pruned by the likes of Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly streaming, and Amazon on demand, what of their dubious arguments about the Internet not having enough bandwidth and throttling user's usage? Complete bollocks, as we all thought from the beginning?

Another is new rates and fees. Or those infamous "bundles" that land in our mailboxes every month. What will they be? Will there be any? As the New York Times pointed out this weekend, the CATV companies have no real precedent to work with. Many consumers merely use the cable as a delivery method, preferring to get their content free, with ads, from services like Hulu. How much would you pay your cable company to see your favorite programming, anywhere or whenever you want? Would you even want to? Or, should streaming be included in your subscription price, like it's been done with Netflix users who watch videos on their PCs or Xbox 360s? Again, many questions.

A final question, raised by a commenter at the NYT, asks why some people have to pay three separate, marked up fees for TV, internet and phone, when what they're actually paying for is one thing: data traveling through the network. Will the new cable model, whatever it is, change all this?

What we do know is most, if not all, "cable guys" are talking about online programming. Why, just today we received a press release talking about the Verismo VuNow set top box, and how cable execs recently "foamed at the mouth" at the CableLabs Forum over its uncanny ability to stream cable content to a TV screen without a PC middleman. We also know that while the execs were in agreement on the hardware, everything else going on between the major players like Time Warner, Comcast and other programming companies regarding this issue is "tense," according to a report in the WSJ. A resounding "no shit" seems appropriate here.

Personally, I have 200+ cable channels, watch 12 of them, and catch a large portion of my shows after the broadcast date on DVR or online. And I'll soon be canceling a large part of my programming because I, like many people these days, cannot afford to just piss money away like that on dormant channels like we all did in the free-wheeling days of yesteryear.

Whether this kind of behavior starts to take hold with the average Joe Cable Watcher remains to be seen. So far the data says it hasn't, but give it time. That Hulu Super Bowl ad was clever, and some TVs have firmware upgrades these days. It's all but inevitable. [New York Times]

Viacom's argument is that their channels "provide 20 percent of their audience" yet they only "receive about 2.5 percent of the fees Time Warner pays," so they're asking for what amounts to a rate increase of 23 cents per subscriber. Time Warner says that "the root of this is that the advertising market has gone soft and Viacom is desperate" and it's no time to be making people pay more for TV.

Viacom's PR campaign, so far, is decidedly brilliant: They've taken out full page ads in the Times and other papers today with characters like Dora the Explorer crying because children can't watch her starting tomorrow. Time Warner's response is pretty savvy too. Time Warner spokesman Alexander Dudley said that they'll "be telling our customers exactly where they can go to see these programs online...We’ll also be telling them how they can hook up their PCs to a television set.”

That's right—the cable company will be telling people to use Hulu. That's a first. True, they're still doing it over Time Warner's pipes, but it's pretty shocking coming from a cable company/ISP, who, like every other TV/ISP service provider, has traditionally pushed people in various ways to use the internet less and their TV services more. In fact, Time Warner has squawked before that they hate the amount of content—like The Hills and The Daily Show, the very programs at issue here—that broadcasters are putting online for free. Now they're sending people to them.

This is also the same Time Warner that's capping the amount of data people can use a month in certain markets, which, survey says, is a network management practice likely to spread—in large part due to the amount of strain on broadband networks coming from streaming video now.

And this Time Warner's going to tell people to stream more video? Maybe they're just going to bump your broadband bill instead, or this is a bluff. So, don't worry guys, you'll totally be able to watch Comedy Central while you're hungover tomorrow. (Probably.) [NY Times via NewTeeVee]

As the AP report suggests, you've got lots of open-shirted installers posing with cables and flowers as thinly veiled metaphors. In case you were confused, these are actual technicians that are doing the posing, which would make for a very awkward visit the next time on of the chosen twelve are over at your house.

They're free through the website. Somewhere. We couldn't find it. Update: We found it here. [Yahoo]

Plus, actual pics here!

If you recall, the SDV switch jacked Time Warner, Cablevision and Cox customers out of channels if they had CableCard sets or boxes that couldn't be updated. A dongle was promised, but it's taken it's sweet time making its way to the market, in part because it needs to pass CableLabs testing.

Well, the argument that CableLabs kept making didn't seem to work with the FCC, who said this specifically in the Cox fine:

Taken to its logical conclusion, Cox’s reasoning would permit an MVPD [cable operator] to move all of its programming to an SDV platform without regard for the impact its actions would have on customers using or wishing to use CableCARD-equipped UDCPs [one-way devices]. Such an outcome would be fundamentally at odds with the Commission's goal of protecting cable subscribers' ability to view signals through the use of commercially available navigation devices offered in a competitive market.

The fines, levied against Time Warner and Cox (no mention of Cablevision), were mere slaps on the wrist—$60,000 a piece, pertaining to just three markets where formal complaints were brought up. But it's good to know that the FCC isn't the lapdog of the cable biz, especially when we hardware junkies want more out of our TVs than what the cable co's box alone can deliver. [Ars Technica]

Update: According to the unofficial TiVo Blog, Time Warner sent a note that 34 "lesser viewed" channels—including BBC America and Universal HD, among other nerd favorites—would no longer be viewable without the TiVo dongle, which would be available "later this year." So they are firm on when they will cut off their poor subscribers, but not so firm on when a return to service will come, and at what cost. Real cool, TWC—you deserve more than a $60K fine for this chicanery. [TiVoBlog]

This might seem like an odd topic for Giz Explains, our weekly "WTF is that?" series, but a bunch of comments last week revealed a need to plainly explain the tussle going on between internet service providers, the Federal Communications Commission, content providers and you, and how it's shaping the way you'll use internet over the next couple of years. First, a quick primer.

Comcast was caught slowing down BitTorrent traffic last year by the Associated Press. It (re)sparked cries for government-mandated net neutrality—treating all internet traffic equally, whether it's email, Skype or a bootleg of The Dark Knight over torrent. While that didn't happen, a complaint against Comcast went through the FCC, which ruled against it last week, saying that slowing down BitTorrent was a naughty thing to do, and that they must disclose all management practices to subscribers.

In the meantime, a different network management trend started to emerge among the major ISPs: metered broadband, aka data caps. It's like dial-up service or wireless data: After reaching your alotted amount of data for the month, you pay extra, maybe through the nose, as our northern neighbors in Canada are familiar with. Conveniently, it's "net neutral," since it doesn't discriminate against particular kinds of traffic, and it's fully disclosed to subscribers so it satisfies guidelines discussed by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. In case you're looking to file a complaint, Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Fred Von Lohmann told us, "There's certainly nothing to stop them from pricing that way if they want to."

Time Warner was the first major to float the plan, which is currently in testing, with a 40GB cap at the high-end. Comcast is considering a metered approach as well, its spokesman has confirmed. AT&T is the most recent major ISP to jump onboard, and it'll be testing caps in the fall. Not to mention Cox Cable and a whole mess of regional ISPs already implement them.

Here's the rub: The P2P apps ISPs point to as pillaging their networks are increasingly a nonexistant bogeyman. Video is now the actual bandwidth monster, and it's only getting hungrier and hungrier.

The thing about all that video is that it competes with what your ISP is probably delivering to your other screen in the living room. Why watch 30 Rock on your couch at specific time when you can grab it on demand on your laptop with Hulu, or on a Netflix Roku box? That awesome Vudu box you bought? Pulling in Transformers in HD uses your cable provider's pipes, but it doesn't see a dime from the transaction.

Suppose you decide to be pseudo-green and opt for an all-digital approach from Vudu or Apple TV, and you have a moderate habit of two movies a week. A 90-minute movie running at a constant bitrate of 2.5 megabits per second (you're talking HD here) will swallow 1.69 GB. If you've got a 40GB cap, eight movies will eat over a quarter of it. And that's just your rental habit, with today's specs. The 1080p flicks they'll be streaming tomorrow will be even more bandwidth intensive.

More importantly, today's geek frontier is tomorrow's mainstream playground. Like game demos on Xbox Live? Or games-for-purchase on Steam? Those are a gig or two a pop, and as more and more games are distributed digitally, the gigs will add up. Which is also part of the problem as far as the ISPs are concerned: AT&T's tech chief glibly notes that "traffic on our backbone is growing 60 percent per year, but our revenue is not."

While I wanted to tell you that data caps will destroy the internet as we know it, really video is what's actually facing the greatest threat. Time Warner has openly said content providers can't have it both ways. And the EFF's von Lohmann told us that while he hasn't "seen any evidence that [metered broadband] will radically change the internet" he is "worried that companies that have their own video they're delivering over the same pipe they deliver internet service will have an incentive to reduce caps" and it's a "valid concern worth watching." It would effectively have us paying twice for video delivered over the internet. Most people can barely stand paying for it once.

Tru2way is actually the brand name for a common Java-based middleware stack and software platform (aka OpenCable, aka OCAP) that'll be supported across the entire cable industry (all the majors like Comcast and Time Warner others are way onboard). Hardware comes into play by way of CableCARD, the little card you can plug into your TiVo (or whatever) to get cable on it without a set-top box. It decrypts the encrypted signal the cable company sends out.

Up until now CableCARD has had some problems: It was meant to replace your set-top box, but besides crappy industry support, it was missing stuff like the programming guide and VOD. Tru2way aims to fulfill the original promise. Not only will tru2way be in half of all actual cable boxes by 2013 according to ABI Research—Time Warner already has a million boxes out there—TV manufacturers like Panny, Sammy and Sony are building tru2way sets that won't need cable boxes. (ABI principal analyst Steve Wilson tells us that Sony's agreement is particularly important in pushing tru2way forward, since it got the cable operators to agree to the same set of specs and common goals, like a full rollout by 2009.) So tru2way isn't vaporware—it's not a butter smooth road, but you will probably see it fairly soon(ish).

The biggest tru2way advantage for consumers is that the box becomes an option based on the capability of your TV. You'll finally get the program guide, VOD and other advanced features with a tru2way TV, without a black behemoth next to it. And, as is implied in the name, it allows two-way communication, something older CableCARD devices couldn't do. That means cable operators can offer a lot of the same interactive features as AT&T's U-verse IPTV service. Since it's a common platform for all cable operators, a developer's app that works for Time Warner will work for Comcast and vice versa, no messy porting required. And it's just Java, so there's not much of a learning curve, paving the way for lots of innovative apps (if the cable co. allows them), not to mention the obvious like local weather widgets, voting, news, RSS. ABI's Steve Wilson also mentioned an on-TV caller ID app similar to AT&T's.

The major catch is that this requires new hardware, either a new box (from the cable company) or a new TV (from you wife's pension fund). Cable dudes are going to cycle to the new boxes gradually, not replace them all at once, and that will take some time. Also, don't expect these wonderful new services to be wonderfully free, Wilson tells us. The super-sweet stuff is going to be part of higher-tiered services that are probably gonna cost you. And the boxes themselves might be pricey. There will lower levels with more basic interactivity, but those cheap-o boxes will have a slower rollout. (Though it'll be hastier in markets invaded by FiOS and U-verse according to Wilson.)

So, while CableCARD and tru2way aren't going to invade the country overnight, the way most people watch TV—even if they actually still sit on a couch in front of an actual boob tube—is going to change significantly in the next couple of years. But it's not like they have much of a choice anymore. Even now, people (mostly young whippersnappers) are changing the way they watch TV, whether or not the cable companies and telecoms go along. Time to evolve... or die.