Frontier Communications Drops DSL Caps

While Time-Warner Cable continues to push out new "trials" of metered broadband (meaning usage caps), DSL provider Frontier Communications has dropped its own plans for such a cap.

Frontier has been discussing such a cap since last year, but the tiers discussed were really ridiculous: 5GB of usage + overage fees of $1 to $2 a month. 5GB? You couldn't get away watchin much Netflix streaming, or Hulu, or anything on that.

The most interesting thing is that Frontier services one of the areas targeted for a TWC trial: Rochester, NY. You might expect that Frontier might be seeing more people interested in its service, and you'd be right. Ann Burr, the head of Frontier's Rochester unit told AP:

"We have gotten hundreds of calls from Time Warner customers into our call centers. I guess it's been a public relations crisis for Time Warner."

I've criticized usage caps before. You can obviously see something has to give somewhere. Companies like Hulu, HBO, and Netflix all want us to use more broadband, while ISPs are starting to institute caps, in the obvious hope of more revenue.

Legislation may be the only hope for consumers. Congressman Eric Massa, (D-NY) is drafting a bill that will halt the spread of caps. He called them "job killing broadband Internet downloading caps."