In a press conference today, Massa directly linked this bill to the attempt by Time Warner Cable to deploy consumption-based pricing in Austin and three other cities. Massa notes:

The drafting of the bill was prompted by thousands of constituents and industry experts who voiced their concerns in regard to the outrageous increase in fees proposed by broadband providers. [...] The Broadband Internet Fairness Act will prevent the monopolistic rate increases of broadband companies by promoting the interests of broadband customers.

By selecting the FTC, Massa aims to bring about consumer protections by treating this as a market competitiveness issue. In a press conference today, Massa noted that the FTC has experience handling such issues, and, in fact, the language of H.R. 2902 is based on existing models the FTC uses to assure competition in other markets.

The text of the Massa press release, including a link to the bill text, is here: Congressman Eric Massa introduces Broadband Internet Fairness Act

12:35pm Update: Here is some other coverage on the bill:

• GigaOm: Congressman Files Bill to Stop Tiered Broadband Pricing
• Stop  the Cap: Congressman Massa Conference Call to Introduce HR 2902 – Broadband Internet Fairness Act

Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) today announced it would alter plans to test Consumption Based Billing, shelving the trials while the customer education process continues.

The good news is that the metered Internet trials are called off for now.

The bad news is that TWC is casting this as a consumer education problem that they’ll go back and fix, and not the retraction of a fundamentally flawed business plan.

As the statement notes:

Time Warner Cable also announced that it is working to make measurement tools available as quickly as possible. These tools will help customers understand how much bandwidth they consume and aid in the dialog going forward.

I suspect TWC is betting that once the bulk of their users see bandwidth consumption that falls into the 2-6 GB range, they’ll be accepting of 20GB or 40GB caps.

Except, I don’t think they will.

A dashboard meter and an education campaign don’t address the critical flaws of the TWC metered Internet proposal.  The flaws include things such as:

• The plans don’t account for the falling costs of broadband, which when coupled with increasing demand sets up a gigantic windfall opportunity that harms customers.
• Customers will now be paying to receive junk they don’t want, such as the ever-present background Internet noise, spam, ads, and–worst of all–remote attacks that can bust through a cap in a few days time.
• Attempts to monetize high-but-reasonable bandwidth consumption that harm innovation and early adopters. That impacts not just those on the bleeding edge, but all of us.
• The economic harm to innovative businesses that lose their early adopter pool, and thus their opportunity to bring these innovative products and services to market.
• Pricing that sets the stage for anti-competitive behavior and content partnership deals that create a non-neutral Internet.

These are not things you fix with an educational campaign. They demand a complete retooling of your product approach.

So, yes, breathe a sigh of relief, but don’t think this is over. The statement issued by TWC today is not a capitulation, but another shot across the bow.

Read the full statement here: Time Warner Cable Charts a New Course on Consumption Based Billing

Last night, I sent a short list of questions to Time Warner for a piece airing today on NPR’s “All Things Considered” (which I’ll link when it’s available), but was told that the answers to my questions were not readily available and couldn’t meet my deadline. Maybe we’ll hear more later this week.

The show will air locally today on 90.5FM KUT, and will be posted later to the NPR web site.

So that’s the scoop … reported in a blessedly exclamation-point-free fashion.

See the full post here: Post-Easter Time Warner Cable update

10:44pm Update: The radio segment has been posted online here: Internet Bandwidth Hogs May Soon Pay For It