Washington Post owned cable operator CableONE is promising a new round of $60 million in network upgrades to shore up some of the company's network shortcomings. According to CableONE, the investment will "provide Cable ONE customers with enhanced speed, reliability, and quality in their internet, cable, and phone service." "We’re committed to delivering the best possible experience to our customers," said Cable ONE President and Chief Executive Officer, Tom Might. That commitment includes some of the most aggressive usage caps in this industry, like a 3 GB daily throttle cap on their base 5 Mbps tier, or a 50 Mbps tier with caps as low as 50 GB. The company also is the only carrier we know of that applies punitive lower usage caps for users who refuse to bundle additional services.

FCC boss Julius Genachowski has been busy lately paying lip service to Silicon Valley, most recently telling a bunch of Silicon Valley conference attendees that caps were something we should be "concerned" about, after telling cable companies just a few months earlier he thought caps and overages are nifty and innovative. Speaking again to Silicon Valley folks yesterday at a speech at Vox Media headquarters, Genachowski hashed out his muddy position a little further, again insisting he was "concerned" about caps -- sort of -- maybe:

With ISPs so relentlessly eager to move from flat rate to usage-based billing, you would think that they would have made sure they had the technical skills to do so first. Again and again however we've noted how U.S.

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You might recall that back in 2009, we mentioned a piece claiming that the "bandwidth hog," a term used ceaselessly by industry executives to justify rate hikes, net neutrality infractions, and pretty much everything else -- was a myth. The piece was penned by Yankee analyst Benoit Felten and Herman Wagter, who knows a little something about consumption -- as he's the man largely responsible for Amsterdam's FTTH efforts.

Earlier this year Netflix began ranking the quality of video streaming performance for each of the nation's largest ISPs. HD streams have variable bitrate but can potentially top out at around 4800 kilobits per second, and the data provides a bird's eye view by ISP of sustained throughput available from a given ISP over time.

For several years now PC Magazine has been conducting a somewhat controversial ranking of broadband ISPs by speed, using the PC Magazine Surfspeed application. Criticism over the years has grown about the magazine's methodology, and their decision to rank ISPs based on browsing speed in the age of 100 Mbps connections and Internet video.

According to user discussion in our forums, Washington Post-owned cable operator CableOne is preparing to launch a new 50 Mbps tier. We've been given the new rate card (pdf) for the service changes, and what caught my eye is that the new tier comes with a low 100GB cap if you bundle three services -- and in a rather obnoxious move -- an even lower 50GB cap if you only choose to bundle two services or choose standalone broadband. Whatever you choose, you'll be paying fifty cents for every gigabyte over the cap you travel. Punishing users with a lower cap if they don't sign up for your triple play is a new one for us, though CableOne has a rather long history of tinkering with low caps and often confusing pricing plans, including imposing different usage restrictions at different times of the day. If you don't like the caps, the company offers an uncapped 5 Mbps plan for $50 a month.

Washington Post owned cable operator Cable One is taking some heat over at the Consumerist for their apparent lack of tact after a recent significant fire in a Fargo apartment complex. According to the Consumerist, the cable company decided that immediately after the fire was a good time to make the rounds and demand $500 from each apartment dweller for lost DVRs, telling local news outlets that "we've been hurt too." While CableONE clearly has a right to be concerned about expeditiously recouping losses, timing and tact in these situations is kind of important. If you recall, AT&T found itself in a similar circumstance after a CSR demanded $300 from a wildfire couple that failed to make saving their DVR a priority. AT&T ultimately gave the couple a break after clarifying that being insensitive is not company policy, and it seems likely CableOne will do the same -- but only after news outlets make them look silly.

You might recall that before snoopvertising agency NebuAD flamed out spectacularly, a number of ISPs tested the user-tracking technology on their customers -- in many cases without telling anybody about it. When asked by the press about the tests, many of these ISPs simply wouldn't comment.

Users in our Cable One forum point out that the cable operator is tinkering with some of their speeds, adding a 12 Mbps downstream, 1.5 Mbps upstream plan to their lineup. In a sign they're falling a bit behind the times, CableOne's previously fastest tier was 10 Mbps downstream 1 Mbps upstream.

CableOne, the cable provider infamous for its noon-to-midnight caps, has raised its residential speeds and reworked its capping policy. On the good news side, their business tiers (topping out at 10 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up, with an 8/1 plan for the faint of wallet and an 8/2 plan for the in-between) are ostensibly cap-free now.

Back in November, NebuAD and several of the ISPs who were doing business with them (Embarq, WOW, Centurytel and Cable One) were sued over their plan to sell subscriber browsing histories without giving customers a functional opt-out mechanism. As we've stated in the past, NebuAD's system opted users out of receiving the system's targeted ads, but it didn't opt them out of data collection and sales.

CableOne customers who just saw their broadband tier rates go up in September are about to see another increase in the company’s cable prices. CableOne says that this is their first television rate increase in several years and that it’s necessary due to the increased cost of programming.

Earlier this year Arizona-based Cable One launched new bandwidth caps, and then imposed a rate hike on customers. This week they're informing them that the free (albeit limited) newsgroup service they've provided customers will be discontinued as of December 31. The alert sends users to a handful of free alternative services. "Their recent caps, frequent service outages, and incessant rate hikes are the antithesis of a customer-oriented company," complains a user in our forums.

The CEO for Arizona-based Cable One greets users to the company's website by insisting the company wants to be "America's Best Cable Company." They've decided to accomplish this goal by implementing tougher usage caps for broadband customers. Their website still uses the word "unlimited" when discussing their broadband service.Customers are allocated a certain amount of bandwidth to from noon until midnight.