Time Warner Cable issued their second quarter earnings, posting a better-than-expected rise in quarterly profit. The carrier saw revenue increase 4 percent to $4.47 billion, and second quarter net profit rose to $316 million up from $277 million. Despite claiming flat-rate broadband pricing wasn't sustainable during the company's metered billing fiasco, broadband revenue rose 9 percent to $1.1 billion.

The company lost 57,000 basic video subscribers, but added 88,000 new broadband customers, 54,000 digital video customers, and 103,000 VoIP customers.

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt told attendees of a conference call this week that Mobile WiMax launches are coming. "You will hear a lot more about this as we build up to the launch this fall," says Britt -- who confirmed Charlotte and Dallas as early launch markets. Like Comcast, Time Warner Cable invested in Clearwire's mobile WiMax network and will re-sell the service as part of a broadband bundle.

Britt did warn those attending the call that the company was seeing some customers leave their VoIP service as households convert to wireless phone only. "There's evidence of significant cord-cutting of voice in this environment," says Britt. "A tough economy is causing people to make that decision faster than they would otherwise."

"Given the slower subscriber growth in recent quarters, we expect that revenue growth will slow in the second half of the year," CFO Rob Marcus said, also blaming "higher expected programming and marketing expense(s)." Of course, Time Warner Cable has yet to launch faster DOCSIS 3.0 speeds in a single market, so in some instances Internet customers may be defecting to faster options. Time Warner Cable still insists their first DOC 3.0 market, New York City, will launch before the end of the year.

According to local Rochester, NY ABC affiliate WHAM, Senator Chuck Schumer spoke in Rochester today. While it was simply expected he'd be speaking out against Time Warner Cable's metered billing trial, the Senator announced that he'd spoken with the carrier, and that Time Warner Cable would be backing away from caps and overages in response to unprecedented consumer outrage in trial markets. Schumer's appearance in Rochester was coordinated by Stop The Cap.com, a blog created by Broadband Reports user Phillip Dampier in response to a growing push toward metered billing.

Update 1: Indications are Time Warner Cable is backing away from the plan in all markets.

Time Warner stated late yesterday that the carrier will be finalizing the spinoff of Time Warner Cable on March 27, after the FCC approved the deal two weeks ago. "Both companies will be better positioned to compete, with capital structures more suited to their respective needs as well as greater operational, financial and strategic flexibility," Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes said in a statement. In addition to the spinoff, the Time Warner's board approved a 1-for-3 reverse stock split, which will also go into effect on March 27.

For much of the week, Roadrunner/Time Warner Cable customers in Southern California have been complaining about sluggish DNS performance in our forums. Time Warner Cable spokesman Jeff Simmermon (who you can follow on Twitter) has subsequently confirmed that the company's DNS servers in the region have been under DDoS attack for seven days now, impacting service for both customers in California and elsewhere. "These attacks are not uncommon, especially for a network as large as ours," says the company in a statement, though they admit "this particular series of attacks has been larger and more difficult to contain than similar attacks in the past." Of course switching to OpenDNS temporarily (or permanently, if you like their service) should help users.

A new report by research firm Strategy Analytics pegs Verizon FiOSTV users as the most satisfied pay TV customers. The survey, which polled 842 US Digital Television subscribers during the second half of last year, found that 89% of FiOSTV customers were "somewhat" or "very" satisfied with the service. In comparison, customers of AT&T's U-Verse, DirecTV or Dish Network came in with 80% of customers saying they were "somewhat" or "very" satisfied. Cable companies saw less positive rankings with a 72% rating Comcast, a 67% rating for Cox and a 65% satisfaction rating for Time Warner Cable. Loyalty is fleeting though: the survey found that about two-thirds of those polled would switch carriers with a price break of 20% or higher.

The FCC recently began investigating the ever-increasing TV pricing of several large cable operators and Verizon (but not AT&T). An initial inquiry sent to companies demanded information on how and why carriers were bumping channels into costlier digital tiers, and whether they were using the DTV transition to push more expensive services.

After a rather ugly dispute earlier this week, Time Warner Cable and Viacom have settled their differences. Time Warner Cable originally claimed Viacom wanted to charge them between 22 percent and 36 percent more per channel (later saying the number was 12%), and using an elaborate advertising assault, had threatened to pull all Viacom content (both online and off) if Time Warner Cable didn't comply. Apparently Time Warner Cable found a number they liked, as the two companies have struck an agreement on an unspecified increase. Of course that increase will be passed on to you shortly.