Because apparently an organization that spent $14.4 million last year on lobbying just doesn't get enough face time, Ars Technica gives cable lobbyist and NCTA boss Kyle McSlarrow a podium to wax poetic about alternative broadband pricing schemes. During the Time Warner Cable debate over metered billing, McSlarrow played blog patty cake with consumer advocates, proclaiming that Time Warner Cable was simply transparently testing alternative billing models. Ars helps McSlarrow portray a kinder, gentler cable industry:

In his view, though, cable needs to do the experiments to make sure that the Internet survives the coming bandwidth apocalypse. -Ars Technica, on NCTA Lobbying boss Kyle McSlarrow

But Time Warner Cable, one of the NCTA's biggest members, was in a rush. Instead of implementing high caps that targeted just the heaviest users, seemingly detached executives stumbled lustfully for the holy grail of broadband pricing: low caps and high overages that intentionally impact all households, designed to deter and/or monetize competing Internet video delivery.

McSlarrow insists to Ars his heart isn't set on any particular model, though you can be damn sure the member companies who pay his salary are drooling over the idea of per-byte billing. McSlarrow doesn't help his case by perpetuating the myth that a bandwidth apocalypse is looming if we don't allow cable operators to freely experiment with charging you more money for less product.

The idea that consumers don't want carriers to experiment with better pricing is a myth to begin with. Consumers would be perfectly happy with innovative new pricing -- even caps -- if they see they're not being ripped off and limitations are clear and reasonable. So far, cable operators haven't proposed any pricing schemes that innovate above and beyond the existing flat-rate model. Given cable's history with price hikes, you can't blame consumers for doubting that the cable industry's idea of pricing innovation will serve the consumers' interest.

Like every other cable executive, McSlarrow doesn't provide, and Ars doesn't press for, hard data justifying why a move away from the flat-rate billing model is even necessary in the first place -- given the costs to provide broadband are dropping, growth rates are easily manageable, and DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades are relatively inexpensive. We've repeatedly debunked the "Exaflood" as a public relations stunt by broadband carriers and their PR tendrils, yet Mcslarrow quickly trots it out as example number one as to why such "experiments" were necessary.

Part of the significant backlash to Time Warner Cable's plan was because the proposed caps were too low and per GB overages were too high, but equal blame can be fixed on Time Warner Cable's apparent assumption that their customers were idiots who couldn't see the carrier's real motivation. McSlarrow continues that fine tradition by insisting that the exploration of new pricing models is simply about discovering what's "best for the consumer," and not about finding a way to monetize and control a coming explosion in HD video delivery for investors.