Low Fat Cable Broadband

Set the speeds low enough to attract dial-up converts (still below most 1500/128 DSL offerings), but likely to involve less downgrading from existing DOCSIS 3000/384 customers. No hint on pricing yet??

To add to the interest, in certain parts of the Columbus area this will also compete with WOW Internet & Cable's Value (112/112) and Basic (500/300) tiers.

Wonder what the price will be.

This should draw in customers that don't want to pay the normal price for full speed DSL (whatever that means )

384/128 isn't bad for the web surfer, email user, or "lite" downloader.

If they do it like Charter is there won't be much savings. Our 384 is $10 less than 2000 but they charge more for the modem rental if you have 384.

My in-laws use AOL dial-up and can't afford the $45 a month for RoadRunner. All they do online is occasional web surfing and e-mailing. If this competes with AOL price-wise, I could definitely convince them to ditch AOL (finally!!!) and get "broadband lite." In fact, depending on the price, I can see this drawing away a lot of remaining dial-up customers.

Wow, that's something. I can't wait to see if OOL will follow suit next year when the price freeze ends.

$23.99 for 384-512/128-256 would not be bad at all!

That beats AOL, and easily puts them out of business, but don't think it's gonna happen so son. People are kinda hooked to the handholding bundled service portal.

JE

AOL isn't going to be the least bit scared of what Time Warner does. They are, after all, AOL-Time Warner!

-- Rob

Don't you mean Time Warner Now???Any one that work for TW says Thay are happy now that AOHell is off there name.

Personally, I think you may be mistaken about AOL not being scared of this. As I've stated several times in the RR forum, i've believed that this move was coming sooner rather than later and that slower speeds really were going to be the product that attracted the huge #'s of dialup converts.

One has to have wondered though why RR hasn't done this sooner..particularly with the competing slower DSL products out there.
The only conclusion I could wind up with was that it is because AOL IS scared about a move like this. It wasn't long ago that an AOL Executive was even discounting broadband entirely, essentially saying it was just a 2nd rate product compared to their dialup service.
Why would they say that? Surely they couldn't REALLY believe such a thing. They said it because they were scared.
There are simply too many homes out there that they don't control the last mile phone and cable pipes into.
Their DSL strategy has been non existant because of that and as far as cable goes..all they have is time Warners lines. That leaves a lot of their dialup customers going to someone else if this move really takes hold.

I think that while AOL/TW knows they would see a huge increase in their RR business, it would all come at the expense of lost AOL Dialup business. And, worse yet..if they did this..they'd be starting a VERY important trend that everyone else would quickly be following.
And, the end result will be devastating to the company as a whole..despite any gains in their Roadrunner customer base.

Is AOL/TW Scared? You bet.

But..they have no choice now but to do it I think.
They may as well try to save what they can while they can.

$24 isn't all the great considering VoL is $30 (which includes MSN 9 Premium which may be of interest to AOHELLers) and SBC $27, both for 1.5Mb service.

that SBC service is only in SBC areas (not verizon of course), and that's on a 1 year contract, and you still have to keep a phone line (people could get 384/128 service and get a VOIP phone for much cheaper). Actually i wouldn't be surprised at all if, to help sell the service, RR sold voip for $10-$15/mo more. I'd get 384/128 for $35/mo if it came with free long distance to anywhere in the US.

There are no non-CATV penalties with RR? With Comcast I was facing a 30% penalty for HSI when I dropped CATV. Meanwhile the vast majority of people have/need POTS anyway.

said by GNXPower:

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There are no non-CATV penalties with RR? With Comcast I was facing a 30% penalty for HSI when I dropped CATV. Meanwhile the vast majority of people have/need POTS anyway.

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there ARE penalties. who can forget toofarfromCO's rants about charging $85/mo for cable internet without video service. it might not be that much in other areas as it was in farmington but its probably there.

VOIP on 128k up will suck majorly, lots of static since it uses about 90k. It won't eliminate the need for a phone co. but then there is cellular service, always an option.

said by GNXPower:

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$24 isn't all the great considering VoL is $30 (which includes MSN 9 Premium which may be of interest to AOHELLers) and SBC $27, both for 1.5Mb service.

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but lite cable versions dont have other costs such as the phone line required to get Vol

Kinda sad they have to compete with dialup.Isn`t there network already oversold and congested?Or are they planning on costumers downgradeing to free it up?Also anybody know the percentage off the network they use?I was told at one time it was 3 percent.I`m still waiting for them to offer better speeds for Biz plans myself.

AOL and Time Warner are the same company. So if this attracts AOL customers to RR. All its doing is taking money from one division and putting it in another. In the end, the money goes into the same pot.

AOL aint the only company that supplies dialup.

Such "lite" offers should be and will be priced $5 - $10 over dialup and $5 - $10 under regular broadband. In places with very cheap (i.e. $26.95 DSL) service the above can't be satisfied, but the idea is to offer something just a little more expensive than dialup, so users who find regular broadband too expensive would switch.

I get they sell their so called "lite" service for 30 bucks a month. Its only lite on speed not price.

I'd probably jump on board if it was only $30 for 384/128 (paying $45 for 3000/384 right now). I don't download much any longer except for the occational game and song. It is enough bandwidth for me to game and VPN into work. It is also speedy enough where I won't miss the speeds too much, especially for $15 less a month.

said by scavio:

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I'd probably jump on board if it was only $30 for 384/128 (paying $45 for 3000/384 right now). I don't download much any longer except for the occational game and song. It is enough bandwidth for me to game and VPN into work. It is also speedy enough where I won't miss the speeds too much, especially for $15 less a month.

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Why not just offer current speed 3000/384 for 29.95, new speed 5000/512 for 44.95, and 1500/256 for 19.95. If I was in charge of rr, I could put anyone out of business! Don't you just love competiton!:p

they do away with the binary groups in newsgroups?
You can send messages to the text only newsgroups and serf the web with 128Kbps just as well as with 3000Kbps.

I am guessing that in Rochester the price will be $29.95. That will be the same price as Frontier's 256/256 service. We are still paying $39.95 here in Rochester for RR...same price as Frontier's "DSL Max". I have tried DSL Max, only to retreat back to RR when the downloads went to 3000 kbps. Even though DSL Max has the same speed as RR, I still download at about 350-400 kbps faster on RR.

384/128, you gotta to be kidding me. sure it's faster then dialup but for bb use is still kinda slow. and if its that slow, it's only worth 9.95
I want them to enjoy bb as much as everyone else without sacrificing much speed and pay much less..
1500/256 for 19.95, would immediately put dialup to rest in peace, in heaven

Some of you guys seem to forget, its not that people want aol, its that they are stuck with it. Have we not forgotten that broadband isn't available in all areas? And there may not be another local ISP for them

said by SlickEnW:

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Some of you guys seem to forget, its not that people want aol, its that they are stuck with it. Have we not forgotten that broadband isn't available in all areas? And there may not be another local ISP for them

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How are people stuck with AOL? If AT&T, ELNK, and NetZero are all NATIONAL ISP'S than no one is stuck with AOL. It's that people don;t know any better, and when they get their PC, it's AOL that has the deal, to SHOVE it in your face. AOL is everywhere man.
If all these other ISP's think they are gonna knock AOL out just like that, they have another thing coming.
Most people use AOL, because of it's bundled portal like service.
Most people don't know how to use the internet with just IE and a connection. They'd be running aorund like a chicken with its head cut off.

I remember once, a guy in one of my classes back in 2001, said he did not know how to search for ANYTHING on the internet, and that he had AOL, so I told him how to go about it, using just IE and google.com

JE

(throwing up)

This will only work if the customer can get this service by itself without cable. Otherwise, it's a deal killer for those wishing to switch from dial up to cable, I'm sure a ton of people with dial up probably don't have cable tv, or have satellite tv service, and if they tack on another 10 bucks a month for "non cable" subscribers, then this dial up killing price won't be so good any mor.e

internet 0000/000 free server

it has to be competitively priced with ALL dialup, not just AOL. Remember other smaller isp offer dial service from $9.95 to 16.95. $15 would be the sweet spot but will RR go that low? who knows