Open letter to Time Warner, March 2014

Dear Robert, or whom it may concern,

This quote of yours:

>In the meantime, all of us at Time Warner Cable remain committed to
providing you with [...] ultra-fast Internet

You haven't done that.  "Ultra-fast internet" would literally require your
customers to upgrade their networking hardware to get the entire product.
 That's not the case.  The bandwidth I get today can be handled lazily by
networking hardware that's almost 20 years old; Fast Ethernet (100 Mb/sec)
was introduced in 1995.  Your top-tier service runs at 50.

Bandwidth is changing lives.  Today, we live in a world that simply could
not exist if dialup were still the norm.  And I know that the world is a
better place because of it.

I challenge you to put your money where your mouth is.  _Sell us that life
changing product._  Sell us the bandwidth that will revolutionize how we
live, work, and play.  _Be the foundation upon which the new paradigm is
built._  Enable _others_ to create the products that cannot exist on the
tiny pipes we have now by providing the infrastructure to deliver products
we can't even begin to dream of.

In 2001, I _literally_ thought that YouTube and Netflix couldn't exist
because the internet wasn't fast enough---the pipes were too small.  What
is the product that can't exist right now for the same reason?  The hell if
I know.  I'm pretty sure that you don't know it either.  But one thing is
for sure... once it's possible, those products _will_ come to pass.  Those
services _will_ change our lives.  And not just my life.  They'll change
your life, your employees lives, and your customers' lives.

If you build it, they will come.  And if you offer it _before_ Google beats
you to the punch, or only once a competitor drags you kicking and screaming
into the future, you'll look back with sorrow on the head start you
willingly gave up, possibly cursing yourself for ignoring the portent in
this very email.  Be the company that brings the future head-first into our
homes, and we'll remember you for it.  Every single month when we pay our
bills.

The way people talk with envy about how Google might be coming to town to
lay fiber.... People _could_ be saying the same about Time Warner.  But
they're not.

You should change that.  Now.

Here's to the future!  I hope you want to be a part of it as much as I do.

Best Regards,
Andrew Bobulsky