Time Warner Cable has been pretty quiet ever since they tried to force a pricey new metered billing broadband model on their customers, who saw the move for what it was (a money grab), generated a national media firestorm, and collectively sent the company running for the hills. That victory essentially put all ISPs who are interested in this model (again, not to be confused with value, or true per byte billing) into a holding pattern. It's pretty clear from interviews this week that Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt still dreams of imposing expensive overage fees on his customers:Earlier this year, Britt and Time Warner Cable executives spent months scaring people with tales of Internet brownouts, arguing that a flat-rate business model they've made a fortune off of was not profitable, and proclaiming that customers really wanted metered billing despite unprecedented, Internet-wide public backlash. When the execs finally did back off the plan, they heaped the blame on their customers -- arguing that they were simply confused and needed "education."

You can tell from Britt's quote that his mindset really hasn't seen a course correction. The question of "who pays" for Time Warner Cable's network upgrades ignores, again, that Time Warner Cable already makes more than enough money to upgrade to relatively inexpensive DOCSIS 3.0 technology. However, he's at least aware of the "controversial" nature of the company's decision -- so perhaps the company's second expected push toward low caps and high overage fees has been mothballed-- for now.

Remember those SMC combination cable modem and Wi-Fi routers used by Time Warner Cable that a blogger highlighted could be easily hackable? Well, they're still hackable. According to Wired News, despite Time Warner Cable's assurances that a resolution had already been deployed, the devices still appear to be at least partially vulnerable. A quick nmap port scan of a random Time Warner subnet by blogger David Chen found hundreds of marginally-secured devices that were still vulnerable. SMC says they have created a patch, but Chen insists the patch doesn't fix the problem entirely. Best bet? Ditch the hybrid SMC device, get a regular modem from Time Warner Cable, and go buy a real router.

A vulnerability in a Time Warner combination Wi-Fi router and cable modem could allow a hacker to remotely access the device's administrative menu over the internet, according to blogger David Chen. Time Warner Cable has confirmed the flaw, which impacts some 65,000 Time Warner Cable broadband users.

Time Warner Cable launched faster $99 50/5 Mbps service in New York City late last month, though only in limited portions of the city. This limited footprint has proven to be a little confusing, as we've seen several customers complain that even Time Warner Cable isn't entirely sure which portions of the city have been upgraded yet.

As expected given their investment into Clearwire and Sprint's Mobile WiMax joint venture, Time Warner Cable today announced plans to offer wireless broadband service. The service is going to be launched December first in the so-called North Carolina Triangle -- Raleigh, Durham, Cary and Chapel Hill -- as well as in Charlotte and Greensboro.

Time Warner Cable and Verizon have already begun their next-generation broadband battle in New York City, where Time Warner Cable last month finally announced availability of faster 50 Mbps service (you can see new customer thoughts in our forums) for $99, albeit to a limited city footprint. Verizon has promised New York City they'll have the entire city wired by 2014, so Time Warner Cable had a little time to kill -- as Verizon techs cover the city with smaller ONTs and bendable fiber in hand.

Time Warner Cable has finally launched the long-awaited upgrades to DOCSIS 3.0 technology in parts of New York City. While Time Warner Cable is lagging behind other cable operators in terms of upgrading to the faster technology (largely because of limited competition in many markets), Verizon's recent contract with NYC to bring FiOS to all boroughs by 2014 apparently forced the company's hand.

We already knew that a Time Warner Cable launch of DOCSIS 3.0 services in New York City was close, and that NYC is the only market that's going to see the faster speeds this year. Insiders at Cisco working with the company have told us DOCSIS 3.0 gear has been installed in NYC for testing for months, and company COO Landel Hobbs recently confirmed NYC upgrades would be done by the year's end.

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.

Time Warner Cable has upgraded their NYC speed test so it has a maximum top speed of 100Mbps, instead of the previous top speed of 20Mbps. We asked the company if faster speeds were any closer, and were told they're getting "closer every day" and to "stay tuned." Insiders at Cisco working with the company have told us DOCSIS 3.0 gear has been installed in NYC for testing for months, and company COO Landel Hobbs recently confirmed NYC upgrades would be done by the year's end.

Prompted by Time Warner Cable's botched attempt to force low caps and metered billing on its customers, Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) today unveiled the "Broadband Internet Fairness Act" (HR 2902), legislation aimed at protecting consumers from unreasonable broadband overage charges.

Stop The Cap has an interesting report on one Texas resident's experience with Time Warner Cable's now temporarily suspended plan to impose very low caps and high per-gigabyte overages. The dedicated user, surprised by a Time Warner Cable bill rife with $73.00 in "additional usage" charges and other fees, takes his case to the Better Business Bureau and engages in a lengthy (if unfruitful) letter writing conversation with Time Warner Cable -- who make it clear metered billing and whining about capacity is still higher on the agenda than DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades. The user ultimately canceled in disgust at Time Warner Cable's treatment of a customer, but unfortunately for him he resides in a market where AT&T is also conducting metered billing trials.

Over the past few years, a growing number of lawsuits have surfaced against cable operators for forcing consumers to rent cable boxes from the company. While consumers could get CableCARDs and a TiVO -- the basis of the lawsuits is that consumers should be able to buy Comcast's own cable boxes from Comcast or retail outlets. This week finds another such lawsuit filed in Mobile, Alabama, with lawyers claiming Comcast is violating the Sherman Antitrust Act with the forced rentals. According to the report, these smattering of lawsuits (against both Comcast and Time Warner Cable) could be combined into one class action suit before long.

Speaking publicly on the issue for the first time since Time Warner Cable's PR disaster, CEO Glenn Britt admitted to attendees of a Sanford Berstein investor conference that efforts to hoist per-byte billing upon unwilling customers didn't uh, go very well. Time Warner Cable temporarily shelved their metered billing ambitions after consumer backlash, though the company has consistently asserted that the problem wasn't their low caps and high overages, but "confused" customers who needed "education."

"Clearly we did not handle the public-relations side of it very well," Britt admits in a bit of an understatement.

As we told you when Time Warner Cable "scrapped" their metered billing trials due to consumer outrage, the plan will return with a flashier coat of public relations paint. Company execs, who avoided admitting error of any kind, insisted when they suspended the trials that angry consumers simply needed "education." While Time Warner Cable is busy cooking up their latest metered billing sales pitch (which we expect this fall), the ISP's lawyers are busy mucking around with broadband subscriber fine print, adding new language to the agreement that says you agree to paying overage fees. This is important, as the language closes the loophole for customers who might want to sign a price protection agreement to avoid future plans to charge you $1-$2 per gigabyte.

After losing in their effort to quash municipal broadband in North Carolina earlier today, Stop The Cap notes that Time Warner Cable and other regional incumbents are attempting to push a companion Senate version of their community broadband crushing bill through the State legislature early tomorrow morning while most people are busy celebrating today's "victory." North Carolina consumers interested in preventing Time Warner Cable and regional incumbents from killing their access to superior fiber to the home service are urged to contact their local lawmakers and let them know that you kind of like having blisteringly fast fiber broadband in your State, instead of sluggish DOCSIS 1.1 technology Time Warner Cable isn't particularly interested in upgrading.

Update: It looks like this bill too has been pushed to study committee, which is a polite way of saying it didn't have the support to pass.

Instead of competing, Time Warner Cable is pushing for legislation that would cripple community broadband efforts in North Carolina. According to city officials, the new law, crafted by lobbyists, would bog the city's FTTH service down in restrictions and prohibit them from using broadband stimulus funds.

Saul Hansell of the New York Times keeps poking the cable industry's numbers, finding that Time Warner's claims that flat-rate billing isn't viable remains unjustified. Hansell notes that at Time Warner Cable, the cost of providing broadband services dropped 18% in Q1 from a year ago. Overall Capex costs also dropped, while the price of providing modems and settops dropped 19% from a year ago. Those costs don't include network upgrades, though DOCSIS 3.0 provides a significant leap in capacity for relatively little money (particularly when compared to FTTH deployments), and TWC hasn't exactly been rushing to get DOCSIS 3.0 to market. Where Hansell says budgets are stretched is when it comes to TV services, the costs of programming (particularly sports) constantly skyrocketing.

Time Warner Cable issued their first earnings report (pdf) this morning as an independent company, after recently spinning off from Time Warner. According to the company, they added 36,000 basic video, 225,000 new broadband users and 166,000 new VoIP customers on the quarter -- all three higher than most Wall Street estimates.

For half a decade Comcast customers complained about being booted from the network for consuming too much bandwidth, though Comcast never stated just how much bandwidth was too much. Only last October did Comcast replace their "invisicap" with the clear 250GB cap (insiders told us overages were considered).