Both Time Warner Cable and DirecTV are jacking their prices up, passing along higher channel rates to the customer. My, what a nice reminder this is that you really don’t need to be paying for cable! Yes, a late deal was struck between Fox and Time Warner Cable, but that deal involves Time Warner paying Fox more for the right to carry its stations. And guess who’s paying for those rates? You are, sucker. Meanwhile, the Food Network and HGTV are currently being blacked out for Cablevision customers while a similar dispute is going on.

Late last night, Time Warner Cable and Fox Networks Group reached an agreement on subscription fees, ending their very public stand off and guaranteeing Time Warner subscribers their American Idol , Glee, and House fixes in 2010. The spat over carrier fees that had Time Warner threatening to drop Fox’s stations altogether has been resolved. The details of the agreement are as of yet unspecified, but let’s see if we can’t figure out whose ego seems more intact from these statements. Chase Carey, deputy chairman and president and COO of News Corp , Fox’s parent company, said: We’re pleased that, after months of negotiations, we were able to reach a fair agreement with Time Warner Cable — one that recognizes the value of our programming. Glenn Britt, top dog at Time Warner Cable, said: We’re happy to have reached a reasonable deal with no disruption in programming for our customers.

Just as we heard back in February , Time Warner and Comcast have joined hands in order to regain control on some of the content that is slipping right out from under ‘em. In the olden days, the only portal for catching content was the ‘tube; today, a vast array of television shows are available gratis on the web, and that’s downright frightening for pay-TV operators. Today, both firms are detailing TV Everywhere in the most general way possible, only telling us that paying Comcast subscribers will soon have access to “premium long-form content” via a web portal. TNT and TBS are the only networks specifically named thus far, but considering that both of those already offer their best programming online to everyone, we’re not terribly impressed.

According to Bloomberg , TiVo is preparing to make a push into more living rooms, including Time Warner Cable subscribers, now that a federal court ruling backs the company’s digital-recording patent. Because Dish was ordered to pay royalties to TiVo for violating their patent on technology that allows viewers to record and play back video at the same time, TiVo now has major leverage that all but forces other cable providers to do business. Naturally TWC, the nation’s second largest cable provider, is top on their target list—and they are said to be in the midst of discussions. Because getting around the patent is no easy task, it seems likely that TiVo will see its market share grow by leaps and bounds in the years to come. [ Bloomberg / Image via Jake Ludington ]

Man, Time Warner Cable — you are some shady players. Hot on the heels of the ISP’s decision to withdraw DOCSIS 3.0 trials from areas that have rejected its tiered billing plan , we’re hearing that TWC’s teamed up with Embarq to persuade the North Carolina state government into banning community-owned broadband services. Why? Well, turns out the 47,000 residents of Wilson, NC got tired of paying for slow broadband, so the city government launched its own fiber ISP called Greenlight that offers some pretty solid packages ranging from $99 for 81 cable channels, unlimited phone service, and 10Mbps (down and up) internet to $170 for every single channel including premiums and 20Mbps up/down internet.

It looks like the folks at TWC are bad losers . They are now considering dropping the planned rollout of DOCSIS 3.0 high speed citing that it was part of their plan for consumption based billing. In other words, if they are not going to get the blood money they planned from CBB, they might not feel the need to roll out wideband (even though they are not implicitly tied). Alex Dudley, VP of public relations for Time Warner explains via his twitter feed : @gigastacey it was scheduled as part of cbb trial, but we all know how you feel about that. @netpro2k It doesn’t…just that the rollout was scheduled with the trial and now all of it is on hold.

It looks like the folks at TWC are bad losers . They are now considering dropping the planned rollout of DOCSIS 3.0 high speed citing that it was part of their plan for consumption based billing. In other words, if they are not going to get the blood money they planned from CBB, they might not feel the need to roll out wideband (even though they are not implicitly tied). Alex Dudley, VP of public relations for Time Warner explains via his twitter feed : @gigastacey it was scheduled as part of cbb trial, but we all know how you feel about that. @netpro2k It doesn’t…just that the rollout was scheduled with the trial and now all of it is on hold. @Stryph Biggest cost is actually bandwidth allocation.

If you’re following the Time Warner Cable capping drama (and we know that you are ), then you’ll be interested in a short post published on GigaOm today. From the looks of things, TWC isn’t just backing off of the tiered pricing plans that they’d proposed recently — it also looks like they’re fully prepared to take their ball and go home when it comes to DOCSIS 3.0 trials. Originally the broadband provider had been hatching plans to roll out the ultra-fast internet service in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, Greensboro, N.C., and Rochester, NY — but attitudes seem to have changed now that they might not get the new cash infusion that pricey metered usage would provide. In a flurry of tweets from the company’s cocky VP of PR, Alex Dudley, there seems to be an indication that with the consumption based billing (CBB to us industry types), so potentially goes the DOCSIS 3.0 trials.

It’s already delayed its controversial broadband capping plan in a number of markets, and it looks like Time Warner Cable has now gone one big step further in Rochester, New York (one of the initial test markets), where it has reportedly scrapped the new tiered pricing plan altogether. As you no doubt recall, the plan was more or less modeled on cellphone pricing plans, and had intended to cap customers’ data usage at a certain level and charge upwards of $1 per GB for any overages (eventually maxing out at $150 per month). That, naturally, didn’t go over so well with folks, and even New York Senator Charles Schumer eventually got in on the act and complained directly to Time Warner Cable. Of course, this still doesn’t officially mark the end of the pricing plan in other markets, but it certainly seems to be getting increasingly difficult for Time Warner Cable to move ahead with it. [Thanks, Phil] Filed under: Home Entertainment , Networking Time Warner Cable scraps broadband capping plan in Rochester, NY originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:22:00 EST.

San Antonio and Austin residents apparently raised enough of a fuss to push Time Warner ’s tiered pricing test , which was scheduled to begin this summer, back to October. So sayeth a TWC PR rep to the San Antonio Express-News : “What happened as we’re continuing to listen was we worked in some of the comments and ideas that got sent to us,” Ramos said. “We came to the realization, let’s do this in October.” Meanwhile, the AP has a story detailing customer pushback in Rochester, NY, another potential test zone. Although no delay has been announced for Rochester, angry customers are getting their legislators involved. Showdown! [ San Antonio Express-News , AP via Register ]