Time Warner Cable's Internet usage caps, rolled out to more test markets last week, aren't just generating controversy among the geekerati. With nearly unbelievable speed, in fact, the issue packed its bags and moved to Washington, DC. On Friday, freshman Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY) pledged to introduce a bill called the "Broadband Internet Fairness Act" that would, in his words, "prevent job killing broadband internet downloading caps."

The reek of Hades

In a recent article on ditching cable in favor of Web video, Steven Levy noted that he doesn't "want to wind up in hell." But if he does, "I anticipate finding my cable provider roasting alongside me. In fact, cable television service in general has a reek of Hades about it."

Cable Internet service has acquired a similar scent of brimstone over the last few years, thanks to P2P throttling, a willingness to sell user data to companies like NebuAd, and the consumer-unfriendly policy du jour: Internet data caps.

Now that all hipsters—even in Congress—are required by the Hipster Code to be savvy in the ways of Twitter ("Is learning to use Twitter," says Massa's first tweet) and Facebook, once-"technical" issues have become shockingly mainstream.

Data caps matter to New York residents because one of TWC's new test markets for its technology is the city of Rochester (in Massa's district), where screeds have already begun to appear in the local newspaper. "Due to Time Warner's proposed draconian tiered Internet service," reads one, "I am canceling my Road Runner Service (I'm awaiting my Earthlink install). This seems to be one of only a few options to get Time Warner to understand its customers."

Massa has wasted no time backing the issue, sending out two statements last week about his displeasure with TWC's caps. "I am taking a leadership position on this issue because of all the phone calls, emails and faxes I've received from my district and all over the country," he said in one. "While I favor a business's right to maximize their profit potential, I believe safeguards must be put in place when a business has a monopoly on a specific region."

He remains unimpressed by TWC's new offer to limit overage fees to $75, pointing out that many of those in his district currently pay around $40 per month for uncapped access now, and this "excessive and disproportionate charge" sets a "horrible long-term precedent" that could limit Internet usage.

It took little more than sustained Congressional scrutiny and some pointed questions for NebuAd's CEO to quit and the company to change its business model last year, so TWC no doubt is mulling a response. In the space of a few days last week, the company went from defending the caps to upping all of them, limiting overage fees, and adding a new $15, 1GB/month tier; one can only speculate what the company will do now that legislation is being threatened.

World o' caps

While the negative attention has largely been focused on TWC, it's certainly not the only ISP considering caps. Comcast has rolled out a 250GB/month cap across its network, where the goal is damping the sort of tremendous use better suited for a commercial account, rather than trying to rewire consumer expectations about broadband pricing.

AT&T is also testing data caps, and it's doing so in the same town where TWC began its pilot program (sorry, Beaumont, Texas!), along with Reno, Nevada. The caps start at 20GB/month.

What appears to have sparked the outrage in TWC's case was the sense that the caps were grossly unfair—the company had just reported much higher broadband revenues and much lower broadband expenses—coupled with the belief that they were moving out of "test" mode and into widespread deployment. Comcast's widely-deployed caps never caused the same outrage, since they seemed more or less "fair," and AT&T's caps are still restricted to two test cities. But both companies could easily find themselves on the hot seat as well should they change course, and the anger over TWC's plans might well spark larger inquiries in Congress, at the FCC, the FTC, or the Department of Justice (antitrust) into the whole issue of data caps, especially from companies that all sell unlimited video services of their own.

As for Time Warner Cable, CEO Glenn Britt said back in February, "As we turn to the year ahead, we will focus even more on making our services easy to buy and use, and on delivering them at a great value." His plan to offer "great value" probably didn't include being targeted by Congress, so we have to assume that there's more work to do on this particular goal.

Despite the further rollout, TWC insists that the system is still being tested and that it really wants to hear from customers.