Time Warner Cable

In this Feb. 2, 2009 file photo, a Time Warner Cable truck is parked in New York.

(Mark Lennihan | The Associated Press)

Think your cable and Internet bill is too high? Jesse Walser might disagree with you.

Walser, who lives about 20 miles outside of Syracuse in the rural town of Pompey, told Ars Technica that Time Warner Cable wants to charge him more than $20,000 to hook him up with broadband Internet. What baffles him is that he can see TWC lines from his house, just 150 feet from the road.

"I didn't think it would be that difficult, because the cable was on my road," he told the tech news site. "I have phone. I have electricity. It's not completely 'Green Acres.'"

Walser is further confused by why the price is so much more expensive than it was 10 years ago, when he first built a house in the Central New York community of some 7,000 people. The company originally quoted him about $5,900, he told Ars.

"It's terrifying to contemplate what could happen to that price in another ten years, or if Comcast's proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable goes through," The Consumerist's Laura Northrup wrote.

A letter sent from Time Warner Cable to Walser in 2012 explains cable would need to be constructed, but Walser (and possibly his neighbors) would have to pay for most of it because of a lack of population density. "New York State rules require line extensions of 35 homes per aerial cable mile, and Time Warner Cable has surveyed the area to build line extensions of 20 homes per aerial cable mile," the company said.

TWC initially said construction would cost $26,470, but offered to pay for $3,643 of it. The final estimate in June 2012 lowered Walser's fee to $20,330, which includes aerial design ($310); make ready ($5,670); strand and hardware ($2,712); splicing and electronics ($5,916); and coaxial construction ($5,719).

The cost would be on top of whatever monthly bill he'd pay for Internet, as well.

The Daily Mail reports Walser, who works as a lab analyst at a local beer brewery, is among the 5 percent of Americans who live in areas without any wired Internet service available.

For many Upstate New Yorkers, getting faster web access has been slow going. The state spent $5.3 million last year to expand high-speed Internet service to 4,114 households across the state, but Walser's home wasn't included. Another $2 million went to Parish for new Internet infrastructure in the Oswego County town where 72 percent of residents still didn't have broadband or cable television.

According to The Consumerist, Walser's country house has Verizon landline phone service (though it doesn't work well when it rains), but Verizon FiOS isn't even an option yet. A Verizon spokesperson told Ars that their nearest central office is too far away (4 miles) from Walser's house to offer DSL, which must be within 3.4 miles.

For now, his family pays $90 per month for 20 GB of data from Millennicom, a Verizon mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). But Netflix and other streaming services aren't possible with that limit, and their download speeds aren't much better than '90s-era dial-up Internet.

Walser told Ars Technica he hopes broadband technology will be reclassified as a telecommunications service by the FCC to make the option universal like for traditional phones.

"I keep pursuing it and I keep being stuck," Walser told Ars. "Chuck Schumer is one of my senators. His brother works for Time Warner. Not to say that they would be overwhelmed by a donation that they received from a corporation, but I just don't see my voice as being as loud as theirs."

UPDATE:

A rep for Sen. Charles Schumer pointed out that he, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and others sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler in July asking to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service.

"Senator Schumer has a long track record of pushing to bring more broadband access to Upstate New York, including pushing the FCC to ensure that more federal funds are available for broadband deployment to rural areas, and asking them to classify internet service as a public utility to ensure it remains fair and open for all," the rep added.

"A $20,000 charge for a broadband hookup is not fair, and the Senator has relayed his concerns to Time Warner Cable. This is a key example as to why we need to do everything we can to lower costs."

Time Warner Cable also responded to Walser in a statement:

"In cases where residents live in an area without access to services, Time Warner Cable and all service providers adhere to a formula regulated by the NYS Public Service Commission (PSC) to determine if delivering our services to the location is economically feasible. Our goal is to provide our services to as many residents who request them as possible, so we also survey areas that fall beyond the PSC requirements."

The company explained that factors determining the feasibility of adding service include the number of homes per mile and geography. "In often cases we look for options to extend our services, and at times that can include an investment on the part of the customer or the community," TWC said.