Time Warner Cable launched a trial program in Texas on Thursday which imposes monthly internet consumption caps on new subscribers. The caps differ depending on the tier of service paid by the consumer with consumers paying for consumption in excess of established caps similar to how cellular minutes are tallied and billed.

Here in Trinidad we are already ahead of this curve with Flow having subscribed to this model with a cap that is not placed on the amount of bandwidth used but moreso the speed of the bandwidth. In effect this creates the same situation as you are limited in your consumption if you speed is hindered.

The argument however is that with the growing number of services online that are bandwidth intensive and digital distribution becoming more prevalent how does the capping play a role in net neutrality and more importantly at the moment the education and development of our analog economy.

The students at Five Rivers Government Secondary had reason to celebrate as their website depicting the birth of the Five Rives community garnered them a Gold award from the International School Cyberfair.

While the website is not the running for the next Web 2.0 design award when you take into account the obstacles that the team from Five Rivers was faced with in getting this completed it is a commendable effort.

Some of the comments and challenges faced included the lack of a reliable internet access at the school and the lack of an adequate access at their homes delaying the upload of information.Only one student had internet access at home and they had to depend on internet cafes and teachers to assist.

With only four to six computers reportedly available in the classroom and an unreliable internet connection what are the expectations to be had of those who should be at the forefront of the digital revolution to survive?

  The TCL Group, the leading producer and marketer of cement and ready-mix products in the Caribbean is inviting anyone interested in participating in its 2007 Financial Results to join them via Webcast on Thursday June 5th.

In order to participate in the Webcast you will be required to complete the Online Webcast Registration Form. The registration form will ask you to provide your name, contact information, and other details. You will receive a confirmation via email of your registration for the Webcast.

The webcast is scheduled to be an interactive event with the ability to ask questions during a Q&A session. All responses will be published online and the entire event is schedule t obe availbe online within 48 hours of the event.

TCL I believe also did this format last year for the same event but I am unable to find any archives of the 2007 webcast. This is hopefully a standard that the other public traded companies will soon follow and it will be interesting to see if this trend continues. 

Blink Broadband, the TSTT rebranded internet service despite having numerous issues seems to have struck on an ingenious marketing plan.

Looking at their benefits page and the last bullet point for Residential Customers includes the sub heading Vanity Sales. It goes on to explain that “Some people will want service to keep up with friends.”

Other than the assumption that in creating the web content the bullet point was mistakenly pulled from some internal marketing document, this is unsurprising. If it was slated to be a benefit the attempt to create a need for the service is admirable.

It is unusual however to actually alert your customers to the fact that the business is trading on their sensibilities and possibly insulting their intelligence. Or is this something that TSTT has researched and struck on as being acceptable to the marketplace?

With this anyway, TSTT and Blink should work on the reliability of their service delivery and support before brandishing that we need to “keep up with the joneses“.

The Trinidad Express today has a story about Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday being suspended from Parliament for possibly the remainder of the session for unauthorized use of a laptop.

The Speaker asked rhetorically, “what would prevent 41 members from using laptops during the sitting? One doesn’t know if they are looking at pornography or chatting on-line”.

The fight against laptops in the Parliament based on the Speaker’s rhetoric may be a battle in the war for attentiveness. With some members occasionally drifting off to sleep only to be revived during a desk pounding session, this war may already be lost.

Embracing technology within the confines of the parliamentary sitting may be more useful to the 41 members. They surely would be more productive if digitization and availability of parliamentary records with the ability to search for various clarifications, previous meeting notes, and inter-party communication via IM that can add to the parliamentary discussions.

In contrast to this two weeks ago, Laptops were to the rescue as the Senate adopted the suggestion of a House committee that senators should be provided with laptop computers and wireless Internet connections.

Nothing is said of the source or usage of the laptops or the internet services provider for the Senate’s suggestion but by all estimates they will either be on the Blink or 3G.

What would be your ideal political technology setup, laptop and internet access for all or a continued ban? Maybe with Senators having the same challenges as the general population for access this may lead to an improvement in service delivery.

No Brothers Production in association with UWI Assignment Productions presents No Country For Ole Tief.

The initial trailer is here and the video is below

The look after the response to the globe is classic.