Our BetterMost Community > Forum FAQs, Guidelines, and Updates

Hey... I'm Back....

(1/6) > >>

Phillip Dampier:
As the fifth anniversary of BetterMost has been reached, it also marks the date of my return.  After more than 24 months of fighting Big Telecom companies who seek to overcharge Americans and Canadians for Internet access with so-called "usage-based billing" that would make accessing websites like BetterMost more expensive, and discourage people like me from even starting them, it has felt a lot like being called to active duty and shipped out to fight a war.

As many of our long time residents might remember, this battle began April 1, 2009 when our local ISP, Time Warner Cable, sought to limit our Internet usage to 40GB per month.  If you wanted to avoid watching a usage meter, the monthly price for Internet access was going up -- way up, to $150 per month for a residential account.

That outrage allowed residents in Rochester, NY, North Carolina and Texas to join forces and beat back the cable company and leave our flat-rate Internet access alone.  More recently, I've been devoting an enormous amount of time helping and advising Canadians in their fight against "usage-based billing," which is nothing less than a complete broadband ripoff.  These fights continue, but I decided it was important (for me personally) to set a deadline of how much time I should be spending fighting that, while not being able to spend as much time here as I would have liked.

That deadline was reached today, and now I'm headed back.

Other than my presence here, the only things that are going to change are some long-needed upgrades.  (Tired of that banner up there, yet?)  All the people doing what they do here will still be doing it if I have anything to say about it.  I'm eternally grateful to our admins and moderators for keeping the community going (in good hands) during my extended absence.  Nobody should interpret my lack of activity here as disinterest or me having an issue with anyone or anything here.  It was all about a greater battle which needed to be fought not just for me, but for every North American who values affordable Internet access (and we know it's just as bad in Australia and New Zealand.)

I'm thrilled to be back here and will be gradually working my way back into the conversations and threads, so many of which I have missed.  I'll still be working on our broadband issues (which you can follow on http://stopthecap.com), but not to the detriment of BetterMost.

Thanks for everyone's understanding and for remaining a part of the BetterMost community!

louisev:
what wonderful news!  WELCOME BACK! Phillip!!!  I think i speak for all of us when I say we missed you truly, madly, deeply!

Brown Eyes:

Hi Phillip!!  Welcome back!  It sounds like a really interesing and worthwhile campaign you've been involved in.  Great job Bud.  :)

YaadPyar:
Excellent timing!  Welcome back.

Brown Eyes:
Yay C! It's so cool to see you back around these parts lately too!   :-*

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page