“You’re used to paying extra if you use up your cell phone minutes, but will you be willing to pay extra if your home computer goes over its Internet allowance? Time Warner Cable Inc. customers – and, later, others – may have to, if the company’s test of metered Internet access is successful,” The Associated Press reports.
“On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download,” AP reports. “Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.”
“Metered billing is an attempt to deal fairly with Internet usage, which is very uneven among Time Warner Cable’s subscribers, said Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president of advanced technology,” AP reports.
“Just 5 percent of the company’s subscribers take up half of the capacity on local cable lines, Leddy said. Other cable Internet service providers report a similar distribution,” AP reports.
“Time Warner Cable appears to be the first major ISP to charge for going over the limit: Other companies warn, then suspend, those who go over,” AP reports. “Leddy said its tiers will range from $29.95 a month for relatively slow service at 768 kilobits per second and a 5-gigabyte monthly cap to $54.90 per month for fast downloads at 15 megabits per second and a 40-gigabyte cap. Those prices cover the Internet portion of subscription bundles that include video or phone services. Both downloads and uploads will count toward the monthly cap.”
“Those who mainly do Web surfing or e-mail have little reason to pay attention to the traffic caps: a gigabyte is about 3,000 Web pages, or 15,000 e-mails without attachments. But those who download movies or TV shows will want to pay attention. A standard-definition movie can take up 1.5 gigabytes, and a high-definition movie can be 6 to 8 gigabytes,” AP reports.
Full article here.
Will you be willing to pay extra if not just your home computer, but your Apple TV as well, goes over Time Warner Cable’s Internet allowance?
the best days of the internet are behind us.
Metered billing? Think back to the initial AOL business model… that’s how they did it.
Metered billing? Think back to when ever long distance minute on your telephone was billied.
Why don’t they just improve the network instead of charging more for their lousy service in the first place?
Wow, I have TW, and I use a Slingbox. I may need to consider alternatives.
Here in San Diego, I just cancelled Time Warner’s TV service. What a horrible experience. When they screw up internet service, I’ll just switch back to AT&T;DSL. Sure, it’s slower, but even with AT&T;’s lousy customer service, it’s better than TWC’s.
Does anyone know if video conferencing via iChat AV would count against the bandwidth limit? It’s the way I communicate with my siblings and my son scattered around the world and it would sure make me mad if they screwed with that.
This is crazy….I don’t think I’m a heavy user, no bit torrent, or limewire or anything like that….but I do buy seasons of TV shows on iTunes, rent movies on my AppleTVs and buy music. Not to mention i work at home a lot, developing websites, and have to sync data, upload and download….so I’d hit this 40GB limit very quickly. Just purchased a 12 epidsode season on iTunes – 4.4gbs – so I’d be 10% to my total on June 3??? That’s nuts…
Of course, I’ll bitch, complain, and yell if my local carrier decides to implement this (or should I say when)….but since there’s NO REAL competition in my area – in fact, I only have one broadband choice….I’ll be stuck.
“Does anyone know if video conferencing via iChat AV would count against the bandwidth limit?”
Anything that runs over the internet counts against your bandwidth limit. That’s kind of the definition of “limit.”
I do have to wonder at some point if governments aren’t going to decide that having internet service as a public infrastructure makes just as much sense as having roads. There’s definitely a lot more physical trade and commerce (and thus, tax revenue) now than when all the roads were privately-owned and you had to pay all kinds of tolls just to get from one place to another. If the ISPs are too successful at making money (and interfering with commerce on their networks in the process), they may just find themselves nationalized (yes, even in the US)
No way…. and better yet f–k off… why do old men spend so much time f–kin the public! TW DROP DEAD IF YOU GUYS HAVEN’T ALL READY!
Where are all those assholes talking about Canada being a backwater because of it’s phone data rates?
I have news for you: corporations are the same everywhere. They will squeeze every last dime out of you and will use collusion and general consumer apathy to get away with it. It doesn’t matter where you live. I’m pretty damn sure there are millions of USAnians whose choices are severely limited by their demographics and or geographic location. Are they somehow stupid or ill informed because they simply have no choice?
Didn’t think so.
Living in Australia and having gone over my monthly usage last month, due to a slew of software updates, it makes me worried that the trend might be going towards more ISPs using the metered usage model.
From what I understand, Australia has such a model because of the cost of data to get here due to our relative geographical isolation. So this is assuming that once we have some better infrastructure (like what our government is meant to be doing over the next few years), eventually the need for a usage model won’t be necessary. Seems I was wrong.
How disappointing, particularly in light of the emergence of content-driven devices like Apple TV.
Hm. TimeWarner’s own HBO just recently announced “free” downloads of shows for subscribers. Well, apparently TW had already figured out how to “monetize the service” while advertising its “freeness.” TW is starting to remind me of the Teamster’s Union of the 50s. Is their next plan to snap your USB cables if you don’t sign up?
I doubt that Comcast is limiting in the “home”. They are limiting what goes over their backbone connections to the “internet”. TWC is apparently looking at the same thing.
So, DSL/Cable/Fiber/<insert other service here> will all probably eventually be charged/charging based on the “backbone” costs.
If as a company I can limit my “backbone” costs I’m getting charged (generally a 95th percentile type usage charge with overage charges), then it is easier to control my costs (since in theory a well ran network should be controllable). If the company is limiting the total bandwidth usage to combat the “local network over-subscription” – which is a bursty problem rather than a sustained problem – the total bandwidth limits don’t make sense.
Kind of reminds me of “toll” roads like the ones in Oklahoma. Supposedly they were being built and financed by the drivers “using” the roads, and that was true initially. However, 20-30-40 years later with the roads paid for many times over, the state keeps renewing the tolls and raising them as well.
How many people do you know that choose to “exit” the “SuperHighway” to avoid the charges? Most just throw their change or buy the “quick cards” and keep going.
Welcome to the next version of the “Internet SuperHighway/Tollroad”.
OFF TOPIC!
His Divine Shadow sez:
“I have news for you: corporations are the same everywhere. They will squeeze every last dime out of you and will use collusion and general consumer apathy to get away with it. It doesn’t matter where you live.”
A brilliant film on DVD to watch is “The Corporation” for a few years back. It penetrates below the surface of the story.
Here is what is going on behind the curtain in the corporate world: There is an extremely successful campaign to play the ‘Master and Servant’ (cue Depeche Mode!), Lord and Serf, neo-fiefdom game. Despite the concept that the customer is king, corporations are successfully turning that on its head. They are KING, you are peon peasant. And their employees are of even lower stature. Those willing to accept the lowest wages and benefits (hello Asia) get the job.
Points of support:
– “BUY BUY BUY!” marketing to the point of shaping the direction of the entire culture. You pay, they gain. You go poor, they grow stronger and more powerful. The time was when companies either paid you to wear their t-shirt (as an advertisement, which it IS) or gave it away. Now you go to swanky over-priced stores and BUY their advertisement t-shirts. Get it?
– “CHEAP DEBT!” for a year or so. The BLAMO, you get blown out of the water with inflated interest rates. Lose your house! Join the homeless. The new untouchables.
– 401K RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS! (A phenomenon here in the USA). Despite the endless rhetoric you will hear from the ‘experts’ that they have a long term history of growth, the fact is that they actually have, in this new era, a long term history of DECLINE. IOW you invest, you lose! So who gains? The stock market companies who receive your 401K ‘investments’. Who’s Your Daddy? The corporations. They gain, you lame.
Ad nauseum. Of course the ultimate “Late Dark Age” (my term) will arrive when the Chinese and the radical loony fringe fake-Muslims take over the planet. That’ll be loads of Master and Servant fun.
Thus ends today’s lesson in justified paranoia.
;-D