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TWC throws down the gauntlet in more markets

Nearly a year ago, DailyTech brought you news that Time Warner Cable (TWC) planned to implement bandwidth restrictions in Texas. The initial plan was to use Beaumont, Texas as a trial run for bandwidth caps meaning that customers would no longer have access to unrestricted, "all-you-can-eat" internet bandwidth.

The Beaumont test bed saddled customers with 5GB of monthly bandwidth and download speeds of 768 kbps for the lowest pricing tier ($29.98) -- the highest tier provided 40GB of bandwidth and 16 Mbps download speeds. Users were charged a dollar for each gigabyte downloaded over their monthly allotment.

It appears that the Beaumont tests went better than expected and TWC is expanding its bandwidth caps to more markets across the United States. The latest cities on TWC's hit list include Austin, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; Rochester, New York; and Greensboro, NC. Changes to customer billing will begin early this summer for the first three cities.

Customers in Greensboro will feel the tightening noose earlier than the other aforementioned cities as TWC has plans to adjust customer pricing tiers this month.

"We need a viable model to be able to support the infrastructure of the broadband business," said TWC CEO Glenn Britt to BusinessWeek. "We made a mistake early on by not defining our business based on the consumption dimension."

According to BusinessWeek, the four new pricing tiers will include 5GB, 10GB, 20GB, and 40GB bandwidth caps with prices ranging from $29.95 to $54.90 per month -- the $1/GB overage fee will still be in place.

The move to a tiered pricing structure appears aimed at tackling bandwidth hogs. According to TWC, 14% of its Beaumont customers enrolled in the trial exceeded their monthly bandwidth and paid an average of $19 extra in overage fees on their monthly bills.

TWC also claims that the difference in bandwidth usage between the bottom 25% and the top 25% of users was staggering with the latter gobbling up roughly 100 times more bandwidth than the former. TWC, however, failed to provide a baseline to validate these claims.

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Wow that sucks...
By Captain Orgazmo on 4/1/2009 5:48:04 PM , Rating: 5
I used to complain about internet access in Canada. Of course it still sucks compared to most of the developed world and much of the US, but wow, TWC is absolute garbage. $30 a month for 5GB bandwidth, and 768kbps? Utter robbery. I pay the same price for 6Mbps down / 1Mbps up, 200GB monthly bandwith ADSL from Teksavvy Solutions.




RE: Wow that sucks...
By StevoLincolnite on 4/1/2009 5:56:00 PM , Rating: 2
Here Telstra Charges $30 a month for 256k down and 64k up with a 200 megabyte download limit, once reached you are either reduced to dial-up speeds or pay $150 a gigabyte, and that is there *cheapest* plan, or you could go for 256/64k with 12gb of downloads for $60 a month.


RE: Wow that sucks...
By Captain Orgazmo on 4/1/2009 6:06:04 PM , Rating: 3
I feel very sorry for you... Australia really seems to have horrible internet access (especially rural). In my province, the provincial government helped put in place a fibre optic backbone that gives almost all rural communities high speed access to the internet (thank the gods for our oil :).


RE: Wow that sucks...
By MadMan007 on 4/1/2009 6:25:23 PM , Rating: 2
Where are you located?


RE: Wow that sucks...
By taber on 4/1/2009 6:43:42 PM , Rating: 2
Must be Alberta if it's a Canadian province...


RE: Wow that sucks...
By Captain Orgazmo on 4/1/2009 10:57:02 PM , Rating: 2
Yup. Calgary, actually.


RE: Wow that sucks...
By MadMan007 on 4/2/2009 12:35:24 AM , Rating: 2
I wondered because it reminded of this that was recently finalized after years of debate and delay by the providers: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/After-Five-Year...

http://lusfiber.com/

The Internet has quickly become critical infrastructure and needs to be treated as such.


RE: Wow that sucks...
By Ryanman on 4/2/2009 9:19:16 AM , Rating: 2
It's the same thing in Australia, but you get a free government firewall on top of the terrible speed and bandwidth/price ratio.


RE: Wow that sucks...
By eldakka on 4/1/2009 8:37:22 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah, but Telstra is generally acknowledged to be the most expensive ISP in Australia. The only people who use Telstra are either a) people who don't know any better; or, b) people who can only get Telstra.

I am on Internode, where I'm currently paying AU$89.95 (about US$63) on ADSL2+ (I sync at about 12mb/s download and 1mb/s up) and get 55GB/month before shaping to 64kb/s. You can buy extra data blocks for AU$2.50/GB. And again, Internode is not a 'cheap' ISP.

On TPG, if you are brave enough to sign on with them, you can get ADSL2+ (typically 10-14Mb/s) with 60GB peak/140GB offpeak (total 200GB) a month for AU$80.


RE: Wow that sucks...
By 4wardtristan on 4/1/2009 8:54:17 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah, with tpg i pay AU$50 for 25gb/25gb/ and i sync at 22mb/1mb so its not to shab, customer service is shocking though.


RE: Wow that sucks...
By StevoLincolnite on 4/2/2009 12:31:32 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Yeah, but Telstra is generally acknowledged to be the most expensive ISP in Australia. The only people who use Telstra are either a) people who don't know any better; or, b) people who can only get Telstra.


Yeah I know, other ISP's resell Telstra ADSL 2+ ports like Westnet, I think Internode does to now, Pacnet, but the ISP has to pay Telstra a crap-load of money for just the ADSL 2+ port.

Exetel is good value as well, but they have paper-thin margins, and TPG use Proxy's and has bandwidth issues if Whirlpool is anything to go by.

Dodo used to be 100% unlimited a couple of years ago as well, but there customer support is almost non-existent, and love taking money out of your account even when you are no longer with them.

Still at-least we have some choice. :P


RE: Wow that sucks...
By Bainne on 4/1/09, Rating: 0
RE: Wow that sucks...
By chrnochime on 4/1/2009 10:18:06 PM , Rating: 1
And you're telling us you pirated some blu-ray tv shows because...?


RE: Wow that sucks...
By Tsuwamono on 4/1/2009 7:40:44 PM , Rating: 2
dude Im in canada too and i pay 29.95 for 5mbps down and 800 up with Unlimited bandwidth. I'm with one of the few companies in Canada that have true unlimited bandwidth.

Believe me, I have tested it too. I managed to fill my 320GB hard drive in the first month and was never charged more then 29.95(except the taxes ofcourse :) )


RE: Wow that sucks...
By reevesracing on 4/1/2009 8:04:43 PM , Rating: 5
Yes, it does suck. I am one of the unfortunate targets of the unrealistic cap, which cost me almost $40 the first time it showed up. I had recently changed my plan to their package deal to save some money, and it was not explained to me when I did that (After being a customer for several years on the lower tier plan) that I would be part of this test. They did revert the initial charge, and then offered an upgrade to their 20GB cap up to 40GB for $10 more per month (Where my bill is already $150/mo for digital cable, phone and Internet). Needless to say, I am stuck in a contract for 20 more months, and have a $300 contract termination fee. I am going to happily cancel them when I move in a few months, and go back to AT&T DSL (Which is the only other game in this market) so we can rent netflix videos without incurring the outlandish charges. Basically they are charging over $1/per gigabyte of bandwidth per month, which will end up killing their market share in the long run. I hope it bankrupts them.


RE: Wow that sucks...
By AntiM on 4/1/2009 10:52:30 PM , Rating: 3
I live in the Triad area as well. I'll soon be giving AT&T a call, even though I hate them. No doubt I will also have a satellite dish protruding from my house in the near future as well. 40 GB? Are they NUTS??? I could probably live with a 100 GB cap. However, with the prices they are charging, 40 GB is a joke.


RE: Wow that sucks...
By MadMan007 on 4/2/2009 8:09:19 AM , Rating: 2
You should check the terms of the contract and the TOS. If it's like cell phone contracts any changes in charges due to changed service terms such as this allow you to terminate without a fee.


RE: Wow that sucks...
By The0ne on 4/2/2009 4:31:28 AM , Rating: 2
We have no other choice but TWC here. Not that moving to a district with Comcast or Cox would be any better too. We just need competition to take care of these restrictions :)


RE: Wow that sucks...
By ccmfreak2 on 4/2/2009 9:03:09 AM , Rating: 2
I'm in the heart of Kentucky, but also have no choice but TWC (since I don't have a land-line phone). I'm waiting for WindStream to hit my area. I've had several issues with TWC, and am getting fed up with them. I can't wait to drop them. It doesn't matter if they are not doing this in my market yet - the behavior is still taking place. I'll use my money to speak of my dissatisfaction in their behavior by taking my business elsewhere as soon as it will become available.


Greensboro??
By angelkiller on 4/1/2009 6:46:35 PM , Rating: 2
Greensboro?? REALLY?? Come ON!!

All those other cities are giant and then they bring it to little ol' Greensboro? We have like 200,000 people. Those other cities have like millions.

Seriously. Out of all the cities in the US, WHY HERE IN GREENSBORO? Nothing EVER happens here. And now this.

What are the odds of that? Geez.




RE: Greensboro??
By Brandon Hill (blog) on 4/1/2009 6:49:37 PM , Rating: 3
Only thing Greensboro is good for is the ACC tournament and NCAA first round games :-)

Other than that, not much going there like you said.

**I grew up in Burlington**


RE: Greensboro??
By angelkiller on 4/1/2009 7:02:37 PM , Rating: 3
Yeah, not much going on here. Howdy from a fellow Piedmont-Triadian. (errr, you get what I'm saying)

But this sucks sooooo hard. I can't explain how pissed I am. According to my Tomato-flashed router, my average transfers over the last 6 months is 28GB/month. No heavy torrenting or anything like that. Just regular usage.... It's so odd they'd pick suck a small place out of all the other places they could have picked.


RE: Greensboro??
By ClownPuncher on 4/1/2009 7:29:06 PM , Rating: 2
Odd? No, its just horrible service for way too much money.


RE: Greensboro??
By mpc7488 on 4/1/2009 9:39:33 PM , Rating: 2
Clearly you have not been to Rochester, it's small here too - 200,000 in the city area. I know exactly what you mean though, I am seriously pissed off about this. I just looked up Frontier DSL, our ONLY other option in Monroe County, and it was capped to 5 Mbps back in June 2008. http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Frontier-Impose... No wonder TW is jumping on this now.

WTF. I have no options besides moving. I currently pay $50/mo. for 10 Mbps down/384 kbps up, so given the quotas and my usage I may break even anyway, but the LAST thing I need is one more damn thing to keep track of.


RE: Greensboro??
By StevoLincolnite on 4/1/2009 11:36:32 PM , Rating: 2
Is that ADSL 1? Or ADSL 2? (Not 2+). ~ ADSL 1 had a maximum upload speed of 1mbps, so it seems your ISP has bandwidth limits in place!


RE: Greensboro??
By mpc7488 on 4/2/2009 12:29:36 AM , Rating: 2
I mistyped in my agitation - DSL is on a 5GB/month cap that got put on in June 08. Asking around in some local forums here, it is not enforced very often. I am on RR currently, 10 down/384k up. And Frontier DSL and TW RR are the only two options available in this area. Just 20 minutes south they have FIOS *cries*


RE: Greensboro??
By strikeback03 on 4/2/2009 10:07:04 AM , Rating: 2
Where? I live in Lima, and FIOS site won't even tell me if we have it available here, just crashes.

So sounds like to keep the service we have now (not counting the bandwidth limit) will cost another $5 a month, and we will have that bandwidth limit to watch out for. I need to move.


RE: Greensboro??
By mpc7488 on 4/2/2009 11:23:15 AM , Rating: 2
Victor has FIOS - a friend of mine already has it installed in his new house, loves it.


RE: Greensboro??
By strikeback03 on 4/2/2009 3:59:43 PM , Rating: 2
We can always hope it will spread quickly. One of the grad students I work with had FIOS installed at the place he moved to on Long Island, said they got the fastest package for less than RoadRunner here.


RE: Greensboro??
By bbomb on 4/1/2009 11:51:23 PM , Rating: 2
Im betting that you have little to no competition for broadband. They know you are forced to pay whatever rate they set.


What about those who have a 2 year agreement?
By Sazar on 4/1/2009 5:43:07 PM , Rating: 2
Is this just for new users or does it apply to everyone?

If they are breaking their obligation to the consumers with the agreements, I have absolutely no qualms about moving to an alternate provider.

Fwiw, I use a fair bit of bandwidth for work related activities (work from home) and also downloading content for the PC, PS3 and Xbox (game demo's, downloads on Steam and so forth) plus iTunes.




By StevoLincolnite on 4/1/2009 5:53:14 PM , Rating: 2
In Australia we have always had download caps, I'm paying $140 a month for ADSL 2+ upto 20mbps (I get 5mbps real-world), with 25gb on-peak and 45gb-off downloads, after I hit my limit I'm reduced to dial-up speeds.

However as part of my ISP's Freezone; Xbox Live, Steam, iTunes are all quota free, our biggest ISP Telstra doesn't offer that kind of content, and charges users $150 per Gigabyte of downloads if they are on an un-shaped option, plus downloads are counted in both directions. (Uploads and Downloads).

You would actually be surprised if you manage your downloads well enough on how long your download limit can last you, still the days of Unlimited broadband... one could only dream of it here. :(


By MozeeToby on 4/1/2009 6:13:11 PM , Rating: 2
That is honestly, insane, even assuming you mean $140 Australian (~100 USD). I'm currently on a package with cable, unlimited phone, and Internet with each service costing $29.99. Internet is 10 mbps down and 1 mbps up, with no caps and no shaping.

I guess I'll just count myself lucky and hope my ISP doesn't implement all this. They're relatively small, probably why they're so 'behind the times' when it comes to taking advantage of their customers.


By StevoLincolnite on 4/1/2009 11:34:15 PM , Rating: 2
Depends on who owns the Pipes that connects everything up, they usually charge ISP's per the gigabyte, and if it's a DSL based technology the company that owns the DSLAM would probably charge for the DSL port every month as well, so if Data does get more expensive from observation here the smaller ISP's were the quicker ones to move to a download limit because of the smaller amount of profit they already receive, if they do implement a Download limit, Churn/Move to a different provider!


RE: What about those who have a 2 year agreement?
By joex444 on 4/1/09, Rating: -1
By croc on 4/1/2009 8:15:53 PM , Rating: 3
Don't take this personally, but you are just a stupid rednecked yank-wanker whinging about your ISP's finally realising that they can charge whatever the customer will pay. And you will pay, or do without. I give the monopolies in the US 5 years for this to be common practice, so get over it.

With 80% of the landmass and only ~8% the population, wiring this 'island' is no small ask. I'd venture to guess that our rural areas are better served than the US rural areas, so we must've done something right. Hell, you can now use a mobile on 3g in Blackbutt...


By StevoLincolnite on 4/1/2009 11:28:16 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
We're talking about the US in this article. Y'know, the country that gave BIRTH to the Internet.


The Web was invented by English scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989, not American.

quote:
I honestly am fed up with Australians talking about how their Internet sucks worse. Of course it does, you're a friggen island country.


Difference of Opinion, our Internet sucks, so we complain about it, your internet is following Australian trends with download limits, see the similarities? By looking at our download Quotas/technology (VDSL, Annex M, FTTN) you might gain an insight into what -might- be coming.

Also we USED to have "Unlimited" years ago, however because we have a Monopoly ISP (Telstra) which owns most of Australia's backhaul and almost the entire Copper Network, it has raised the price of data flow for smaller ISP's, that is however changing with a National Broadband Network, which will un-seat Telstra as the Dominant infrastructure operator, the network will more than likely be a Fibre to the DSLAM/RIM ~ Basically "Nodes" which will be placed in 1.5km intervals to take advantage of VDSL technology.

quote:
You also must remember that in the US, we've ALWAYS had UNLIMITED bandwidth.


It's impossible to have unlimited Bandwidth, Bandwidth is basically how fat the pipes are to transfer data.

quote:
This isn't like Australia, where you blatantly state that this is standard practice.


Of course it's standard practice, do we like it? NO, so if everyone jumps up and down enough things might change, and we used to have Unlimited downloads, but because the monopoly thinks it was awesome to get people into multi-thousand dollar bills and ultimately maximize profits they went for it, contrary to popular belief, America isn't the birth place of everything.

And if I was you, I would get yourself and everyone you know to change providers to a company with unlimited internet access, so that they loose customers and hopefully revert to completely unlimited plans again.

quote:
Our infrastructure doesn't need satellites or massive undersea cables. We have wires, all over the place, that have been there forever.


We don't need Satellites either, 3G covers more than 98% of the population when you take in account of Telstra's 850mhz UMTS 3G network, and Optus's 900mhz UMTS network, plus you can get IDSN with some providers, and not to mention Telstra is rolling out ADSL to an additional 450+ exchanges in rural areas, and FTTN is coming.

We also have "Wires all over the place" it's called copper, and in metro areas Hybrid Coax/Fiber Cable.


By Alexstarfire on 4/2/2009 1:53:16 AM , Rating: 1
The Web perhaps, the internet was not. The first implementation of the internet was between 2 universities. Actually, here is an article on it http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_was_the_Internet_in... granted it is from WikiAnswers, but I'm sure you can find the same article on a real website.


By cunning plan on 4/2/2009 3:55:05 AM , Rating: 2
Cant find a reference for it but I thought the first 'testing' and basic premise of communication between two devices was done by the British Army just after WW2?


By Alexstarfire on 4/2/2009 8:17:50 AM , Rating: 2
That's rather broad to be honest. Could just be radio transmissions that you are talking about. If you could find some article about it that'd be really cool though. I've always been told the story that I posted.


By cunning plan on 4/2/2009 8:39:04 AM , Rating: 2
Yah I agree, bit of an unsupported comment, its something I rememeber from an old college lecturer - he said something about the British army after using the code breaking machines (Collossus sp?) after the war they tried with signals over a network. But as I cannot find a supporting article - it obviously isnt as true as he thought.. Scratch this comment unless anyone else can find proof..


By fic2 on 4/2/2009 1:00:27 PM , Rating: 2
Started with ARPA and was originally called ARPAnet. Here is an Aussie reference: http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/resources/g...


By ChoadNamath on 4/2/2009 7:15:52 AM , Rating: 2
What are you, 12? We haven't always had unlimited bandwidth in the US. Did you ever have dial-up? I guess you don't remember when you used to get charged by the *hour* for internet access.


HAHAHA
By MrBowmore on 4/1/2009 5:39:01 PM , Rating: 3
April fools?




RE: HAHAHA
By quiksilvr on 4/1/2009 5:44:27 PM , Rating: 1
Surprisingly, no. Here's the report on it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0


RE: HAHAHA
By Brandon Hill (blog) on 4/1/2009 5:46:02 PM , Rating: 4
Unfortunately, it's not :(

I just called up TWC earlier today (before running across this story) to setup service and schedule an install time at our new house here in the Raleigh, NC area. It won't be long before they start choking us as well.

I might need to rethink my decision. They quoted me $92.50/month for Digital TV + RoadRunner HighSpeed for the first 6 months. It goes up to $99 after that.


RE: HAHAHA
By just4U on 4/2/2009 12:15:31 AM , Rating: 3
All the states needs is competition. From what I understand much of the UK has it way better then we do or the Aussies. Why? Competition.


RE: HAHAHA
By cunning plan on 4/2/2009 4:14:43 AM , Rating: 2
Middle England: We are on O2 ISP which is owned by BT and pay £8 for 8meg service, realistically we get 800k something when downloading and about 150k up. It is supposed to be unlimited and although they havent capped it yet I am expecting them to..

I guess you have to add the line rental onto that as you have to rent a line to activate the net onto, thats £11ish for basic, so I guess you could say £19 for 8meg connection.

Although, it does really depend how close you are to the exchange here, if we were closer, we could have had 16meg for around £12, but the ISP - O2, said we would never get over the 8meg and advised us to go on that. Our Netgear router (which is pants) confirms that the line is connected at 7.898989 meg or something..

There is also cable avaiable, depending on where you are. Also, alot of those 3G pen drives that connect you to the net like a mobile phone (cell phone) are around, so yes alot of competition.


RE: HAHAHA
By mcnabney on 4/2/2009 6:45:50 PM , Rating: 2
More like population density.

There are 61 million people in a landmass that is smaller than the state of Oregon.

That makes for a much easier network backbone to contruct per customer.


RE: HAHAHA
By randomly on 4/2/2009 6:44:14 PM , Rating: 2
After being a 10 year customer of Time Warner cable I cannot recommend them.

The prices start out reasonable but they were constantly creeping the prices up on the monthly bill. Unless you pay by check every month you will probably not notice it. You then call them up and complain about the fact that your bill is now $130 a month instead of $100 and they send you to 'Retention' who then offer to lower the price down to maybe $110. A few months later though and your bill is back up to $130+ and rising. I got shuffled through 'Retention' a number of times, cut back on services to lower my bill, dropped all the pay channels on the TV etc.

When my bill topped $160+ even after I'd canceled all the premium channels I got fed up and canceled Time Warner Cable and got a dish and ATT. Much better.

When I canceled, TWC 'Retention' insisted they'd cut me a new better deal and guarantee it for 2 years. However I wasn't buying it anymore, I knew with absolute certainty the day would come again when my bill would stealthily begin creeping up again.

I don't like their corporate culture, they will try and weasel more cash out of you one way or another. They can't be trusted. I don't want to constantly have to watch them or worry about it. I just want a fair service at a fair price and be done with it. It can be almost impossible to find out what the real monthly cost will be, they only seem to publish the 'Introductory Offer' price that only lasts a few months.

I would avoid Time Warner Cable if you can. You will avoid a lot of future headaches.


TWC Customer
By FITCamaro on 4/1/2009 9:39:36 PM , Rating: 2
They will lose my business if they bring this to my area. 40GB for $55/month? Fuck that. Comcast does a reasonable 250GB a month.




RE: TWC Customer
By epyon96 on 4/2/2009 1:24:33 AM , Rating: 3
This notion of reforms needed in our capital society instilled by the Obama administration is really applicable to the internet industry.

If he really wants to meet his campaign platform of net neutrality, this type of behavior of companies to price descriminate should be discouraged and punishable by higher taxes on their income. It disrupts the business model of many businesses that consume bandwidth like streaming sites without providing compensation. It also segregates the internet into have's and have-nots when it is unnecessary.


RE: TWC Customer
By FITCamaro on 4/2/2009 8:10:33 AM , Rating: 4
Uh no.

Government is responsible for what got us in the situation we're in. Had government not gotten involved, we would have many options to choose from in an area. Not just cable or DSL. But because the government created mandated monopolies for an area for cable and telephone service (in the name of competition no less), we're stuck with choosing from one technology or the other. Companies like Verizon are unable to build networks in areas that already have cable or phone service due to government.

Government does nothing but stifle competition.


RE: TWC Customer
By MadMan007 on 4/2/2009 4:24:28 PM , Rating: 2
Hehe, gotta love FIT - government: damned if you do, damned if you don't.


RE: TWC Customer
By mcnabney on 4/2/2009 6:38:50 PM , Rating: 2
As a Verizon employee I can tell you that you are full of it. Nothing stops us from putting FIOS in across the country except the enormous cost of it. The cost of deployment is the only thing that is slowing it down.


RE: TWC Customer
By Wierdo on 4/2/2009 9:03:45 AM , Rating: 2
Perhaps Comcast and Timewarner are playing good cop/bad cop, one offers a crappy deal, and the other one offers a ridiculous proposition that makes a crappy deal look like an acceptable compromise :P


RE: TWC Customer
By Staples on 4/2/2009 1:42:23 PM , Rating: 2
I am from San Antonio and I dread this day. 40GB is way too low for what they are charging. I need to set up a computer as a router now so I can get a handle on the bandwidth that every computer in the house is using. At 100GB, I would never go over the cap but 40GB is too low.

I always liked TWC as I have always gotten excellent service from them but this is just nuts. ATT is the only other broadband in town (and I think they also have low limits).


Ridiculous
By Brainonska511 on 4/1/2009 7:01:19 PM , Rating: 5
$30/month for 768kbps internet with a 5GB cap? That's ridiculous.




RE: Ridiculous
By ExarKun333 on 4/1/2009 7:15:30 PM , Rating: 2
Agreed. What is that, not even one HD movie streamed? Freaking ridiculous.


RE: Ridiculous
By Brainonska511 on 4/1/2009 8:07:08 PM , Rating: 4
It's not even that you can barely get 1 HD stream, just the outrageous cost for so little.


RE: Ridiculous
By Mitch101 on 4/2/2009 9:46:43 AM , Rating: 4
5GB? Seriously WTF? I'm sure there is some teenager that will exceed that in texting. At this rate AOL and dial up might just make a comeback.

I wouldn't just cancel internet also cancel cable and phone service if you get it from them. Make sure not a single dollar goes their way. Also class action suits need to be passed for those who get that additional fee tacked on if they are not a cable subscriber. That's a BS charge.

Neighbors could share internet connections too to cut into their client bases as well. Only when they are hurting will they open up.


Typical
By ICBM on 4/1/2009 6:27:18 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
"We need a viable model to be able to support the infrastructure of the broadband business," said TWC CEO Glenn Britt to BusinessWeek. "We made a mistake early on by not defining our business based on the consumption dimension."


So he is saying that offering broadband wasn't viable when plans were unlimited? Instead of making up BS, I wish these companies would actually come clean. Something more realistic would be...

"We can make even more money off of you guys by charging you depending on your usage, so we are going to start doing that. And while we are at it, we are going to raise your cable bill too, even though the dollar is worth more now than a year ago. Heck lets only include so many hours of television service a month, and charge extra when you go over that limit. Yeah, because we weren't making any money before! Yeah!"




RE: Typical
By bodar on 4/1/2009 6:49:26 PM , Rating: 5
More like:

Services like NetFlix streaming, AppleTV, and Hulu threaten our cable and on-demand business, so we're going to nip this in the bud. Innovation and competition is for suckers.


RE: Typical
By bebesito21 on 4/1/2009 9:20:16 PM , Rating: 4
Absolutely man, you hit it on the head. The internet was starting to get really awesome as far as movies and tv with all the streaming services available. But it doesnt surprise me that a cable company is trying to block innovation.


Comcast and TWC = Corrupts
By greylica on 4/1/2009 9:31:29 PM , Rating: 3
They say anything, but never show the real thing.
Well North Americans, you are waiting so much to protest against this corrupts, and once they use you as a testbed for their caps and limits and nothing has been done, one day they will also rape your pocket.
That's what they are trying to do slowly, and in the world, the same factory of corrupts is being cloned.
For me, the TWC success it's a lie, they are using the same tactic Microsoft use with Vista, split their products, and one day, kill the real performance/price product to behave like a king on their hill.
And then you will have to choose between the most expensive, or the most caped, and then suffer more...
You could also rate me down for it, but that's my opinion, this was more one gift to the Internet started the last Bush administration, including also an AT&T spying on you.
May their bandwidth caps are because they continue spying, but doesn't have sufficient power to do it without slowing traffic.
Then, the cap is giving them more time and minus bandwidth to spy on.
Any use of your data is possible with the new Cisco/Sandvine...




RE: Comcast and TWC = Corrupts
By FITCamaro on 4/1/2009 9:58:39 PM , Rating: 2
I can live with bandwidth caps if they're reasonable. But 40GB? That's nothing. Comcast's cap of 250GB is reasonable since the average user won't go over that.


RE: Comcast and TWC = Corrupts
By greylica on 4/2/2009 5:54:45 PM , Rating: 3
Agreed, but only when they kill the stupid "Traffic Shape" forever, and maintain a reasonable cap.
The main problem is that they offer a 250 GB limit, and use Traffic Shape too.
Once they use this abomination, if they sell a 30MB connection, with 250 GB cap, when your connection in under their silly practices, you will only get 2MB for real, and will never reach 250GB...
They have to choose only a (reasonable) cap to be considered at least honest, but they are already using both...


show the numbers or shut up
By crleap on 4/1/2009 5:37:44 PM , Rating: 2
Time warner says they measured a 100x multiplier for the top 25% vs low 25%. Well, without a baseline, wtf good is that but omfg propaganda? Grandma might push 50mb a month checking email and maybe looking up some recipes. Probably a lot of grandmas in the low 25% of usage. 100x that is the cheapest plan. Can't exactly call it fair nor staggering at 5gb if you have average overages of $19.

Just another way to screw us out of more dollars.




RE: show the numbers or shut up
By eickst on 4/1/2009 6:15:38 PM , Rating: 2
Yep, it is just their way of collecting more revenue, just like overdraft fees, non-network atm fees, bla bla bla.

If TW brings that to my neighborhood they can suck it and I'll just go over to AT&T.


By Hyperion1400 on 4/1/2009 7:50:31 PM , Rating: 1
Don't even get me started on overdraft fees. My bank just charged me 35 bucks for a 1 cent overdraft. I haven't called them about it, but I feel pretty certain they aren't going to budge on it.

But Jesus, 5 GB? I go through that just browsing the internet. That doesn't include youtube, torrenting, mod DLs, gaming(CSS takes up 15-20 KBps total), and God knows what else I can't think of atm. Hell, even 40 GB is damn near impossible not to break. Everyone who has TWC should just boycott that crap and drive them out of business. That shit is just unacceptable.


By Alexstarfire on 4/1/2009 6:37:56 PM , Rating: 2
Yep, you share my thoughts exactly.


Back to the early days of internet
By laok on 4/1/2009 9:00:32 PM , Rating: 3
It seems we should only use internet to check emails according to Time Warner. Damn, we are not in 1997 any more.




By cubby1223 on 4/2/2009 2:01:58 AM , Rating: 4
You rack up 5gb of bandwidth on emailing? Impressive!


That's it, Att here I come.
By brightstar on 4/1/2009 7:00:10 PM , Rating: 5
Time to say by,by to Slime Warner.




less than 2hrs full speed internet/mo
By vvume on 4/1/2009 7:25:36 PM , Rating: 3
If I used the full speed of 768 kbps, 5GB only gets me about 113 minutes of internet per mo without overage charges. Anybody doing something as simple as working over VPN will be screwed. Even 40GB (the highest) only gets me a little over 15hrs/mo, about 1/2 hour a day!

If all internet providers go ahead with this, we can kiss goodbye to online movies/entertainment.




By DOSGuy on 4/2/2009 12:51:02 AM , Rating: 2
kbps = kilobits per second. 768 kbps is 96 KB/s, so it would 14.5 hours to download 5 GB. It would take about 116 hours, or almost 4 hours per day, to download 40 GB. Of course, you would also be uploading data during that time, but the calculation in your download scenario was still 8 times too low.


Oy
By dagamer34 on 4/1/2009 5:48:21 PM , Rating: 2
A 40GB max cap makes a 250GB cap look like heaven (but that's also part of the problem!)




RE: Oy
By dubldwn on 4/1/2009 7:10:15 PM , Rating: 2
The last movie I downloaded off PSN was 7.1GB. I'd have a hard time pushing 250GB, and maybe there is justification for some cap, but it sure as hell ain't 40GB, and that's the maximum...


This is wrong in so many ways
By Sylar on 4/2/2009 11:31:49 AM , Rating: 2
This doesn't make any sense. If they're going to charge $1/GB for overage fees, then why is it that the $55 package only providing 40GB? This is BS.

What's sad about this is that the cost/GB of buying an actual HDD is actually cheaper than the cost/GB of bandwidth.

TWC is going to screw up big time with this, didn't they learn anything from AOL... they seem set on following in its footsteps.




By MadMan007 on 4/2/2009 4:31:21 PM , Rating: 2
Must be some AOL execs that got entrenched in TimeWarner during the merger ;)


The sad part here is...
By Boze on 4/2/2009 12:32:57 PM , Rating: 2
...that Time-Warner Cable is more or less directly attacking services like Netflix, with their streaming downloads.

Other implications could include content providers who are uploading high-definition YouTube videos or the same videos to their web hosting provider of choice.

On top of that, households with many browsing users are also significantly impacted. I use around a total of 150 GB a month of bandwidth (legally) watching YouTube videos, Revision3.com shows, viewing the latest movie trailers, etc.

It seems to me almost like an attack on the Internet itself, as if TWC wants their customers to watch more television and use less bandwidth.

The most infurating part of all this is that over a decade ago, Congress allocated around $300 million for cable companies to upgrade their infrastructure in regards to the coming digital storm that foresighted senators saw as the rise of the commercial Internet.

What happened to our $300 million? Good question... if you search around for this, you'll find quite a few well-written articles about how it was squandered away and very little infrastructure improvement actually occured. Yet another robbery of the American taxpayer, although I suppose with the kinds of demands being placed on the American taxpayer nowadays, $300 million is a paltry sum.

I would love to see all these industries completely deregulated and allow all major providers to move into any market they want to... then we could see how long Time-Warner Cable and Comcast could survive against Verizon FIOS in every single city in America (I'm certainly not propping up Verizon as the answer to the high-speed Internet woes of America, but at least they're not capping bandwidth yet, and the speeds of FIOS are far beyond anything cable can offer).




RE: The sad part here is...
By WackyDan on 4/2/2009 12:53:35 PM , Rating: 2
The $300 million only partly paid for system wide upgrades of cable systems. I spent part of the 90's rebuilding cable systems that hadn't ever had a major rebuild or upgrade. Every system had to upgrade for capacity (to include the internet). Every system I worked on leaked so much RF that the FCC would have a field day if they ever enforced their own codes on what was acceptable... Billions were spent bring capacity to 750 or 1 Ghz, and new pole to pole infrastructure that didn't radiate RF.

That said, the limits thy want to impose are unrealistic. I'm a home office user and I not only have my personal machines on the net, but also pull a ton of data via email alone on my work machine. I also have to ftp a lot of data for work and setup numerous machines.

I'd hit those limits readily. What pisses me off is that they seem to offer no option to throttle the connection after my bandwidth limit is reached. Instead they are going to become just like the Cell phone companies in overage charges. No choice but to pay.

Time to open up the wire and airwaves to competition.


The sad part here is...
By Boze on 4/2/2009 12:33:09 PM , Rating: 2
...that Time-Warner Cable is more or less directly attacking services like Netflix, with their streaming downloads.

Other implications could include content providers who are uploading high-definition YouTube videos or the same videos to their web hosting provider of choice.

On top of that, households with many browsing users are also significantly impacted. I use around a total of 150 GB a month of bandwidth (legally) watching YouTube videos, Revision3.com shows, viewing the latest movie trailers, etc.

It seems to me almost like an attack on the Internet itself, as if TWC wants their customers to watch more television and use less bandwidth.

The most infurating part of all this is that over a decade ago, Congress allocated around $300 million for cable companies to upgrade their infrastructure in regards to the coming digital storm that foresighted senators saw as the rise of the commercial Internet.

What happened to our $300 million? Good question... if you search around for this, you'll find quite a few well-written articles about how it was squandered away and very little infrastructure improvement actually occured. Yet another robbery of the American taxpayer, although I suppose with the kinds of demands being placed on the American taxpayer nowadays, $300 million is a paltry sum.

I would love to see all these industries completely deregulated and allow all major providers to move into any market they want to... then we could see how long Time-Warner Cable and Comcast could survive against Verizon FIOS in every single city in America (I'm certainly not propping up Verizon as the answer to the high-speed Internet woes of America, but at least they're not capping bandwidth yet, and the speeds of FIOS are far beyond anything cable can offer).




RE: The sad part here is...
By Boze on 4/2/2009 12:37:45 PM , Rating: 2
Would someone at DailyTech remove my accidental double post please? Much obliged.


The Overages Seem Reasonable
By GeorgeH on 4/1/2009 6:12:44 PM , Rating: 3
At least the overages seem reasonable relative to cellular overage charges.

That said, metered internet doesn't make sense to me at all. I'm paying for X speed whenever I want to use it, so using X speed 24/7 shouldn't break the ISP's network or be substantively more costly to provide - unless they are overselling their bandwidth under the assumption that nobody is really going to be using it to its potential all at once. To me this is like an auto dealer selling a car to two people and then being upset when they both want to drive it at the same time. If they were honest and only sold what they had they wouldn't have to resort to artificial metering in an attempt to hide their dishonesty.




By amanojaku on 4/1/2009 9:29:35 PM , Rating: 3
ooooooooooooooooo/ooo
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oooo/|ooo\ooooo/ooooo
oooo\/\_/o\ooo/oooooo
ooooo\ooooo\_/oooooo/
oooooo\oooo/o|_oooo/o
ooooooo\oo/o/oo\oo/oo
oooooooo\/o/o/oo|/ooo
ooooooooo\/o/o/o/oooo
oooooooooo\/o/o/o\ooo
ooooooooooo\/_/ooo\oo
oooooooooooo\oooooo\o
oooooooooooo/ooooooo\
oooooooooooo|oooooooo|
oooooooooooo|ooo\oooo|
ooooooooooooo\__/\__/

Sorry for the crude drawing, but I couldn't get this past the damn filter easily, so it probably looks like crap. But you get the idea.




I hate these mofos
By catalysts17az on 4/1/2009 11:01:02 PM , Rating: 3
incompetent and greedy. i still have a cable hanging from the the electrical pole since last summer due to hurricane dolly. these guys are a real POS! wrote there dumb bum up to the BBB a while back. i knew that when they were experimenting with beaumont it was going to be nation wide soon. my hunch was right. i better never see my tax money go over to these goons! Ever! of course there not in GM situation. San Antonio and Austin go with Verizon's FIOS.......and you will never look back at this pathetic excuse of an ISP. May they go bankrupt! Soon!




are you a top or bottom?
By Proxes on 4/1/2009 5:58:04 PM , Rating: 2
Bottom 25% = don't use torrents
Top 25% = use torrents

And with movie rentals moving to over the internets; good luck with that.




Net Neutrality counter
By Jovec on 4/1/2009 8:25:29 PM , Rating: 2
It's just an end-around Net Neutrality. Instead of getting a slice of, example, YouTube's ad revenue, they plan to meter access and make money off of the overages.

And it's hardly a surprise that "... the Beaumont tests went better than expected." Seriously, was the outcome ever in doubt?




Drop em
By MadMan007 on 4/2/2009 12:39:20 AM , Rating: 1
Everyone who has TW in these markets ought to drop em for a month or two just to show them how shit this is.




RE: Drop em
By MadBoris on 4/2/2009 12:54:26 AM , Rating: 1
Yeah, I will probably drop them when they pull this shit here.

The move to a tiered pricing structure appears aimed at tackling bandwidth hogs.

That was a lie. If it really was about that they wouldn't be nickel and diming everyone but the big offenders, what a crock. That's the problem when companies get too big and control too much, they start diminishing products/services and charging more.

The test showed them that they can make more money and provide less bandwidth. It's a win win.

The only recourse is to go to competition, their needs to be a good alternative that doesn't nickel and dime everyone.
I will be happy to move elsewhere.


By Blood1 on 4/2/2009 12:43:51 AM , Rating: 2
Chat InformationWelcome to Earthlink LiveChat. Your chat session will begin shortly. Feel free to begin typing your question.
Chat Information'Satchel G' says: Thank you for contacting EarthLink LiveChat, how may I help you today?
danb: Hello, is there going to be any changes to your cable plan since your back bone'ing on top of TWC in NY (Queens) area?
Satchel G: I request you to contact Time Warner regarding the issue.
danb : I read that TWC (Time Warner Cable ie: RoadRunner) is going to be capping the data downloads.
DanB : but i have EL service why contact them?
Satchel G: As you pay directly to Time Warner.
danb01 : The article discussed that TWC will be capping download to 40GB a month and then charging $1 for every additional GB dl'd.
danb01 : I wanted to know if this affected us EL subscribers
danb01 : dont you guys have a say in what you charge your customers?
danb01 : If this is true then I'll be dropping service and getting Verison FIOS since they just installed it in our area.
danb01: HELLO?
Satchel G : I am with you.
Satchel G: I have confirmed and there will be no changes in EarthLink accounts.
DanB : confirmed with who might I ask?
DanB : This was the article reference BTW:
DanB : http://www.dailytech.com/Time+Warner+Cable+to+Exte...




By kilkennycat on 4/2/2009 3:28:56 AM , Rating: 2
... for those unfortunate enough to be in the affected subscriber areas. Going to put a crimp in the Amazon, Netflix and other DVD/Bluray download/streaming business plans if other cable companies follow. Gonna have to put up with the really crappy compressed-HD quality of the cable offerings instead. No doubt part of the cable-companies' plan to exclude movie download competitors:-( Time to switch to Verizon FIOS if available.....




The end of the internet is near!
By vapore0n on 4/2/2009 8:04:06 AM , Rating: 2
For once I wish the government would step in and remove all telco's monopolies.

Why the government? Because they are the ones that allowed it in the first place.




LOL @ Capitalism
By gamerk2 on 4/2/2009 9:23:49 AM , Rating: 2
And once again, Capitalism screws the end consumer. Thank god for out Cablevision/Verison war NY is having right now.

I have a cousin who works at Verison. They understand that they stand to gain the most by NOT implementing a cap, and the only one ever brought up was apparently at 500GB (which is acceptable) a month. Too bad I don't get FIOS for 3 more years (buried cable lines, so we get it last...), but Cablevision will do till then.




TWC - YOU RIP OFF AIG wanan bes!
By Belard on 4/2/2009 10:39:22 AM , Rating: 2
I have TWC...

If this cap goes into effect in my area, how will I know when I hit it? What about when I play online games for hours at a time, will I be past my cap? How much data is used for gaming.

5GB is tiny. A person who has a new 16GB iPod may need to do some serious downloads. Or how about a 500~1200mb game demo? Of course this will seriously hurt those who want to RENT / download videos legally for their xbox or whatever.

Hey MS... this is going to HURT your xbox users, since the oNLY way they can play HD content is to dowload your 720p videos... which would need to be at least 3-7GB per movie.

FIOS just has been in my area for a while. Looks like its time to switch over... and you can eat my last bill!




wow that's awful
By assemblage on 4/2/2009 11:00:02 AM , Rating: 2
It's really easy to download more that 40gb. $1 per gb is very expensive. Awful for people in places who have no choice.




And TWC...
By cscpianoman on 4/2/2009 8:20:46 PM , Rating: 2
I'm moving to Ohio and TWC just lost my money for ATT u-verse. I do way too much online to be shackled with a 40GB limit. If TWC goes systemwide with this then I can see a lot of people shifting gears over to DSL. Sure, DSL is slower, but it won't have the limitations. Why can't the US have decent competition among ISPs!?




roll over data usage
By supergarr on 4/4/2009 8:20:28 PM , Rating: 2
so i guess if you don't use up your alloted space it doesn't roll over to the next month? Haha, I wished everyone would get a program to download data at the end of their billing cycle to fill it all up




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