Time Warner Cable Announces Monthly Usage Caps for 'Consumption-Based Billing'

posted by soulxtc in file sharing // 356 days 10 hours 57 minutes ago

Plans to offer four different packages that would cap total monthly data downloads at 5, 10, 20 or 40 GBs with no plans yet for an unlimited option that customers have now by default.

News from Time Warner Cable keeps gettign scarier and scarier with each passinbg day. Yesterday I mentioned how the conglomerate was starting to test out a pricing plan called "consumption-based billing" whereby customers will apparently be charged not only for connection speed, but also for how much data they download. Now comes news of the consumption levels offered by 4 pricing plans they intend to introduce as part of this trial.

According to Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley it plans to offer four different packages that would cap monthly data downloads at 5, 10, 20 or 40 GB. So far there's is no unlimited option planned for the trial and pricing for each of them has not yet been determined.

The 40GB max constraint may make some users chafe under the restriction, especially if compared to other ISPs like Cox Communications who cap usage at 60GB a month.

Either way, I still can't believe that users may be asked to pay for two different types of service - speed and usage. Without file-sharers ISPs wouldn't need all of the fancy network upgrades nor would there be a demand for increasing connection speeds. You're either a file-sharer or a simple internet browser in this world and the latter certainly doesn't need a 1MB/s connection speed. Why would anybody shell out $50 bucks a month for broadband to check e-mail, read the CNN headlines, or maybe the occasional YouTube when certainly DSL or dial-up would do the trick just fine? Or more succinctly, who the heck would pair up a broadband connection with with a 5GB max data download plan? Download 3 1.3GB XVID movies and you're d-o-n-e - DONE for the month. Can you imagine?

Stupid is as stupid does.

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#1 I think they will feel a big backlash from their customers!

People would leave them in droves if this is all they offered.

posted by meyou123 356 days 10 hours 32 minutes ago
#2 All they are going to do is drive away people, web surfing and email is fine on dial up, or if they want more speed then i guess dsl would gain popularity. They are bitting the hand that pays them, it never works out look at riaa and mpaa.

posted by VAMPYRE BLADE 356 days 9 hours 37 minutes ago
#3 I used to be a TWC user until they told me they would start charging me business rates for my internet because my usage was too high. That was 5 years ago. I've been a happy DSL user ever since.

posted by cheapbastard 356 days 5 hours 53 minutes ago
#4 This is the way it is in New Zealand. Here we get 1/5/10 Gb caps per month. Just see how they advertise the "Extreme" plan with 6Gb data for "People downloading and streaming lots of music and video files"

http://www.slingshot.co.nz/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=999&tabid=11&subnav=20

Absurd right ?

posted by flyingrhino 356 days 21 minutes ago
#5 This shit needs to get nipped in the bud before it even starts by the consumers and many many companies that make money over the internet. Why the hell would anyone need high speed internet with unlimited cap for legal reasons? Hmm, easy. Streaming movies from say Netflix... iTunes... YouTube... Online Gaming... etc etc. Can you imagine what 400kbps at hours on end gaming would cost? That's absurd. Way to try to make internet regress rather than make leaps forward. Buncha fucking greedy bastards. The consumers own this market and we need to show them hell now we won't go.

posted by iamyour41 355 days 21 hours 37 minutes ago
#6 They're all full of it. Don't let these companies fool you, it's all about trying to slow piracy.

I've always wondered why there's such an importance placed on how much people download. It's not like it costs anything.

Pay 25c for a phone call, and you're not limited on how much you can say! ?! What's the difference here?

posted by Spurge 355 days 14 hours 16 minutes ago
#7 Well there goes everyone with an apple TV thing that lets you rent movies through broadband. Or people on the new netflix plan. Or anyone signed up on Rhapsody or Napster that gets unlimited downloads for a monthly fee. Screw this. They try this crap and I'll stay with earthlink, or get a network card for my laptop and be done. Snd yeah, why would someone need broadband if they weren't ever going to stream? And everything streams now - every single website you hit usually has some sort of streamed ad content that loads automatically. How are they supposed to separate advertising from other content?

posted by Faethe 355 days 12 hours 13 minutes ago
#8 glad im not in that mess, they are going to be hit back and HARD. all i can say is AT&T/Bellsouth beware don't do this or you'll lose all that hard work you have accomplished.

can't say how maddening this is going to get those big customers and companies, revolution XD (lol reminded me of something: THIS IS SPARTA!!!)

posted by colombianino 355 days 11 hours 16 minutes ago
#9 They say this "trial" will only be for new customers. I wonder what that means for existing customers like me. Will I still need to stay within the 40gb cap or not?

posted by maxxjulie 354 days 4 hours 57 minutes ago
#10 Well, what's gonna happen in the future I think is that cell phone companies will have all the power. These land line broadband internet providersThey are going totally mobile, and people are going to be more likely to pair up their broadband internet with their cell phone plan. I think a lot of people wont care about the speed caps. But eventually people are going to go over on accident and have to pay tons of money just like going over minutes on your cell phone and people are going to be pissed. They are going to think that they can pull the wool over people's eyes, but sooner or later they will just be speeding up their own demise. How many people under 30 do you know that have a telephone landline? That's what I thought, I know about 100 and none have a landline. Landlines are going to be only for big businesses eventually, I think it will be the same way with broadband landlines in the next 10 years or so. As soon as cell phone providers can make their rates a little bit more competitive, Time Warner can go screw themselves for all anyone will care. I already know people that just use Verizon wireless internet and Sprint wireless internet.

posted by Theinfamousone 351 days 2 hours 35 minutes ago
#11 The beauty of cell phone providers being your ISP is that they can't screw around with taking away the unlimited bandwidth and transfer because their competitor, AT&T or T-mobile or whatever will be right there waiting to pick up their customers who will then be locked in for a 2 year contract and they will lose their voice service too, you know they won't screw around with people like these big ISPs can that have a monopoly on the region.

posted by Theinfamousone 351 days 2 hours 30 minutes ago