Looks like Time Warner wants to lose business. Thanks to Mike for the link.
NEW YORK (AP) -- 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.
It will prolly be successful for Time Warner's competitors.
On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.
Wanna bet that there will be customers in Beaumont Texas who will cancel their service? I would.
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.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.
"We think it's the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure," Leddy said.
Good luck with that. Time Warner has been screwing their cable customers for years. Now they plan on adding screwing their internet customers to their business model.
Phone companies are less concerned about congestion and are unlikely to impose metered usage on DSL customers, because their networks are structured differently.
Look for AT&T to get a lot of new customers.
Posted by denny at June 3, 2008 01:02 PM
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.
So, who's complaining? The 95%? Uh, no, they look at their EMail and download three iTunes each month with no trouble. So, improve service for the 5%? Nope, don't give them a volume discount either - charge them more.
OK, I download a lot so these limits would hurt. A lot as disablilty income is circa $17K/year while rent is $775/month... For example, a TV show Blue Heelers about some Aussie cops in a rural (not outback wilderness, just a big town or small city). Could I buy DVDs? Maybe. But I'd have to find an Australian or New Zealand store. And then, according to MPAA, I must not try to watch - they are not encoded for Region I, so if I do watch them I am breaking the law. Same for another Aussie show, Sea Patrol. And some UK shows like Antiques Roadshow [UK] which, no, I would not buy a DVD even if one were available in NTSC rather than PAL and encoded for play here in Region I.
Do I ever buy? Heck yeah. I have the box sets of Ms. Rigg's seasons on Avengers (UK), Xena (New Zealand), and some others re-coded for Region I by the BBC, and a number of US movies. But I also have an MP3 of a piano roll encoded by Scott Joplin himself. Try to buy that at the local mall's record store.
I'll bet Charturd Communications will come up w/something similar pretty soon...An' I ain't got nowhere else to go...They's got a MONOPOLY here...Grrrrrrrr...
Posted by: Sandy G on June 3, 2008 07:44 PMridiculous!
in S Korea, and other parts of the world, internet access is way faster than here, for approx the same price. they are already overcharging everyone here.
i agree with you denny, they won't make more money, but they will lose customers.
i don't know much about how third party's have access to phone lines, but when all that was available was dial up, the ISPs were a dime a dozen. if they bigs try to pull shite like this, i've got to think we will start seeing more of the small players reenter the ISP bidness.
imho.
Posted by: Pip on June 3, 2008 11:05 PMNot the first ISP to try this.
Unlimited access until we decide to change the TOS on a whim.
Posted by: lane on June 4, 2008 08:31 AMI hope our ClearWire wireless internetubes modem works in Texas, I don't want to go back to hideously expensive cable modems (but, oh, they are so fast).
Or maybe Time Warner can sell slower speed to grammy and let the movie downloaders pay for SPEED, you know that whole capitalism thing.
Posted by: Neo on June 5, 2008 12:01 AMCan you say Verizon FIOS? Look for their trucks and say goodbye to Comcast and TW Cable.
Posted by: John-D on June 5, 2008 11:31 AM