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Time Warner Cable testing metered Internet. End of the world?
Is it TEOTWAWKI (The end of the world as we know it)?
Time Warner Cable testing metered Internet
Something not mentioned in the article is that the caps are 5GB, 15GB and 40GB per month, depending on the tier.
Time Warner Cable testing metered Internet
Something not mentioned in the article is that the caps are 5GB, 15GB and 40GB per month, depending on the tier.
Comments
Thus, as Tyashki said, [more or less] no one will notice or care. That 5%'s gonna care, but the other 95% likely won't.
I don't know all of the regulations involved on the cable side of things but in the phone company we can't arbitrarily change your service. We can stop new people from signing up under old offers but unless you change your service you stay grandfathered in under the terms you signed up with.
This can be a very big headache when you have an old calling plan that only 20 people use but you have to keep it on the books and in the system until those 20 people change.
Right now we have a grandfathered deal where if you belong to a particular 10 year old calling plan you get 7 hours of free dial-up Internet access. My DSL is a grandfathered plan that gives me a 1.5/256 for only $14.99 a month. I would like a higher upload speed and I could convert up to a 3/512 plan but it would bump my bill up to about $50 a month.
Personally, I'll say this:
Metered Internet is realistic. TWC's pricing/caps are not.
1) If we're told the things she typically uses the Internet for, and perhaps how much she does them, we could come up with a reasonable estimate
2) Software exists that can achieve this, but I can't vouch for any in particular. Googling brought up this, but I can't speak for it re. lack of viruses, etc. Users on various forums don't seem to have had trouble with it, though.
I must note that this approach will only work for a single computer. With multiple computers, you could try to run the program on each, but then LAN communication would also be counted. In that case, it's better to set up monitoring at the router, which could be difficult for your mother.
Ideally, after the switch, Time Warner will provide some kind of data feed as to how much you've used according to the meters on their side, which is what really matters. Just about every ISP in Australia does this, and I personally have a Firefox extension showing my quota usage (it's set up only for Australian ISPs, though).
These kinds of caps I don't understand, because as speeds rise, so will your cap. Best to vote with your feet and change ISP if possible.
I don't do much downloading in the grand scheme of things. With TV eps, films etc at a standard size for good quality, and when services speed up (we know have 50mb lines via Virgin Media U.K), my downloading is actually smaller to them, and not done at any peak times of use either. Only other thing my 20mb line is for, is awesome 360 gaming online.
Makes me glad Time Warner don't have control over here.
For reference, this is probably the most competitive pricing in Australia (Pick "No Mobile" from the radio buttons).
Also for reference, Google says that, currently, 1 Australian dollar = 0.7167 U.S. dollars
(it's easy to convert things in Google. For example, put "60 aud in usd" in)
Also, our ISPs here mostly throttle rather than charge for excess data (though some do). Quite notably, what TWC is offering is terrible even compared to Australian pricing.
I currently have Time Warner Cable TV and Internet. My Mom uses Time Warner for TV, Internet, and Phone service. I am writing to them to say that if they do not drastically raise their caps, then I will cancel all of their services and use other providers. Perhaps an a petition of people that would do the same would be a good idea. Does anyone know if such a petition exists?
And a petition should exist, but what really needs to exist is an anti-trust/price gouging charge that should be brought against them for this sort of thing.
TW is about to lose major subscribers in areas with competition, especially when in some areas Comcast isn't measuring (like mine) and when AT&T; doesn't meter nationwide. Those prices are insane. Also, what is going to happen with Netflix Instant users buying TW service?
Historically, this hasn't been a problem because typical users would only use perhaps a couple of GB of the thousands - less than 0.1% of what the cable companies were promising. These days, a typical user's usage is increasing significantly due to things like streaming media, and so it is becoming very quickly apparent that the previous model simply didn't work. Not only that, but it simply wasn't fair. The users who were downloading 1GB a month were subsidizing those who downloaded hundreds of GB per month.
There are two main ways to resolve the discrepancy between what your ISPs have been promising and what they are actually capable of supplying:
1) Limit the maximum bandwidth allowed to each individual person so that even if everyone were using theirs at the same time, it could be handled. This would probably mean that everyone would have less than 1Mbit/s bandwidth.
2) Limit the total download (bandwidth * time) per month to match what is achievable, while being able to handle peak situations. This could also be done by charging a fixed rate per GB downloaded.
The way that the second method works is mainly statistical in nature - if total download is limited, or if there is a price per GB, it is far less likely that everyone will be attempting to use their maximum bandwidth at once. Obviously, the second method is preferable. So, let me repeat myself - metered Internet, or at least some alternative, is a necessity. The only issue is that these initial offerings in the U.S. seem unreasonable in terms of price vs. quota.
However, Vint has a point. As far as resolving the main issue of the ISPs' unrealistic offerings is concerned, it's a fairly balanced alternative to offer a minimum bandwidth rather than the typical maximum. That way some users can pay more if they need a greater guaranteed minimum. People will be shocked by how low the minimum is, but even at peak times they will probably still get significantly more than their minimum anyway. I'm still considering whether it would be reasonable that during off-peak times some people would get a lot of bandwidth, subsidized by people paying for peak times.
That's why their cap is so much lower than AT&T's. They think that internet should be for email and web surfing and they are trying to control your behavior.
Reasonable fees for bandwidth are fine. This, however, is something much different.