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Cocoa Vanilla
May 30, 2009 2:11 PM
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Theoretically, this should allow you to get out of a triple-play contract (if they're changing the terms on existing contracts as well)? I'm glad I don't have TWC. (Wow, someone made me glad to have Comcast available in my area!)

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JamesEnsor
May 30, 2009 11:44 PM
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@Cocoa Vanilla:

Hell yeah. We saw this on the horizon and we switched to AT&T U-Verse and haven't looked back.

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Inglix_the_Mad
June 1, 2009 5:16 PM
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@JamesEnsor: My brother considered it until his neighbor spent a month with flaky TV service, no internet, along with spotty phone service.

He refuses to switch to U-Verse after watching that hell.

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Paul Hibbard
May 30, 2009 4:38 PM
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@Cocoa Vanilla: I dont have them any more either. They cancelled my service because I complained to the BBB for their lack of services and the fact their techs would flat out lie to me.

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watchout5
May 30, 2009 3:19 PM
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@Cocoa Vanilla: Don't take it that far, I still have no idea why faster speeds don't equate to higher caps. That's nothing short of criminal.

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Radi0logy
May 30, 2009 2:13 PM
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A public message to all ISPs: I will run, not walk, from any ISP that implements throttling, bandwidth caps, usage fees, overlimit fees or tiered rate plans. That is all.

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17 replies
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DoubleEcho
June 1, 2009 7:25 PM
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@Radi0logy: Shit, I'll go back to dialup if I have to. I swear on the grave of my long dead hamster.

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Radi0logy
June 3, 2009 4:40 PM
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@DoubleEcho: Not the most compelling threat, but I'll take what I can get ;)

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shepd
June 1, 2009 6:58 PM
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@Radi0logy:

Good luck if you're up in Canuckistan. You cannot get an unthrottled home DSL connection except with either a local provider (LOL! Doesn't really exist!) or you're with Primus and are lucky enough to have their equipment near you (I think they're in one or two cities). Best part: Unlike in the US where your FCC mandated throttling be done with a customer's knowledge, it's done completely behind your back here.

What about Cable? What about it? None of them offer anything but seriously crappy UBB. No wireless service up here that isn't either seriously capped or throttled. Satellite internet? As far as I'm aware, there are currently no legitimate satellite internet providers in Canada (They would have to be approved by the Canadian government--Bell Canada's 'direcpc' reselling ended a few years ago).

And, did I mention, UBB will be coming to virtually all DSL here too within a few months?

This means that for the average Canadian, you will not be able to buy internet service with more than a 60-95 GB cap. Period.

The UBB should be implemented at the end of this year, but if Bell does another throttling escapade, they will start billing this month. Considering they've already run (and completed) UBB pilot projects, the only thing that's stopping them is whether or not they think they can get away with it.

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sanjsrik
May 31, 2009 2:02 AM
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@Radi0logy:
To Whom? Run, walk, do the freakin' australian crawl, if they all do it, where are you going to go?

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crunchberries
May 30, 2009 5:57 PM
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@Radi0logy: I wish I could say that too, but, y'know, I live in Rochester, NY. Nuff said.

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morlo
May 30, 2009 5:47 PM
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@Radi0logy: Unfortunately all ISPs will implement that caps simultaneously. The only competition will be in how low the caps are

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arstal
May 31, 2009 6:22 PM
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@morlo: IF that's the case, then we'd need to legislate them into submission, or quite simply- lose faith in government to give us a solution, and do it ourselves.

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supercereal
May 30, 2009 4:02 PM
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@Radi0logy:

...or tiered rate plans

Is there something wrong with paying an appropriate amount of money based on how much of their services you consume?
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Radi0logy
May 31, 2009 2:56 PM
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@supercereal: \"Is there something wrong with paying an appropriate amount of money based on how much of their services you consume?\"

Of course there is something wrong with it. It is a step backwards. ISP's have generated and grown a market for high-speed Internet where the standard of expectation is that the amount of Internet you \"consume\" is irrelevant. (aside from the random stories you hear about someone getting charged $500,000 for using an insane amount)

Now, even though the quality and speeds of our high-speed services are declining instead of improving, they are considering hobbling it even further. The Internet has become unquestionably a backbone for major swaths of businesses in the U.S., with a majority unable to even operate without it. Like cigarettes, now that they have hooked us, its time to start feeding off of us.

That is complete garbage and borders on collusion and monopolistic acts, assuming all ISP's implement these crap plans, as many here have alluded. I am simply making it publicly known, to any ISP that cares to listen, that if all other ISP's in my hometown are consumption based, and YOU aren't, then I am your customer. Simple as that.

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arstal
May 30, 2009 5:43 PM
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@supercereal:

That's the issue. The amount of money they want to charge is vastly inappropiate. The cost per Gig is just under 1 penny, and they want to charge 100-200 times that.

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MooseOfReason
May 30, 2009 7:47 PM
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@arstal: As in $2.

Really, you should be working for the Heritage Foundation with that kind of propaganda.

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supercereal
May 30, 2009 6:55 PM
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@arstal: Still, what a company charges for service can't be expected to be the real and actual cost of the service itself. The costs of infrastructure, building and equipment, employees' salaries and plenty more are all factored in. The actual cost to transmit a gig of data is irrelevant -- they can charge whatever they want. And countless people are willing to pay at that price.

There are several internet choices for the vast, vast majority of people out there. People complain about \"monopolies,\" but what about DSL? Satellite? Dial-up? If one wants the \"niceness\" of cable internet, then one has to pay for it. Fast internet (or internet, period) isn't a necessity in a home like power and water. There are plenty of alternatives (such as your local library).

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Anonymous
June 1, 2009 4:41 PM
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@supercereal: Comparing dial up to broadband is like saying one can walk when discussing different car company offerings.

Frankly, we need to redefine broadband in the US to be something at a minimum of 1-3 mbs. It is fraudulent that companies are calling 758 line 'high speed'.

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arstal
May 31, 2009 6:21 PM
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@supercereal: Companies do have a right to a profit. Monopoly companies do not have the right to gain massive profit margins. That's enshrined in law- and is the reason we don't pay $100 for a drink of water.

And I live in one of those areas that there isn't much choice. So little choice in fact, that TWC wanted to use here as one of the first places to do price-gouging.

Also, Satellite is not a legitimate replacement for Cable/DSL, and DSL is much slower here due to where I live. So again, not viable alternatives. TWC's profits without price-gouging have steadily increased the last couple of years, so they're doing fine.

I would support Congressional legislation call ing for a maximum rate of consumption-based billing at 5-10 cents per gig. That's still a 500-1000% profit, but not so much that it would stamp out other businesses.

Fact: the way they're trying to increase profits is not as much by capping bandwidth, but using monopoly power to stamp out competitors in even higher-margin services. This is why to me this is a violation of Sherman Antitrust potentially, but Congress minus Eric Massa doesn't have the balls to go for that.

Also, I would disagree on internet not being a necessity. It's definitely a negative externality on a community to not have it. The City of Wilson, NC agrees with me- so much so that TWC got scared and is bribing a bunch of NC legislators to ban them from doing it better themselves.

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watchout5
May 30, 2009 3:20 PM
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@Radi0logy: The only figure these assholes understand is money, if you don't agree with them don't pay for their services and make sure you tell every single person you can about your personal experience with the company. This is capitalism, we vote with our dollars, now if only we can take down their monopoly we'll be fine.

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Coles_Law
May 30, 2009 2:53 PM
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@Radi0logy: I'm with a local tiered ISP, and I love it. I only pay $15/month for Internet access and couldn't afford it otherwise. The difference between this and TWC is:


1) It wasn't sprung on me-they were upfront about it when I signed up.

2) I can easily monitor my data usage on their website.

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arstal
May 30, 2009 3:13 PM
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@Coles_Law:

Consumption billing is fine, as long as there is competition. TWC is trying to do it in areas without competition.

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Mary Marsala with Fries
May 30, 2009 2:26 PM
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@Radi0logy: Me too, but I'm worried that they're working on making it so I don't have that choice.

Will I have to skip the country to get decent Internet? I mean, I already do in order to get good cell-phone service, but it's the 'Net that's the deal-breaker for me!

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vq35de
May 30, 2009 4:13 PM
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@Mary Marsala with Fries: Peer-to-peer mesh networking, anyone?

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aja175
May 30, 2009 2:19 PM
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For once, Verizon DSL FTW.

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1 replies
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OMG! Pwnies!
May 30, 2009 4:22 PM
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@aja175: That's where I'm headed if they pull this crap again. Maybe if we get enough on Verizon here, we can get some FiOS love.

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bohemian
May 30, 2009 2:19 PM
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I was listening to a discussion on NPR yesterday about how far behind the rest of the world we are in cell phone use and technology. Phone plans here are insanely high, consumption based, phones are hobbled and many features are premium priced and still on a consumption basis.

It seems like TWC is wanting to go massively backwards. The time to create a model for consumption based internet was back in the early 90's. Most companies dumped consumption based internet when they moved from dial up to broadband. Consumption based internet on dial up was supposedly due to ISP having to have phone modem banks at local exchanges. Physically locating and having a finite number of concurrent connections was the cost factor of why some had limits on total mb or total time online.

It is already a real problem that cell phone service is totally behind every other developed country. Having internet usage be done in the same manner would be a horrible hinderance to learning, business and efficiency. TWC is behaving like the RIAA. Both have an outdated and dying business model and they are taking it out on consumers rather than changing.

Maybe the best way to fight this is to have people in cities that have TWC and few other option complain to the city office that decides who gets cable contract for that city. Tell them to dump TWC, why and to get someone new in the area or set up a city owned ISP.

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NeverLetMeDown
May 30, 2009 7:01 PM
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@bohemian:

Interesting, because there are a lot of countries (Canada, Australia, the UK, for example), where Internet and cell service are both slower and more expensive than the US.

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Anonymous
May 31, 2009 10:16 AM
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@NeverLetMeDown: I don't know about Australia or the UK, but both internet and cell are actually cheaper here in Canada, and tend to be at least as good as the service in large American cities. My parents live in a small town at least 100 kms from the nearest city, yet they have DSL.

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Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!)
May 30, 2009 3:37 PM
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@bohemian: @bohemian: \"It is already a real problem that cell phone service is totally behind every other developed country. \"

Part of the reason for this -- not an excuse to avoid fixing the problem, but an explanation -- is that the US had (one of) the most advanced and comprehensive wired phone systems in the world. Other countries whose systems were fairly backwards in comparison had a huge incentive to leapfrog ahead with cell technology (northern bits of Scandinavia, for example, were among the first places with ridiculously good cell penetration, because nobody ever bothered to lay wire lines up there).

Any time you build a comprehensive infrastructure, you tie yourself into that infrastructure and some kinds of innovation will slow as a result as other countries leapfrog over the infrastructure you're \"stuck\" with. (Countries that got plumbing early on, for example, have much more outdated systems (with a lot more lead) than countries who joined the party later.) It's very expensive to switch infrastructures.

Not that this should prevent cell companies (and wire-line companies) from innovating their asses off. But the existing infrastructure, systems, contracts, and cultural expectations that go along with that infrastructure do have a \"dragging\" effect on innovation.

Again, not that this should be an excuse. Since we KNOW it happens, we should be planning for and around it.

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RvLeshrac
May 30, 2009 2:46 PM
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@bohemian:


I keep telling people this, but no one will listen. Japan and Europe both have far better cell plans than we do in the US, as well as better broadband speeds.


Even some of the poorest countries in Africa have FTTC. There are obviously companies willing to build this kind of infrastructure, if we'd just stop with the subsidized and mandated ISP monopolies.

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PriceIsWrong
May 30, 2009 9:35 PM
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@RvLeshrac:

I think one of the real issues with us being so far behind, is that our country is so spread apart.

I would love for nothing more than to have an Uber fast connection system in the US, the problem is really relevant to the distance all that information has to travel.

Japan and Europe, by comparison, are so much smaller than the US that it's not a contest for them to have pockets of higher quality/speed than the US.

There's going to have to be some sort or massive public use of FIOS or the like in order to reign prices in any time soon. Even then, the companies that control those services are going to hold steadfast to whatever they have in order to make more money.

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baquwards
May 30, 2009 2:43 PM
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@bohemian: We have a city owned ISP in this state, full fiber optic service and blazing speeds. They also offer phone and TV service. They offer one pricey bundle that offers 100 Mbps internet service. Time Warner is crying foul.

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arstal
May 30, 2009 3:14 PM
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@baquwards: They're trying HARD to get it banned in North Carolina.

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OMG! Pwnies!
May 30, 2009 4:26 PM
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@arstal: I say if they do we take some lynch mobs to their headquarters in the state and to the capital. What say you?

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arstal
May 31, 2009 8:04 PM
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@OMG! Con Seannery!: Easier to vote them out, or just get enough money to counterbribe them back- this is North carolina after all, the state where there's a Speaker of the House wing in Central Prison.

We make Illinois politicians look honest.

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Mary Marsala with Fries
May 30, 2009 2:25 PM
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@bohemian: ...or set up a city owned ISP.

You mean where they're not already conveniently illegal, of course.

This shit is scary, and I really can't believe that the country that used to be the most technologically-advanced in the world is letting itself be strangled by the greed of its own corporations. And moreover, that the media are generally complicit -- it's great that you heard this story on NPR, but where have they been for the last decade while all this was going on? And where are all the other media outlets?

...Oh, right. Owned by TW. >,<

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IT-Chick
May 30, 2009 2:32 PM
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I feel really bad for anyone who is in an area where they are \"stuck\" with this kind of crappy service.
I have moved 5 times in 8 years and AT&T has followed me throughout these 8 years with not a single issue with service or billing.

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Anne Boleyn
May 30, 2009 2:40 PM
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Yikes. I have TWC and unfortunately they pretty much have a monopoly on the high speed internet access out here. I guess I'll keep making regular ritual goat sacrifices to the Internet gods so that FIOS makes its way here.

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paulrules
May 30, 2009 2:43 PM
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And that's another reason that I love Verizon FiOS.

No bullshit. No crap charges....just pure love.

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2 replies
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Ms Brangwin wants carnal knowledge of Henry Cavill
May 30, 2009 2:47 PM
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@paulrules: That's not available in all areas. The rest of us are screwed.

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108Reliant
May 30, 2009 2:47 PM
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I will never ever go back to Time Warner Cable for internet service as long as they keep doing perverse ideas like this one. This is just money grubbing greedy bad customer service.

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Goatweed
May 30, 2009 3:11 PM
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If I were Verizon and I wanted to get more of TWC's subbers, I would be mentioning the lack of caps in their advertisements. Sure the red-headed cable guy is amusing but most people have no idea about these caps and who really reads those amended subscriber agreement letters?

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dbshaw
May 30, 2009 4:37 PM
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@Goatweed: I'm sure Verizon would rather hedge their bets and see if TWC pulls it off, cause if they do, they'll do it too.

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OMG! Pwnies!
May 30, 2009 4:29 PM
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@Goatweed: If I were Verizon, I'd quietly roll out FiOS to everywhere TWC is about to pull this stunt, wait for it to happen, then get LOUD and announce you have a better service in place.

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watchout5
May 30, 2009 3:23 PM
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I feel so sorry for anyone stuck in their coverage area, I really hope the internet one day is open up to all companies so when one company pulls this shit we can take a show of force and remove every last dollar we have with this company. I'd seriously rather have dialup than this shit, but the very idea that anyone should be returning to dialup should be considered criminal.

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oldgraygeek
May 30, 2009 4:01 PM
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This is aimed squarely at third-party phone services like Vonage. The cable companies hate carrying all that data without compensation. They were blocked from slowing it down (although they do it on the sly), so they came up with this.
Once this is in place, any ten-minute VoIP call will trigger an automatic slowdown and interrupt the call. Call to complain? You can't: they will leave you on hold for more than ten minutes. Their solution will be to sell you their phone services.

Diabolical, this is.

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Trai_Dep
May 30, 2009 7:46 PM
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@oldgraygeek: Of course, it's not the bandwidth that they're trying to manage, it's the competition they're trying to quash.

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GearheadGeek
May 30, 2009 4:24 PM
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@oldgraygeek: Voip voice service is NOT the problem here. Even if you max out the quality settings, a voip call shouldn't use more than about 64 kbps at a maximum.

One of my closest friends is an ip engineer with a large cable/internet company, and the numbers they give out are pretty close to the truth... less than 5% of their customers are using over 80% of their ip bandwidth. He also admits that their handling of the tiered-plan thing has been a disaster, and that their first mistake was billing it as unlimited service at the beginning.

*IF* they implement this properly (big enough plans with small enough prices for the \"standard\" plan) they can accomplish their goal of getting the big users (primarily the big UPSTREAM users sharing via p2p) to pay more for their high usage without pissing off every one of their customers. Hell, if they focused their plans on the upstream, it would stop all of the people complaining about the threat to video-on-demand services (I use netflix instant and from time to time Hulu, for example) because the real pain in the ass from a network management perspective in an assymetric network is saturation of the \"smaller\" upstream pipe.

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morlo
May 30, 2009 6:06 PM
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@GearheadGeek: Most ISPs have abysmal upstream speed, so that isn't the problem. And TWC tiers would have hit most users, so it's not 5% that are the problem. If there were so few, the ISP could simply terminate their accounts. Ask your friend why his company doesn't reinvest some the obscene profits they are making on their internet business into providing 100/100 service so that video and p2p can be painlessly throttled to 80mbit if things get congested.

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catnapped
May 30, 2009 7:52 PM
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@morlo: Then their CEO wouldn't have his fleet of corporate jets. Can't have him feeling deprived and unworshipped.

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GearheadGeek
May 30, 2009 7:34 PM
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@morlo: You don't even have to read my posting very carefully to see that I specified, in all-caps surrounded by asterisks, \"*IF*\" they implement this properly...

As I said, my friend in the biz is aware that it was poorly handled, and that the tiers were not defined well to suit their purpose. This is one of those things that happens in big corporate business where too many people feel they need to influence a decision they really don't know enough about.

The fact that the network is assymetric and that some customers are heavy hitters on the upstream is in fact a problem, because it saturates the upstream at nodes in neighborhoods and causes problems for other customers doing more normal things. Remember that there's an upstream component even to reading the Consumerist, you have to send up a DNS request, then send a request to the site, etc. Also, major ISPs build their networks based on that assymetry, and do things like sell off some of their upstream from their backbone (since they expect to be running something like 10x as much downstream as upstream, because that's clearly what they sell.) They run fiber to hosting companies and the like to utilize some of that \"extra\" upstream bandwidth, since hosting companies tend to have assymetric demands opposite those of residential customers.

Another of those pesky business problems is that the internet business it tangled up with the cable business, and they don't keep the internet service profits exclusively for reinvestment in internet services. If you wanted symmetric 100 megabit service and live in a metro area served by my friend's cable company, you could in fact purchase it, just not for $29.95/month. They'll gladly run fiber anywhere you want to pay for it and sell you however much bandwidth you care to sign a contract for, even including QoS guarantees.

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sonneillon
May 30, 2009 4:02 PM
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When did Comcast become the lesser of 2 evils? I think I feel dirty for saying that.

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Herbz
May 30, 2009 7:15 PM
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@sonneillon:
Comcast was never the lesser of the 2 evils. They just don't show how evil they realy are until you have to deal with them and they go \"lol u got pwnt by us\".

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sonneillon
May 30, 2009 8:14 PM
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@Herbz: Perhaps it's only because I have not had to wade through the cesspool they call support any time recently.

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rellog321
May 30, 2009 4:26 PM
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I just called TWC and had them pricematch ATT UVerse internet prices. If they implement the metered biling, I will RUN to ATT, even though I think they are the devil....

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Skaperen
May 30, 2009 4:33 PM
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This is why we need real competition with no fewer than 6 (six, that's half a dozen) high speed communications providers serving each home for people to choose from. Let them have their consumption billing and rate caps once there is real competition.

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dbshaw
May 30, 2009 4:36 PM
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I've always stuck by TWC internet service because you get clear reception for all network TV plus bit a free cable if you use a splitter (I dont sub to cable) AND you get the freedom of not dealing with the phone company, always a big plus (dont have a land line either).

But once I get this wording in my bill, I'll be calling to say \"I DON'T agree to these terms, either accept it or cancel my service\"

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gauden44
May 30, 2009 5:48 PM
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@dbshaw: You do realize they'll just cancel your service, right? They're not going to customize your agreement.

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dbshaw
June 2, 2009 2:29 AM
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@gauden44: Well ya, that was my point. I'll have to go back to verizon or whoever else is offering in my area at the time.

However given the economy, many have reported getting their contracts altered with better terms when threatening to leave. Doubtful it would work in my case but hey, no harm giving it a shot, cause I'd be leaving anyway

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Skaperen
May 30, 2009 5:51 PM
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@gauden44: He should cancel it himself, instead.

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Trai_Dep
May 30, 2009 5:05 PM
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In an world of (relatively) high bandwidth providers that form an oligopoly, the only solution is national laws regulating these bast*rds.
Numerous studies have shown the actual cost to provide bandwidth is pennies per user; they're praying on ignorance to fleece the same customers who feed and clothe them.
I blame them less (it's a scorpion's nature, after all), but it's something only regulation will halt. I DO blame the house slaves who try rationalizing being victimized by their masters, however.

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Brontide
May 30, 2009 6:28 PM
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@Trai_Dep: There is an oligopoly of providers in the US only for a tiny fraction of the households. Most are lucky to have one reliable consumer broadband provider let alone two or more.

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Munchie
May 30, 2009 5:26 PM
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So what happen when the big 3 get togother on this one to increase their profits. TWC, Comcast and Verizon all put this in place and about 90% of people will have no options. Also remember that its not price fixing if they don't talk about it with each other.

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Skaperen
May 30, 2009 5:52 PM
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@Munchie: You mean the anti-trust laws don't recognize telepathy?

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Ian Beyer
May 30, 2009 6:34 PM
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Makes me glad I live in a market where TWC has competition in the cable market, as well as from uVerse.

I'm still with TWC for now, as they are the cheapest option (I only get IP service), but if they start capping my usage, I'm gone. I already reamed them up and down for getting rid of eBilling and essentially forcing me to go back to the 90s and a paper bill, or use their own billing site (clue: centralized e-billing with the bank is convenient. Logging into a separate website for each of my billers is anything but. I'll make you kill the tree, thanks,). If they institute bandwidth caps, I'm done.

Oh, to have FTTH here.

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Herbz
May 30, 2009 7:11 PM
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The reason this \"tiered usage\" stuff is crap is because they are sticking people on plans with like 10/2 mbit AND capping them at 50 GB a month.

There is no way I would ever pay for something like that, because it is obvious price gouging.

Now on the other hand, I would willingly pay for a \"consumption-based\" billing scheme in which:
1.) The speed given is the BEST offered. (Perhaps 100 mbit or 1 gbit line). This is already done on servers that host web content.
2.) The CAP is REASONABLE given the speed and there are ways to raise the cap. (Perhaps 100 mbit line with 300 GB cap for $40/month? I'm not sure of the logistics here, but it would have to be reasonable, and expandable/renegotiable over time)
3.) There is NO THROTTLING and/or SPYING on what I am doing.

Bandwidth caps aren't the end-all scenario everyone thinks they are right now, and they are widely implemented in other areas. The reason people think they are crap right now is because the so called \"packages\" that the ISPs in the US offer ARE CRAP. Give us something reasonable and we will go for it.

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henwy
May 30, 2009 11:21 PM
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@MooseOfReason:

No it won't.

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Anonymous
May 31, 2009 2:30 AM
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This is a scam... cable companies don't care how high a cap they get the consumer to accept is, it's getting us to accept the idea of a \"cap\" in the first place. This is all about protecting thier TV business.

High Definition in 720P (1280X720@60FPS) uses about 2 gig an hour in a fairly low bitrate H.264 transport stream to get you \"reasonable\" HDTV. So if you wanted to get a SINGLE TV channel delivered over the internet to you for a whole 4 hours per day, it would use up ~240 gig per month.

The number I illustrated is on the LOW side for a signal that would be comparable to what digital cable TV is sending you now. But how many of us only have one TV in our household. are the only person who watches it. and at a mere 4 hours a day? I'd think it wouldn't be hard to envision a family where there are 3 TV's in use, with slightly more time per day let's say 6 hours each. This scenario now takes you over 1000 gigs per month, way above any cap number I've heard put out there.

What all of this \"cap\" nonsense does is prevent the cable co's from having to compete with a potential internet TV provider that could sell you \"only\" the channels you want at a fraction of the cable co's \"400 channels but nothings on\" price.

This is why they are pushing for metered service or caps. It has nothing to do with consumers \"using too much bandwidth\", but with the cable companies not wanting to be forced into a competition that they can't win that comes to your home over thier \"lines\".

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Boberto
June 4, 2009 2:00 PM
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@KaylaGurges: This is a scam... cable companies don't care how high a cap they get the consumer to accept is, it's getting us to accept the idea of a \"cap\" in the first place.

Hence, all the troll's postings here, making reference to this very notion.

Free speech is a contradiction in terms when you're paid to post an opinion formulated by someone else.

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Boberto
June 4, 2009 1:52 PM
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@KaylaGurges: My God, man. You're sheer freaking genius!
That was the most significant post I've ever seen on the internet-EVER! Bravo. Bravo.

You're absolutely correct about a war they can't win. Unfortunately, for the cable companies, they failed to imagine a scenario such as this when they entered into the business of internet access.

Their argument about the explosion of data and speed growth, is further self incriminating. The cable companies have already let that Genie out of the bottle, as evidenced by their history of VERY easily accommodating demands of data growth.

The scope of data (in terms of size and speed) has been growing exponentially, year over year (without the advent of Video, HD or otherwise)

The internet (and tertiary providers) have handled these growth patterns with aplomb.

But now that the data threatens their core business, the sky will soon fall unless caps are imposed. I thank God that Sen. Schumer has the balls to oppose this.

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wcnghj
May 31, 2009 3:01 AM
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TWC: \"Less than (some percentage under 5) of our subscribers will exceed this cap\"

Then why is it necessary?

--

This would be reasonable

'Lite Plans' : 75GB
'Middle Plans': 150GB
'Fastest Plan': 275GB

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We all know the caps will be much lower. Any funny business here and I am off to *gasp* Fairpoint.

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Walkallovaya
May 31, 2009 8:21 PM
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Well, I have TWC and this consumption plan sucks.

Just this afternoon I heard a knock at the door. As I went to throw a shirt on, I saw this man put his face up to my window and cup his hands around it to see in. Shirt on, I opened the door - he was just an AT&T rep offering to sign me up for AT&T U-verse. Or a pervert. Or a thief. Or all of the above.

I guess I'll stick with TWC.

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Brett Laurance
June 1, 2009 2:35 AM
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I'm moving to a new apartment with FiOS, so I'm about cancel my Time-Warner cable service anyway. I'm going to make sure they know that this is the reason why I'm switching.

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Skater009
June 1, 2009 5:37 PM
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BAck to ATT DSL i guess ?

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Anonymous
June 1, 2009 8:45 PM
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Based on this deceptive philosophy, I should be able to eliminate, or be re-imbursed for content I do not use- i.E. Home shopping, sports crap, Latino programming, Lifetime, etc.

Time Warner sucks.

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xenth
June 2, 2009 2:08 AM
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Consumption based billing is inevitable, but Time Warner's caps are just silly. Comcast at least implemented reasonable caps of 250GB. I'd much rather pay for my access based on my needs instead of a stupid flat $60 rate for mediocre service.

Of course we'd have to open up some actual COMPETITION in most of Comcast's markets before I'd welcome bandwidth caps and pricing tiers.

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esc27
June 3, 2009 4:03 AM
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If the dark day comes when all ISP's do this sort of crap I'm switching to the cheapest \"broadband\" I can find (who needs speed when you can't actually use it...) and dropping my cable package in exchange for a top level Netflix account.

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Anonymous
June 9, 2009 10:05 PM
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just because they change his pricing 'contract' that doesn't alter the company's terms of service agreement. That would be like saying a state law overrides a federal law - doesn't work that way.

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