Time Warner Cable to trial hard bandwidth caps

**Broken** · 01-17-2008, 03:49 PM

Time Warner Cable Inc said on Wednesday it is planning a trial to bill high-speed Internet subscribers based on their amount of usage rather than a flat fee, the standard industry practice.

The second largest U.S. cable operator said it will test consumption-based billing with subscribers in Beaumont, Texas later this year as a part of a strategy to help reduce congestion of its network by a minority of consumers who pay the same monthly fee as light users.

The company believes the billing system will impact only heavy users, who account for around 5 percent of all customers but typically use more than half of the total network bandwidth, according to a company spokesman.

Under the proposed scheme, new customers will be able to choose from a couple of different plans with varying bandwidth caps. They'll be given online tools to monitor usage and will be able to upgrade to the next higher tier of service to avoid charges for exceeding their monthly bandwidth limit. If the trial works well, Time Warner would then roll out bandwidth caps to current customers: "We will use the results of the trial to evaluate results for possible future nationwide rollouts," reads the memo.

Bandwidth caps have been a sore subject for some users who have found themselves bumping into mysterious, undefined limits. This past fall, a number of Comcast subscribers complained that their service was cut off after having reached Comcast's bandwidth limit. The problem is that Comcast (and other ISPs) do not publicize what limits they have in place. Comcast's Acceptable Use Policy, for instance, offers users only a vague warning against "generating levels of traffic sufficient to impede others' ability to send or retrieve information."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080117/...er_internet_dc

**lynx** · 01-17-2008, 04:37 PM

Most UK ISP's have gone down that route for quite some time now.

I think what annoys people is not the fact that they have to pay for what they use, but that they get threatened and/or cut off for exceeding some limit that they aren't told about.

It's thought to be a contentious point of law, but I feel pretty sure that if they tried that in EU and were challenged, the ISP would lose out under unfair contract terms.

Additionally, I don't believe any court would uphold a contract where one party tries to enforce unpublished terms, and consequently any cut off would leave them at risk of being liable for damages for breach of contract.

**mr. nails** · 01-17-2008, 08:12 PM

this is retarded.

**lostdemon** · 01-17-2008, 08:52 PM

Dammit I use Time Warner that shit will affect me

**Hairbautt** · 01-17-2008, 08:58 PM

Glad they moved outta FL.

**tusks** · 01-17-2008, 10:27 PM

Damn Time Warner! They better not actually implement this plan. I can't wait to switch to FiOS. What a stupid idea considering that they're already getting raped by Verison everywhere Fiber Opic is offered. Paying $45 a month for 8mb/512kb is already ridiculous as is considering if I lived in the next town over, I could be paying 10 dollars more per month for 15mb/15mb! Now they want me to pay for how much bandwidth I use? Sheesh...

**lynx** · 01-18-2008, 01:26 AM

If the experience of the UK is anything to go by, this could result in most people actually paying less for internet access than they currently do. Heavy users end up paying the same, light users pay less than at present, and everyone gets faster speeds.

When everyone pays for the speed they get, there is little reason for the ISPs to compete. Once they are talking about bandwidth (which at the end of the day is what they pay for) they will have to find ways to compete on price.

That said, I suspect that the US market probably isn't quite as open as the European market, probably because of the greater distances involved. I just checked, and there are about 40 ISPs I could choose, not counting resellers. That would rise to about 60 if I lived in a more populated area. Having said that, I would not choose any of the well known ISPs, they are the ones most likely to have "dodgy" contract terms.

Having a strong regulator has helped, it used to be a nightmare to try to switch ISPs, but they have forced through a system which allows changes to take place within a few days, in most cases without cost, and that also adds to the need for ISPs to work out how to get a competitive edge.

**Mee2** · 01-18-2008, 07:11 PM

Time Warner has been excellent for me but it seems like I will get charged shitloads once they implement this crap. They do own huge markets in Texas. San Antonio; where I live, must be one of their biggest. Nobody else even comes close to TW here. DSL is the only other option, and that is slow as hell compared to TW speeds.