Metered Bandwidth Coming to a City Near You!

[NoStateofMind]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=14733

Nearly a year ago, DailyTech brought you news that Time Warner Cable (TWC) planned to implement bandwidth restrictions in Texas. The initial plan was to use Beaumont, Texas as a trial run for bandwidth caps meaning that customers would no longer have access to unrestricted, "all-you-can-eat" internet bandwidth.

The Beaumont test bed saddled customers with 5GB of monthly bandwidth and download speeds of 768 kbps for the lowest pricing tier ($29.98) -- the highest tier provided 40GB of bandwidth and 16 Mbps download speeds. Users were charged a dollar for each gigabyte downloaded over their monthly allotment.

Its all about profits I suppose. Of course you are in business to make money but you already do that, this is just to squeeze extra money out of everyone. If this happens in my city I'll move to comporium until they do the same. Besides, I think these limits (40GB) is rather low.

 

[seemingly random]

40gb can be one day.

We can only hope that competition kills this idea. Of course, there could be an "agreement" among all players to go to this but that would be against free market principles (and, hopefully illegal).

 

[blahblah99]

Hopefully all TWC customers wake up and switch to an alternative. If they don't, it's only a matter of time before other providers catch on and realize that they can make more money by charging by the bandwidth. That'll really set USA back to the stone ages.

 

[ZzZGuy]

Been happening a lot here in Canada. At least you guys are being told that there is a limit and how much, over here some companies will not inform their customers that there is a cap or even what the cap is. One day you just find your internet has been cut off for excessive use.

Would also be nice to log into their website and check your bandwidth usage, right now it's just guesswork if you are close to the limit or not.

 

[frostedflakes]

It seems ludicrous to us, but they can get away with this because the average person doesn't use hardly any bandwidth. Kind of sucks, but oh well.

 

[Moonbeam]

The CEOs and execs of this company should be publicly humiliated wherever they go.

 

[sandorski]

How does one use 40gb of Bandwidth in one day?? My limit is 40gb and I usually only use half that in a Month.

 

[StageLeft]

It's not surprising. It's fair if anything. That said, my internet use has always been well below any kind of cap limit. Until I got streaming netflix. Now I imagine I irritate my ISP. I surely hope that if this goes huge we can see proper competition bring the prices to where they should be.

Been happening a lot here in Canada. At least you guys are being told that there is a limit and how much, over here some companies will not inform their customers that there is a cap or even what the cap is. One day you just find your internet has been cut off for excessive use.

Would also be nice to log into their website and check your bandwidth usage, right now it's just guesswork if you are close to the limit or not.

That sucks. A canuck was telling me also though that he has some limit. The last time, before that, I had heard of limits was some ISP literally 10 years ago.

It is ridiculous that some torrenter could take up the same amount of bandwidth as multiple neighbors, though.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The CEOs and execs of this company should be publicly humiliated wherever they go.

Mein gott, I hope I never piss you off.

 

[duragezic]

Argh. At first it was so far away, but now if they are hitting Rochester, NY, then it's only a few hours away. I wouldn't particularly mind if it's a decent limit though. But 40GB is too low IMO for the highest tier.

 

[chess9]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The CEOs and execs of this company should be publicly humiliated wherever they go.

y

Hey, they aren't hedge fund managers, bankers, or Wall Street tycoons. These guys are trying to scrape by on a few hundred thousand dollars a year, plus bonuses and perks. What are you, a fucking Commie? This is America! Getting rich is the dream, baby. Don't cut into MY dream bandwidth. I'm still planning on getting rich, and hitting an extreme Western topspin backhand.

Go tell your mother that, Moongleam!

LOL!

-Robert

 

[JS80]

I use like less than 1% of that cap. Can I sell the bandwidth I don't use to people who might go over?

 

[seemingly random]

They'd have to provide for rollover GBs.

 

[sciwizam]

Originally posted by: JS80
I use like less than 1% of that cap. Can I sell the bandwidth I don't use to people who might go over?

Cap & Trade!

 

[seemingly random]

enronesque

 

[Ns1]

Of course they'll only do it in areas where they don't have any competition

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: Ns1
Of course they'll only do it in areas where they don't have any competition

Heh, that's what I was thinking as well. If Verizon isn't already in these markets, it would be a good opportunity for them to swoop in and pick up some disgruntled customers.

 

[Kwatt]

For my electric usage there is a meter on the house I can read.
For my water usage there is a meter on the house I can read.
For my gas usage there is a meter on the house I can read.

Are they going to put a meter at the house so it can be read or do you just have to take their word for it?

If there is no meter how do I know they are keeping accurate records?

I know they are not a public utility. But everything I pay for that is metered has a way for me to track usage.
.
...

 

[MSCoder610]

The latest cities on TWC's hit list include Austin, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; Rochester, New York; and Greensboro, NC. Changes to customer billing will begin early this summer for the first three cities.

I might have to look at switching to DSL this summer.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Kwatt
For my electric usage there is a meter on the house I can read.
For my water usage there is a meter on the house I can read.
For my gas usage there is a meter on the house I can read.

Are they going to put a meter at the house so it can be read or do you just have to take their word for it?

If there is no meter how do I know they are keeping accurate records?

I know they are not a public utility. But everything I pay for that is metered has a way for me to track usage.
.
...

I can check mine Online.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Kwatt
For my electric usage there is a meter on the house I can read.
For my water usage there is a meter on the house I can read.
For my gas usage there is a meter on the house I can read.

Are they going to put a meter at the house so it can be read or do you just have to take their word for it?

If there is no meter how do I know they are keeping accurate records?

I know they are not a public utility. But everything I pay for that is metered has a way for me to track usage.
.
...

I can check mine Online.

It's also not difficult to monitor it yourself with the right software or router firmware.

 

[shira]

Don't know if this has been said yet, but Comcast imposed a 250GB total limit (download + upload) on their residential cable-internet users a few months ago. You get one warning, and if you exceed the limit again within a year, you're cut off for 12 months.

That's quite a lot better than TW, but for a serious usenetter, 250GB is nothing.

 

[JS80]

How much bandwidth are you using let's say you watch 10 netflix stream movies per month?

 

[frostedflakes]

I think the highest quality stream Netflix offers is 2.2Mbps, or approximately 1GB per hour of video. So assuming two hours per movie that's 20GB for 10 movies.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: ZzZGuy
Been happening a lot here in Canada. At least you guys are being told that there is a limit and how much, over here some companies will not inform their customers that there is a cap or even what the cap is. One day you just find your internet has been cut off for excessive use.

Would also be nice to log into their website and check your bandwidth usage, right now it's just guesswork if you are close to the limit or not.

I'm with shaw. I've got 15/1 for speed and 100 GB total transfer. I can check it online. I can go over a little bit provided I'm not using 150 GB a month for months on end. 70, 80, 120, 70 is no problem.