Time Warner bandwidth caps arrive (updated)

[ric1287]

I know this has been stated, but I would be fine with this BS if they lowered the rates for the email/surf users. But they won't, and will probably raise rates for everyone. So in the end, the bastard companies end up making a shit ton more money. Awesome

 

[JS80]

can we trade our unused bandwidth in the open market? wait, enron tried that...

 

[Adam8281]

Well, I'm sure companies like Apple and Netflix, companies which sell set-top IPTV boxes, will push hard against bandwidth caps. I mean, if I were near my bandwidth cap, I would be very disinclined to buy a Netflix box, figuring that in addition to the purchase price, it might end up costing me an extra $5-$10/month. All of a sudden, some consumers will start viewing products like these as drains on their limited bandwidth, and think carefully before buying - not something Netflix wants.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Special K

Originally posted by: Gothgar
I've been with TWC for a while too, and if this goes live anywhere in California I will be a DTV/ DSL customer over night, fuck that shit.

I probably on average don't even get close to that cap, but it is mostly just principle.

What if all the other ISPs adopt similar plans? Then we're all screwed

This is why we need more competition. Corporate greed and the desire to steal "the other guy's" customers will result in price plans and deals which benefit the consumer a lot especially considering that placing limitations like bandwidth caps gives the competitors a much larger weapon to play with.

ISP is a highly competitive market and most broadband customers have a choice.

You're free to go and start an ISP if you feel the profit margins are so high, because they are not. Mostly because it is so competitive.

In fact it is such a mature market that these innovative pricing models are being tried because there is so little money in the all you can eat model for such a cheap price. Most of the decision makers I talk to in the industry all say the same thing "all you can eat is going away, we just can't keep losing money like this and have to do something."

 

[Specop 007]

Originally posted by: randay
lol with the 15mb connection I can pull 50gigs in a day easily.

JOB!
Jay O Bee man!!

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Special K

Originally posted by: Gothgar
I've been with TWC for a while too, and if this goes live anywhere in California I will be a DTV/ DSL customer over night, fuck that shit.

I probably on average don't even get close to that cap, but it is mostly just principle.

What if all the other ISPs adopt similar plans? Then we're all screwed

This is why we need more competition. Corporate greed and the desire to steal "the other guy's" customers will result in price plans and deals which benefit the consumer a lot especially considering that placing limitations like bandwidth caps gives the competitors a much larger weapon to play with.

ISP is a highly competitive market and most broadband customers have a choice.

You're free to go and start an ISP if you feel the profit margins are so high, because they are not. Mostly because it is so competitive.

In fact it is such a mature market that these innovative pricing models are being tried because there is so little money in the all you can eat model for such a cheap price. Most of the decision makers I talk to in the industry all say the same thing "all you can eat is going away, we just can't keep losing money like this and have to do something."

It's not competitive enough. There is a difference between competition which benefits the consumer and being stuck with 2-3 choices that are all pretty much the same low quality.

So what do these decision makers say about the ever increasing bandwidth draining services, websites, and all sorts of other online features which keep being released and are becoming more and more popular in the common household every year? How do they plan to handle that kind of demand? They cannot keep raising prices to match the bandwidth demands because eventually people are going to stop paying and I can guarantee you that there will be competitors standing by ready to reduce their monthly fees in hopes of stealing those customers.

Also, in your opinion, what is the minimum profit margin that an ISP needs to pull in before you consider it to be "high"?

 

[MrDudeMan]

Most people don't use nearly 40gb per month.

40gb per month is 133mb per hour for 10 hours a day every day. I played WoW last night for 5 hours while watching YouTube videos on my other monitor basically the entire time and I still didn't use 100mb.

I hope every ISP does this so the assholes who are using all the bandwith can start paying for it. I haven't even come close to 40gb in a month even when I was pirating software frequently. I haven't downloaded anything in the last year other than free map packs or updates and I still barely hit 5gb per month.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
It's not competitive enough. There is a difference between competition which benefits the consumer and being stuck with 2-3 choices that are all pretty much the same.

So what do these decision makers say about the ever increasing bandwidth draining services, websites, and all sorts of other online features which keep being released and are becoming more and more popular in the common household every year? How do they plan to handle that kind of demand? They cannot keep raising prices to match the bandwidth demands because eventually people are going to stop paying and I can guarantee you that there will be competitors standing by ready to reduce their monthly fees in hopes of stealing those customers.

Oh please. You're getting multimegabit service for less than a few hundred bucks a month. I call the competition that benefits the consumer. Cable and telco are so competitive is isn't even funny. Why do you think you have this awesome service for less than a few hundred bucks a month?

How to handle the demand? Raise capital and invest in upgrades - to do this they need to raise prices on the abusers/heavy users. Or just get rid of the heavy hitters all together so there isn't a capacity problem from a very small minority of customers.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: spidey07
ISP is a highly competitive market and most broadband customers have a choice.

It isn't "highly competitive" by any means. There are no consumer Internet connections that match the speed of cable modems other than fiber, which is only available in very limited areas of the country right now. There is more competition in DSL, but you have to live close enough to the CO and the speed isn't nearly as good as cable. That's not exactly "highly competitive." And then there is satellite Internet, which doesn't directly compete with cable/DSL/fiber at all.

So for most people who want a truly high speed connection, the only option is cable modem.

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Xavier434
It's not competitive enough. There is a difference between competition which benefits the consumer and being stuck with 2-3 choices that are all pretty much the same.

So what do these decision makers say about the ever increasing bandwidth draining services, websites, and all sorts of other online features which keep being released and are becoming more and more popular in the common household every year? How do they plan to handle that kind of demand? They cannot keep raising prices to match the bandwidth demands because eventually people are going to stop paying and I can guarantee you that there will be competitors standing by ready to reduce their monthly fees in hopes of stealing those customers.

Oh please. You're getting multimegabit service for less than a few hundred bucks a month. I call the competition that benefits the consumer. Cable and telco are so competitive is isn't even funny. Why do you think you have this awesome service for less than a few hundred bucks a month?

How to handle the demand? Raise capital and invest in upgrades - to do this they need to raise prices on the abusers/heavy users. Or just get rid of the heavy hitters all together so there isn't a capacity problem from a very small minority of customers.

The rate of progress of internet connections doesn't seem to be nearly as great as the improvements that have been made in HDTV and general PC hardware. I know they are separate industries, but of all the consumer electronic industries, high speed internet seems to have made the least amount of progress.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: spidey07
ISP is a highly competitive market and most broadband customers have a choice.

It isn't "highly competitive" by any means. There are no consumer Internet connections that match the speed of cable modems other than fiber, which is only available in very limited areas of the country right now. There is more competition in DSL, but you have to live close enough to the CO and the speed isn't nearly as good as cable. That's not exactly "highly competitive." And then there is satellite Internet, which doesn't directly compete with cable/DSL/fiber at all.

So for most people who want a truly high speed connection, the only option is cable modem.

That is simply not true mugs. You can get whatever speed connection you want ANYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY. I know, I just had a optical network installed in the middle of nowhere.

The only option they want to pay for is a cheap residential connection. But if you want a high speed connection you can get it anywhere in the country.

 

[JS80]

Can someone itemize the following usage in a month for a typical "power user" WITHOUT illegal downloading

Web browsing:
Online gaming:
Downloading games:
Download/stream 5 movies:
Porn:
INSERT ANYTHING ELSE

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Special K
The rate of progress of internet connections doesn't seem to be nearly as great as the improvements that have been made in HDTV and general PC hardware. I know they are separate industries, but of all the consumer electronic industries, high speed internet seems to have made the least amount of progress.

Not really. In general capacity/bandwidth follows moore's law roughly doubling every two years. Now it may not be apparent from the access layer (your home) because by somewhat limiting at that layer you can stave off more serious capacity problems. But it does double every two years, both usage and capacity.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: spidey07

How to handle the demand? Raise capital and invest in upgrades - to do this they need to raise prices on the abusers/heavy users.

Bullshit. It was already stated by another poster here that only 0.4% of the users qualify as these "abusers". You are trying to tell me that raising the prices on 0.4% of the customers will make a big difference? Hell no! This is all about raising the price for a great many users who don't even bother to use things like bit torrent. You see how it doesn't make any sense? They sit around and cry all day arguing that this small handful of users is screwing over all of their honest customers then they turn around are try to convince us that by charging only those people more money that they will be able to afford new upgrades for the whole nation? The dollars just don't add up that way.

 

[isekii]

please fios. Deploy in my area asap before RR pulls this crap in my neighborhood.

But so far RR has been great for me.
I hope this test market fails and people switch so they'd think twice about doing this.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: spidey07

How to handle the demand? Raise capital and invest in upgrades - to do this they need to raise prices on the abusers/heavy users.

Bullshit. It was already stated by another poster here that only 0.4% of the users qualify as these "abusers". You are trying to tell me that raising the prices on 0.4% of the customers will make a big difference? Hell no! This is all about raising the price for a great many users who don't even bother to use things like bit torrent. You see how it doesn't make any sense? They sit around and cry all day arguing that this small handful of users is screwing over all of their honest customers then they turn around are try to convince us that by charging only those people more money that they will be able to afford new upgrades for the whole nation? The dollars just don't add up that way.

I don't care about any of this. I just want the idiots who have nothing better to do with their lives than sit in front of a computer and completely saturate the cable lines to pay for what they are using. If I could pay 5 dollars more per month to get rid of all the entitlement assholes, I'd gladly pay it. GO OUTSIDE and stop downloading porn. 40gb a month is fucking ridiculous.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: spidey07
ISP is a highly competitive market and most broadband customers have a choice.

It isn't "highly competitive" by any means. There are no consumer Internet connections that match the speed of cable modems other than fiber, which is only available in very limited areas of the country right now. There is more competition in DSL, but you have to live close enough to the CO and the speed isn't nearly as good as cable. That's not exactly "highly competitive." And then there is satellite Internet, which doesn't directly compete with cable/DSL/fiber at all.

So for most people who want a truly high speed connection, the only option is cable modem.

That is simply not true mugs. You can get whatever speed connection you want ANYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY. I know, I just had a optical network installed in the middle of nowhere.

The only option they want to pay for is a cheap residential connection. But if you want a high speed connection you can get it anywhere in the country.

"There are no consumer Internet connections..."

What you're talking about does not compete with cable/DSL/residential fiber.

 

[Excelsior]

This is some bullshit. I'd switch to DSL if they did it in my area. Or if I was lucky enough to have fios availability, I'd switch to that now regardless.

 

[Flammable]

let's admit it though, it's a great way to stop piracy

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Special K
The rate of progress of internet connections doesn't seem to be nearly as great as the improvements that have been made in HDTV and general PC hardware. I know they are separate industries, but of all the consumer electronic industries, high speed internet seems to have made the least amount of progress.

Not really. In general capacity/bandwidth follows moore's law roughly doubling every two years. Now it may not be apparent from the access layer (your home) because by somewhat limiting at that layer you can stave off more serious capacity problems. But it does double every two years, both usage and capacity.

So basically the "backbone" that is feeding my area of subscribers may have increased dramatically in speed over the years, but rather than advertise higher speeds for the end user, they instead use that speed increase to put more people on that "backbone"? That would be consistent with what I have observed - i.e. that advertised speeds in the areas I have lived really haven't changed much over the past few years. Sorry if my terminology and use of the word "backbone" is off, I do not work in the ISP industry. I am just trying to understand what is going on.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: MrDudeMan

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: spidey07

How to handle the demand? Raise capital and invest in upgrades - to do this they need to raise prices on the abusers/heavy users.

Bullshit. It was already stated by another poster here that only 0.4% of the users qualify as these "abusers". You are trying to tell me that raising the prices on 0.4% of the customers will make a big difference? Hell no! This is all about raising the price for a great many users who don't even bother to use things like bit torrent. You see how it doesn't make any sense? They sit around and cry all day arguing that this small handful of users is screwing over all of their honest customers then they turn around are try to convince us that by charging only those people more money that they will be able to afford new upgrades for the whole nation? The dollars just don't add up that way.

I don't care about any of this. I just want the idiots who have nothing better to do with their lives than sit in front of a computer and completely saturate the cable lines to pay for what they are using. If I could pay 5 dollars more per month to get rid of all the entitlement assholes, I'd gladly pay it. GO OUTSIDE and stop downloading porn. 40gb a month is fucking ridiculous.

Who says they don't just let their computers download the porn while they are out or asleep?

Also, you are bringing in the argument of what people "should" be doing with their spare time which really isn't relevant. People who do opt to basically live in front of their computers have just as much of a right to do so as you have right to choose to do something else. So, what do you say we just leave that part of the argument out of this one?

 

[OutHouse]

you guys should try satellite internet like wildblue, then you can bitch about low caps.

 

[isekii]

I don't know about you,
but if the current infrastructure can't handle the .4% of the abusers so that the service is reliable for the rest of us, then maybe they do need to either upgrade or build something that will handle it.

That warn the abusers and eventually terminating the contract. That sounds like a much more viable solution than capping everyone at whatever they decide and charging more for going over the cap they set.

The whole thing sounds pretty fishy, but in the end it's all about making $.

 

[RichardE]

While delivering to rural communities or even "cottage country" can be expensive (I know we had a price tag of 125-150k for some of the boosters needed to get the signal that far, and thats just the booster). It still doesn't explain why the Cable companies are not charging the people who are commanding the most infrastructure for the least return rather than signing people on en mass for in population dense urban areas.

 

[RichardE]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Xavier434
That can be solved by building more hubs or whatever the correct term is that lessens the distance data needs to travel from point A to point B. Again, I realize this costs money but they are going to have to do it pretty soon anyways. Bandwidth demands are increasing extremely rapidly and bit torrent users are not the only ones to blame anymore. They can only ride on that excuse for so long.

As long as the traffic stats say that bittorrent is the way beyond obscene majority of the traffic, yes I can.

You're example of your usage is extremely high. As such you should pay for all that bandwidth you're using. Somehow you feel entitled to use that much and not pay for it?

As such bandwidth has no "direct" costs but is actually just a pricing standard set by the companies. Your holier than thou "you should pay for it all!" makes no sense since you might as well just say "you need to pay what TW decides or whoever. Internet is not a commodity, it is not traded as such and it is not seen as such so stating "you should pay x amount for every dollar and enjoy it It wrong and ignorant. To think that Americans who want the best and always want to be number one will sit back and accept this when other countries are offering more is pretty ludicrous. I am glad TW is doing an 'experiment" though, since you guys seem to miss the point it is not about "caps that fit the average user" but about the American mentality of we should have whatever we want, that goes from these forum users, to soccer moms drying SUV's hummers @ 4$/Gallon.