Time Warner Cable cancels usage caps

[sswingle]

Fortunately no word of them doing this in ohio. Anyone have email contacts so we can warn them in advance that if this happens they can go fuck themselves?

 

[OCGuy]

Guys, anyone with TWC....if there is a viable 2nd option in your city when this goes into effect...PLEASE vote with your wallet and GTFO.

 

[hiromizu]

I think this will be a good thing. I wish they'd do the same with the MTA in NYC, charge per distance or # of stops and not a flat rate.

 

[amdhunter]

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
They pull this in my city, I'll be finding a new ISP

Honestly, I'll just give up internet at home. I can always steal from someone else, and do my big downloads at work.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: OCguy
Guys, anyone with TWC....if there is a viable 2nd option in your city when this goes into effect...PLEASE vote with your wallet and GTFO.

i would if i could

its TW or nothing at all here

however im on STNY so its not hitting me right now. However if i had good DSL or FIOS i would swap anyway

 

[ViRaLRuSh]

I'm in Rochester....this is fucking awful...

 

[darkxshade]

I don't see any other outcome from this switch that won't come back to bite them in the ass. Major cities where most of their customers are based will usually have at least a decent alternative(DSL) and people won't hesitate to switch in an instant with these ridiculous caps. They will have dropped the ball big time if they go through with this. I would think they'd have learned their lesson with AOL.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: Anubis
however im on STNY so its not hitting me right now. However if i had good DSL or FIOS i would swap anyway

We might be next 🙁. Fortunately, I have other options.

 

[OCGuy]

I think they are actually wanting the big downloaders to switch to another service. They get to keep all of the people that pay for broadband but only read the Yahoo! homepage and research homework assignments.

Crazy like a fox....

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: OCguy
I think they are actually wanting the big downloaders to switch to another service. They get to keep all of the people that pay for broadband but only read the Yahoo! homepage and research homework assignments.

Crazy like a fox....

Of course. That's partially the point.

A sizable majority of people won't even notice the difference.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: OCguy
I think they are actually wanting the big downloaders to switch to another service. They get to keep all of the people that pay for broadband but only read the Yahoo! homepage and research homework assignments.

Crazy like a fox....

Of course. That's partially the point.

A sizable majority of people won't even notice the difference.

Seems that way at first but they said they were trying to get rid of the top percent of people, like the top 5. Yet now their own numbers show that are at 14% just in this small sample.

 

[God Mode]

I can burn a gig on just basic fucking browsing (ie: no video etc). With all these scripts, flash and images on websites these days, wtf.

 

[lifeobry]

40GB on the top-end is hilariously low. I would switch to dial-up.

 

[reallyfull]

I have been with TW since 2000, when they first started offering cable internet service in my area. I have nothing bad to say about them, the service has been great. If they bring this 40GB cap to my town I will be looking for alternatives. I can burn through a couple Gigabytes in no time just downloading HD movie trailers. I buy most of my PC Games off of Steam and stream with Netflix and Hulu.

 

[microAmp]

Originally posted by: OCguy
Guys, anyone with TWC....if there is a viable 2nd option in your city when this goes into effect...PLEASE vote with your wallet and GTFO.

Worry not, I'm lucky, I have a choice of two cable providers in my area. Looks like Grande will be getting my business. Sadly, no DSL choices. 🙁 Even when I was in Austin, DSL was a tad bit too far and TW was only choice for broadband.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

My letter to them is below. I agree with caps of some sort, I am more in favor of a cap the speed to something low but reasonable ie 1-2mbps once the cap is hit.



I just read the article on newsweek (http://www.businessweek.com/te...90331_726397.htm)about the expansion of your data caps. I just wanted to say that the limits being enacted are a massive step in the wrong direction. I can understand that there are abusers and they need to be controlled, but with caps so low it seems that you are just becoming greedy and trying to stifle services such as netflix streaming content.

Let it be known that myself and many like me will not stand for this type of business practice. If the caps are enacted in my area, not only will you lose a Road Runner customer of nearly 10 years, but a cable television customer as well. You arent the only game in town, satellite television offers comparable rates and services as does the phone company with their DSL offerings.

Granted, my account isnt much in the grand scheme of things, but in todays economy accounts that are paid on time with several bundled services are getting harder to come by. Please do not alienate your customers with such draconian limits.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: Beev
I use TW and have actually been very happy with them, but if this change goes into affect in my area I'm dropping them instan-fucking-taneously.

Agreed. And I will be very clear to the rep on up to the highest ranking person I can call as to why.

 

[Bill Brasky]

Welcome to my world. It's been like this for as long as I can remember in Lawrence, KS. AT&T dsl is a great alternative to the devil Sunflower broadband.

edit: How are the ISP cable monopolies legal? Can anyone explain how these work please?

 

[sonoma1993]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
Someone tell me this is a joke. 40GB as a cap ? Give up downloading the latest beta OS or watching too much netflix. $55 a month for 40GB ?
Glad I don't use them.


http://www.businessweek.com/te.../tc20090331_726397.htm

But Time Warner says most people are not using that much data. The company's trial in Beaumont, Tex., lasted several months. Of the 10,000 broadband customers enrolled?about 25% of the company's total for Beaumont?about 14% exceeded their cap and had to pay additional fees that averaged about $19 a month. Time Warner Cable also discovered that the top 25% of users consumed 100 times more data than the bottom 25% of users, suggesting an enormous gap in usage patterns.

the 14% that exceeded their caps, i wonder which cap that was under?

these caps are ridiculous, I usually rent a few movies each month off of dishnetwork and psn store. each of those movies are usually 3GB to 7GB a piece. Just downloading one movie would easily put me over the 5GB cap.. I have comcast and AT&T in my area. I currently have comcast for my service. Their 250GB cap is more reasonable.

The thing im worried about is, once one ISP starts putting this tier pricing and caps in more ares. The rest of these ISP will be following suite and setting up tier pricing with these unrealistic caps as well.

 

[ja1484]

By the way, does anyone know if this is just specific cities, or if it's statewide in the named states?

I live in a relatively small town (~30,000 pop.) and would love to escape this bullshit. My service from TW has been great, but I'll find something else or do without if they institute caps. Especially since their "network problems" are made up fantasy tales anyway.

 

[Twista]

Originally posted by: TruePaige
When they came for my bandwidth,
there was no one left to speak out for me.

:brokenheart:

I remember that saying from school. Maybe it was a nazi book or something

 

[kevinf2090]

maybe this is an april's fool joke?

 

[Bignate603]

If Cox tries this I'm switching to DSL. This would render Netflix and Hulu unuseable.

 

[spidey07]

I swear you guys sound like 80 year old men shaking their fist at the utility companies. Internet is a utility and will be billed accordingly. Shake your fist all you want but you will pay for what you use.

All you can eat is gone.

 

[spikespiegal]

The question I have is where does the ISP incur a higher support cost in the first place that they are trying to pass on to customers?

Seriously, what's the actual cost difference to the ISP if download 5gig -vs- 500gig a month? Does some hamster on a flywheel somewhere have to punch in for overtime? Their routers have a 'data odometer' that requires them be replaced when they reach a certain packet count like spent fuel rods or something?

It's not their servers spinning data off their hard-drives that's being downloaded by consumers. They just provide the path and infrastructure. It would seem they have to keep the same number of service techs on the payroll regardless of how many movies I download a month.

Obviously there are infrastructure costs to increasing available bandwidth, but it would seem that throttling download speed or having a tiered pricing scheme of that sort makes more sense than counting the bits going down the wire. What am I missing? I know a lot of big ISPs 'rent' or lease part of their backbone, but even if that's the case where does the owner still incur the greater cost?