Time Warner drops tiered internet pricing plans!

[StageLeft]

As you know, a few weeks back Time Warner was going to try tiered pricing in a few cities. Major backlash, including from Senator Schumer who said that he felt it was happening in cities with a near monopoly (which is true), about a week ago prompted them to raise the limits. Well, today, they finally gave up. Pwned.

I already cut my cable bill a week ago by $30 in expectation of the higher fees. I won't be raising it back up

Link

 

[her209]

TW 10-K

High-speed data costs decreased primarily due to a decrease in per-subscriber connectivity costs, partially offset by growth in subscribers and usage per subscriber.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

They are doing it again.

 

[Craig234]

It's unclear to me what's wrong with usage-based tiered pricing. I might not prefer it as a user of a lot of bandwidth, but that's not a reason to say it's wrong.

There's plenty to find to criticize in the industry - to oppose tiers *for providers* so that big companies' content is delivered faster to the same consumer; or Comcast's despicable action where it paid people to take up all the seats at a public hearing to prevent the public from access to criticizing them.

From the link, I saw people raising other issues that are concerns, such as throttling the speed - but I'd like to hear the complaint what the problem is with simply basing price on usage.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Originally posted by: Craig234
It's unclear to me what's wrong with usage-based tiered pricing. I might not prefer it as a user of a lot of bandwidth, but that's not a reason to say it's wrong.

There's plenty to find to criticize in the industry - to oppose tiers *for providers* so that big companies' content is delivered faster to the same consumer; or Comcast's despicable action where it paid people to take up all the seats at a public hearing to prevent the public from access to criticizing them.

From the link, I saw people raising other issues that are concerns, such as throttling the speed - but I'd like to hear the complaint what the problem is with simply basing price on usage.

Stifling innovation. Say goodbye to Netflix, Hulu, Vonage, plus whatever else would evolve from ubiquitous bandwidth. It's going to send the internet back to 1994 with no graphics and text-only web pages. That and I'm just tired of people getting dicked by teleco & cable companies, but maybe that's just me. I noticed on my Mom's phone bill they had the gall to charge her 40 cents a minute for instate long distance calls. Crap fees like that should be extinct by now.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian

Originally posted by: Craig234
It's unclear to me what's wrong with usage-based tiered pricing. I might not prefer it as a user of a lot of bandwidth, but that's not a reason to say it's wrong.

There's plenty to find to criticize in the industry - to oppose tiers *for providers* so that big companies' content is delivered faster to the same consumer; or Comcast's despicable action where it paid people to take up all the seats at a public hearing to prevent the public from access to criticizing them.

From the link, I saw people raising other issues that are concerns, such as throttling the speed - but I'd like to hear the complaint what the problem is with simply basing price on usage.

Stifling innovation. Say goodbye to Netflix, Hulu, Vonage, plus whatever else would evolve from ubiquitous bandwidth. It's going to send the internet back to 1994 with no graphics and text-only web pages. That and I'm just tired of people getting dicked by teleco & cable companies, but maybe that's just me. I noticed on my Mom's phone bill they had the gall to charge her 40 cents a minute for instate long distance calls. Crap fees like that should be extinct by now.

Yep, there's too big an incentive to do it... in areas where they're a monopoly or where there's only shitty dsl service, they'll make massive profits... plus they want to squash the competition. THeir biggest fear is internet tv becomes so popular, people won't buy cable tv anymore (i dropped cable tv for hulu last year).

 

[Hacp]

I'm surprised this happened, especially since Time Warner has the NYC democratic machine on its side.

 

[Double Trouble]

Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian

Originally posted by: Craig234
It's unclear to me what's wrong with usage-based tiered pricing. I might not prefer it as a user of a lot of bandwidth, but that's not a reason to say it's wrong.

There's plenty to find to criticize in the industry - to oppose tiers *for providers* so that big companies' content is delivered faster to the same consumer; or Comcast's despicable action where it paid people to take up all the seats at a public hearing to prevent the public from access to criticizing them.

From the link, I saw people raising other issues that are concerns, such as throttling the speed - but I'd like to hear the complaint what the problem is with simply basing price on usage.

Stifling innovation. Say goodbye to Netflix, Hulu, Vonage, plus whatever else would evolve from ubiquitous bandwidth. It's going to send the internet back to 1994 with no graphics and text-only web pages. That and I'm just tired of people getting dicked by teleco & cable companies, but maybe that's just me. I noticed on my Mom's phone bill they had the gall to charge her 40 cents a minute for instate long distance calls. Crap fees like that should be extinct by now.

:thumbsup:

If the providers like TW were not acting as virtual monopolies in many areas, I'd have no problem with their tiered pricing, let the market decide what they want to pay for and how. Since they are (essentially) monopolies though, customers don't always have viable alternatives, so the public needs to force providers from further gouging customers. No competition always means the consumer loses.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian
They are doing it again.

From a business perspective I see why they can do it and should, just like cell providers do. It will stiff innovation, though (however, not their problem). My main problem with it in the way it was about to be implemented was that TW was using markets that it had saturated and that had limited competition. It was doing this because it knew it would piss customers off but with limited alternatives, they could take it or leave it. Classic monopoly situation. I think you'll see that if they do end up doing this and it's in markets where people have at least one good alternative, they'll not be charging $70/month for a mere 100 gigs.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: Hacp
I'm surprised this happened, especially since Time Warner has the NYC democratic machine on its side.

Hack

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian

Originally posted by: Craig234
It's unclear to me what's wrong with usage-based tiered pricing. I might not prefer it as a user of a lot of bandwidth, but that's not a reason to say it's wrong.

There's plenty to find to criticize in the industry - to oppose tiers *for providers* so that big companies' content is delivered faster to the same consumer; or Comcast's despicable action where it paid people to take up all the seats at a public hearing to prevent the public from access to criticizing them.

From the link, I saw people raising other issues that are concerns, such as throttling the speed - but I'd like to hear the complaint what the problem is with simply basing price on usage.

Stifling innovation. Say goodbye to Netflix, Hulu, Vonage, plus whatever else would evolve from ubiquitous bandwidth. It's going to send the internet back to 1994 with no graphics and text-only web pages. That and I'm just tired of people getting dicked by teleco & cable companies, but maybe that's just me. I noticed on my Mom's phone bill they had the gall to charge her 40 cents a minute for instate long distance calls. Crap fees like that should be extinct by now.

Yep, there's too big an incentive to do it... in areas where they're a monopoly or where there's only shitty dsl service, they'll make massive profits... plus they want to squash the competition. THeir biggest fear is internet tv becomes so popular, people won't buy cable tv anymore (i dropped cable tv for hulu last year).

I'm in a pickle in my situation. I can only get TimeWarner cable. My friend less than a mile away has U-Verse, and my Uncle about 3/4th of a mile in the other Direction has FIOS, but I can't get either of them at my place, current projected time to either of them is 2-3 years.
It's sad that the government will go after Microsoft or Intel for monopolistic practices, but they'll support and even endorse the teleco's the practice monopolies.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: Craig234
It's unclear to me what's wrong with usage-based tiered pricing.

I don't have any qualms with it if the upper-bounds are fairly set. I would be just fine with Comcast's 250GB, as if you go over that... what in the world are you doing? :Q

Originally posted by: Skoorb
From a business perspective I see why they can do it and should, just like cell providers do. It will stiff innovation, though (however, not their problem).

Well, cell phone companies are a weird example as their prices are some of the worst around, but they also have to subsidize all of the deals that people get on cell phones (getting a $100+ phone for free, etc).

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: Hacp
I'm surprised this happened, especially since Time Warner has the NYC democratic machine on its side.

But, but Corporations should be allowd to buy politicians using campaign financing.
Right?