Posted on 06/02/2008 5:57:03 PM PDT by abt87
NEW YORK (AP) — You're used to paying extra if you use up your cell phone minutes, but will you be willing to pay extra if your home computer goes over its Internet allowance?
Time Warner Cable Inc. customers — and, later, others — may have to, if the company's test of metered Internet access is successful.
On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.
Time Warner Cable had said in January that it was planning to conduct the trial in Beaumont, but did not give any details. On Monday, Leddy said its tiers will range from $29.95 a month for relatively slow service at 768 kilobits per second and a 5-gigabyte monthly cap to $54.90 per month for fast downloads at 15 megabits per second and a 40-gigabyte cap. Those prices cover the Internet portion of subscription bundles that include video or phone services. Both downloads and uploads will count toward the monthly cap.
(Excerpt) Read more at ap.google.com ...
It won’t be long before Turner starts charging us to visit the FreeRepublic.
I just switched to FIOS, doesn’t have the same bandwidth issues.
They have internet in Beaumont? If they do I guess that they can get away with charging overtime for using it.
I’d be on DSL in a heartbeat if my ISP ever tried this.
Time Warner doesn’t give you what you’re paying for in the first place. Why should this be a surprise. Worst company in America IMHO.
And guess what.... At high speeds... doing throttling costs more than it saves, because of retries.
/johnny
I guess we’ll have to start rationing visits to sites like YouTube as well. Unfortunately TW (and Comcast, since they’re also considering it in the future) will get away with it, since they’re often the only guys in town due to franchise agreements (dial-up is a joke in an era of graphic-intensive websites and heavy downloads for music and movies)
If they price their service just right in Beumont (before spiking it in the future), they might be able to trick the large group of people who pay them simply for checking email, into accepting it. Execs will then say, “see, people ARE willing to pay for our metered service, now the rest of you will get nickeled and dimed as well!”
I seem to remember that AOL used to charge by the minute when it first came out.
They be just dusting off some old AOL business models.
I may not have a problem with this if they gave me a monthly credit for the 100’s of tv stations I never watch.
“And guess what.... At high speeds... doing throttling costs more than it saves, because of retries.”
Perhaps thats part of their agenda. Throttle the network, cause congestion and rake in the dough.
Whats ironic is there is tons of fiber in the ground not being used.
I used to use Road Runner. I switched to FIOS. Way faster and a lot cheaper, too.
Yep. But there's a difference now... What if there is no competition to kill off the model?
the infowarrior
Free Enterprise Rules.
They want to set limits for their overpriced internet access? Not only no, but **** no.
What about those who live in areas where TW is the only choice, AND there is no DSL or fiber?
And they will let you know. Months after you leave the business to go cook in a golf club to regain your self respect.
/johnny
/johnny
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