RSSTime Warner retreats from plan to test capping subscriber bandwidth
By Tim Conneally | Published April 16, 2009, 6:25 PM
After delaying its plan to test capping subscriber bandwidth usage, Time Warner has opted to retreat from the approach altogether.
In a statement today, Chief Executive Office Glenn Britt said, "It is clear from the public response over the last two weeks that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about our plans to roll out additional tests on consumption based billing. As a result, we will not proceed with implementation of additional tests until further consultation with our customers and other interested parties, ensuring that community needs are being met."
Organizations which stood in opposition to the trials, such as Free Press, claim this as a major victory for consumers. Campaign director for Free Press Tim Karr said, "We're glad to see Time Warner Cable's price-gouging scheme collapse in the face of consumer opposition. Let this be a lesson to other Internet service providers looking to head down a similar path. Consumers are not going to stand idly by as companies try to squeeze their use of the Internet. This is a major victory, but the fight for a fast, open and affordable Internet is far from over."
But Time Warner's statement clearly says this was not a response to unified consumer action, but rather a response to widespread consumer ignorance. Before delaying its capping tests, the company tried to break down its tiered pricing scheme to consumers by comparing broadband usage to overeating, and gas consumption, two things Americans have a reputation for understanding quite well.
COO Landel Hobbs said "When you go to lunch with a friend, do you split the bill in half if he gets the steak and you have a salad?"
Moving forward, Time Warner will be providing the "gas gauge" to consumers first, so they can have a firmer grasp on how a tiered billing plan would affect their daily life.
This is a little late to the discussion but this is from the NYTimes today so blame them for being slow not me:)
http://bits.blogs.nytime...oading-all-those-videos/
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|Last Result:
Download Speed: 17955 kbps (2244.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 490 kbps (61.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
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|i have road runner and i love it :) now that there not doing tests and the caps my internet seems to be faster but i could be wrong lol
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|the RIAA was the party who made this happen. they have hounded the providers for years. as someone who works in the cable industry i know. they know the only way to stop file sharring is to cap bandwith. the cable companies have loads of bandwith. they could care less. but they have felt the might of the RIAA and the MPAA for years. So feel happy for now. But someday this might be for real
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|Sweet!!! About time, we win one.
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|The most likely reason for the reversal, they began to understand how expensive this could be to implement.
Questions:
Since cable service is an exclusive franchise in most communities, will implementing the plan break any of our terms-of-use?
Who's usage logs do we use is a charge is disputed ( TW, customer, third-party).
How does TW react to a customers computer being hijacked?
Does TW bill for TW generated spam?
Is TW-mail counted or not?
Is time working through TW-help system counted or not?
Can the user select a high tier plan for one month in advance ( ie Basketballs March Madness) rather than pay overages?
In short - is implementing the charge more expensive than the return?
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|This makes me wonder....
What about things like VOIP. Will that bandwidth and usage be included in the tiers? If it is not... wouldn't that be considered anti-competitive for companies like Vonage?
I don't have a huge usage... I've looked back through my Tomato logs and I don't think I've gone over 30GB or so.
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|It is expensive to build any large network. Therefore, the number of companies that can have that network is very limited, and the ones that do have a near monopoly. Any case where there is a natural monopoly is an industry that must be owned and run by the government. Roads, electricity, telephone, internet, cable - these are all monopolies and can only be provided fairly by the government. Otherwise, those companies because of limited or no competition can overcharge customers. Government regulation of cable companies has been distracted and limited and those prices have shot up insanely. It is time for all public utilities to be truly that, public, and owned by the government.
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|I love how these people that thing caps is a good idea. These companies have been touting how fast you can download movies and other content, but when people actually do it, hold yer horses. I use Tomato for my router and I used 71 gigs last month. This consisted of downloading Netflix movies, watching streaming video on Twit.Tv and pulling the newest Distro for a virtual machine. No torrents, no music downloads, etc. This comes down to them overcharging for video, trying to screw people that are watching their content online and calling caps an "enhancement". My version of an enhancement is when my date shows up with bigger boobies than she had 2 weeks earlier and she's not knocked up..
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|???
"but when people actually do it, hold yer horses."
You appear to have used it often....any consequences for ya?
No? Funny...
It's not using the "speed" that gets you capped, it's using it to absurd extremes.
FWIW: DD-WRT is reporting 89GB for me last month.
They need to drop caps and throttling entirely and go to usage-based tiered pricing. That's effectively what they are trying to accomplish, but they are trying to be "clever" about it...which is just backfiring big time among the idiot masses. Have people pay according to usage, cut 'em off when they hit it (no overages, but allow them to "re-up" so as not to interrupt service if they choose to). Problem solved. Sure, the entitled will still whine, but then...they always do.
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|Just how out of touch are they? The last comment by the COO says it all. Do you split the bill with a friend that gets the steak and you get the salad? Thats implies I get to choose the internet experience I want to have and significantly enjoy more than that the other. In fact I do pay more for the accelarated access. So I do pay for the steak. His analogy is wrong. I ask, do you charge more for the Big person coming to the buffet than you do the small woman? Its all a WASH!
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|"But Time Warner's statement clearly says this was not a response to unified consumer action, but rather a response to widespread consumer ignorance. Before delaying its capping tests, the company tried to break down its tiered pricing scheme to consumers by comparing broadband usage to overeating, and gas consumption, two things Americans have a reputation for understanding quite well."
Notice how there has been zero mention of plan change fees (I am on the 20GB/month tier, take a new job that allows me to telecommute and then I have to move to the 40GB/month tier. TWC then charges me $xx to change my plan or even worse, locks me into a certain tier for a set period of time). Yeah, no mention of those details anywhere.
"I think that such pricing options are not only fair, but also will actually encourage more use of broadband overall."
Sure you do, considering that as you go over your allocated bandwidth, you get to charge me more per GB used. Funny, sounds like most non-unlimited cell phone plans that many people are ditching in favor of the unlimited plans. Care to explain how providing billing tiers is supposed to encourage more use of broadband overall? Most people will try to reduce the amount of bandwidth they use to avoid the extra fees. Seems like a contradictory statement to me.
"We’re also providing a “gas gauge” tool to our customers so they can see how much bandwidth they’re using as they go along, and to make it easier for them to move to the tiers that best serve their needs."
Yay, yet another "tool" (no offesnse Tool) to load on my PC just so that I can make sure I don't use more bandwidth than I am allocated? Just what the world needs. Ever notice that DSL usage never really grew until the need for PPPoE thick clients started to disappear? Case in point, consumers do not want more crap to load on their computers.
"If one family prefers to have lower download speeds but a higher data tier, or vice-versa, we want them to be able to make that choice."
So in this day in age when most net-savvy people are clamoring for more speed, not less, TWC is offering a plan with reduced speed and a higher cap? What sense does that make? "Sure, I want to stream that 1GB (don't quote me, just guesstimating) HD episode of Lost on a slower stream for a worse experience than I already get on my congested line? But at least I won't have to pay for going above my cap!!! Where do I sign up?"
One word comes to mind from all this... fascism
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|"fascism"...
Heh...
I do not think that word means what you think it means...
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|Sure I do... I wiki'd it before I used it... lol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
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