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Time Warner tests Internet bandwidth caps

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

January 17, 2008, 11:56 AM

There may be limits coming to high-speed Internet from Time Warner Cable, according to details of a memo obtained by Broadband Reports.

While the new policy is expected to affect about one out of every 20 subscribers, it is aimed at collecting revenue from those who apparently "utilize over half of the total network bandwidth."

Although the cable provider confirmed that the memo is indeed legit, it declined to offer any other details on its plans.

The first subscribers to be subjected to the new caps would be in the Beaumont, Texas area, with a national deployment possible if the new system is determined to be practical. Bandwidth usage to these customers would be metered, and then overage charges would apply if those caps are exceeded.

Such a policy has its pitfalls: consumers respond well to the "unlimited" bandwidth model, and moving back to a metered model could trigger a backlash from existing customers. Comcast has also reportedly tested a similar overage concept, although that backlash threat apparently kept the company from moving forward.

For ISPs that may be concerned about bandwidth issues, there is another option, which in some cases is already being implemented. Heavy users of bandwidth have recently found their connections throttled, and in some cases disconnected altogether.

Time Warner reportedly has already been implementing such a policy, although it has officially denied any type of throttling.

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By jack27360

edited Jan 25, 2008 - 10:39 PM

I can assure that triad.rr.com is throttling bandwidth here in north carolina. I had no problems until 2 weeks ago when I noticed a change in my newsbin configuration and news server. After some serious customer no service I found out that they had indeed started up some new protocol packet shaping. My speeds went from a consistent 5 kbps to disconnect then back up and then back to 0. It defeats the purpose of having roadrunner. If they continue this practice I will have no problem switching back to the local DSL.
jack

Score: 0

By mikeeberhart

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 2:08 PM

I have TWC in Cleveland. I will instantly switch to another provider if they implement caps on my "unlimited" internet service. The ONLY reason I have Cable is for the cable-modem.

The main problem I foresee is that one company starts this junk, ALL will follow, and thus there will be not choice. "Free Market" only exists if someone really cares to differentiate and compete. Overall, I tend to see more corporate collusion on pricing and service-bundling than REAL competition. How often do you see any one provider offer anything very much different than another - or for a much different price? Rare.

Well, I sure hope this doesn't affect my service. Though, I'm sure sooner or later they'll figure a way to make everyone to pay for usage-volume.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 3:57 PM

So what you're saying is the second they make you actually start paying for the volume you use, you'll find someone who spreads the cost around a bit so that *others* are making up the difference?

Nice.

I bet you want me to pay for your health care too.

Score: 0

By Program86

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 11:30 AM

Why would anyone even stand for this kind of crap?!?!?!?

If a company decides to limit its users, its time to move to a REAL company.

Dont even waste your time with TimeWarner if they are not even able to handle large bandwith usrs. Useless.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 1:41 PM

lmao...

You cannot claim to be entitled to something you are unwilling to read the terms of.

Sorry, if you didn't read the terms of service when you signed up (where this is all clearly spelled out), then you are not entitled to squat.

Seriously. Want it clearly spelled out?

You are prohibited from excessive consumption of resources, including CPU time, memory, disk space and session time. You may not use resource-intensive programs, which negatively impact other customers or the performance of Road Runner systems or networks. Road Runner reserves the right to terminate or limit such activities.

It doesn't really get much clearer than that, and no company that intends to remain in business longer than a month is going to have anything less than the above.

Score: 0

By xyzcb1

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 3:00 PM

Only problem with these policy is it doesn't define anything. What is consider "Excessive"?

Just like the CompUSA policy. Yet it didn't say on the patch match policy, but we just don't patch match anything less than 10% of our price.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Jan 18, 2008 - 3:56 PM

What is excessive? Anything that degrades network performance for anyone else.

Since, in cable, this varies *greatly* depending on how many users there are at any given time, there is *no* way you will *ever* get an exact number unless they *seriously* low-ball it.

...is that what you really want? They'll limit you to far less than is actually available to cover their assess if you push them for an exact number.

...and *that* is a guarantee.

If you want a level of service guarantee anywhere near what you *think* you are entitled to on a consumer line, your *only* option is a business plan, and those can get very pricey.

Score: 0

By Aires

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 7:36 AM

I've got a 50gb download limit within a month and I'm usually within that from anywhere between 30gb-50gb (I download a lot!). But I've been over the limit twice so to speak and had to buy an extra 1gb a couple of times - big deal. I don't live in the US but if Time Warner were to do something similar I can't imagine there'd be too much of a problem, but it all depends on what amount they settle on for a limit - too low and they'll lose customers for sure. But in principle it's not actually as bad as it first sounds really, they just have to get the levels right so they don't cheese off their customers.

Score: 0

By ghammer

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 1:25 AM

Move to China.

Unlimited time and usage.

You simply choose the speed you want to pay for.

Of course there, nobody is pandering "Market Forces" like in the US. It's a monopoly closely regulated by the state for the public/state good. They have a silly idea that having great internet service will result in benefit for China.

Now, if you could get "tax cut" linked to unlimited usage, I'm sure the current rocket scientist on Pennsylvania Ave would be in favor.

Score: 0

By horsecharles

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 1:48 PM

Yeah, right... and then have to use proxies to access the sites one wants...

Score: 0

By WABBIT_TOONZ

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 11:34 PM

i could see this boosting modem sales
dialup is snail slow but good enough to post on here with .
I think that If a good amount did this it would force the big guys to rethink thier strategy.

Score: 0

By Secret Agent Man

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 10:46 PM

I'd like to point out that DirecWay/HughesNet has done this throttling business for some time. You are given a certain a download bucket of sorts (currently 200 MB for the home package I believe), and if you use it all up (it refills at about 5 kB/sec), your connection becomes FAP'd (Fair Access Policy'd, their term, not mine), in which your browsing speed becomes almost nill.

Score: 0

By horsecharles

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 5:45 PM

Just moved to neighborhoodwith FIOS precisely to get away from s***ty TW.

Turns out Verizon is pretty s***ty as well-- they have the wires in place but will not provide service yet.

Other options are crappy Comcast or turdy Cablevision.

I wanna move to France, Norway or Japan-- fast speeds at low prices.

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 7:43 PM

Steer clear of Norway.

Broadband may be cheap but everything else is astronomically expensive.

Score: 0

By horsecharles

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 1:48 PM

Gotcha.

Score: 0

By zridling

edited Jan 17, 2008 - 5:14 PM

What idiot thinks that "unlimited" doesn't mean inexhaustible, since that's how these plans are marketed? So stop pulling a toolie by trying to tell me the ISPs' mean "unlimited" as available 24/7. Only a fool would think that an ISP would only give you service from 6a-10p, and no ISP has ever set daily time limits on bandwidth availability.

So please, let's stop that horse hockey right now. Time Warner is just like every other ISP and they want to save money on network upgrade costs. Instead of buying new equipment to service increasing loads, their idea is to throttle current users' bandwidth. In other words, you pay the same high cost, but get less service every month while Time Warner gets a fat stock erection for a day.

If you have one of these companies, dump them now. However, in amerika, it's increasingly hard to find any corporation who understands the English language, much less what unlimited means.

Score: 0

By Program86

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 11:32 AM

Exactly, stop this "i dont wanna pay for network upgrades" crap from our ISP's. That is total bullsh*it. Pay more for less service.

Go to hell TimeWarner.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 9:09 AM

lmao..

Unlimited, as in 24/7, as in "always on", as opposed to dial-up, which is on demand.

Sometimes, I think God made you retarded just for my entertainment. You couldn't possibly be this stupid without mental retardation, could you?

Score: 0

By horsecharles

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 5:47 PM

LOL you manage to pick on Toolie, even though on the same side of the argument.

Score: 0

By yountmj

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 6:16 PM

It usually does no good responding to him. He's the biggest hit-and-run poster we have here. :)

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 9:09 AM

His brain no workie, either...

Still it's entertaining.

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 3:34 PM

Welcome to the UK's ways of the internet.

It's been like that for as long as I can remember here.

Most ISPs have a download limit and if you exceed you'll be charged.

If you have 'unlimited' download capacity then in reality you have 50GB (unless otherwise stated), which it points out in the ToS, before your connection will be throttled to almost nothing.

Score: 0

By pitdingo2

edited Jan 17, 2008 - 3:20 PM

guess they need to head off the onslaught of competition from Apple TV, M$ Xbox Live, and Sony on demand services.

If you want to download movies, you are going to have to pay AT&T under the guise of "heavy bandwidth" usage. Interesting to see if those caps are not going to apply to AT&T online services.

Score: 0

By dvferret

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 9:35 PM

People actually use Apple TV? No way.

Score: 0

By xyzcb1

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 2:52 PM

Does this mean, if I don't use up the the limit, I will get a refund?

When they said unlimited, it means unlimited. I am not saying up for something say unlimited and in reality unlimited only if you use under X amount.

If they do that, I will drop this and switch to DSL.

Score: 0

By VampireFrost

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 11:10 AM

Does this mean, if I don't use up the the limit, I will get a refund?

lol or do like cingular/att does or did with it's roll over minutes.

i think unlimited should be just that. it use to be companies did this with dial up to keep people from acting as a file server(torrent). now days you can stream tv, radio and other things that aren't data related that chews up bandwith. tw will tell you on there tv ad's that you can watch tv on your pc. lol there they are promoting using bandwith and then on the other hand want to take it away.

Score: 0

By GordieT

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 1:36 PM

Time Warner reportedly has already been implementing such a policy, although it has officially denied any type of throttling.

Even if they don't admit they do it it is written in their policy on their website that they may.

http://help.rr.com/HMSFa...erf.aspx?topic=Policies

You are prohibited from excessive consumption of resources, including CPU time, memory, disk space and session time. You may not use resource-intensive programs, which negatively impact other customers or the performance of Road Runner systems or networks. Road Runner reserves the right to terminate or limit such activities.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 2:12 PM

Comcast has almost exactly the same policy in their ToS.

Add to that the fact that people hear spoken English in an ad and still utterly fail to comprehend it.

"Unilimited" usually refers to the availability of the connection (24/7), "6Mb" (or whatever) usually refers to the *maximum* throughput, etc...

Of course, they hear "unlimited" and "6Mb" and think it is some sort of guarantee that they can download as much as they want and should get 6Mb throughput at all times....

Yeah... Ya know, I think "the" means "you owe me money". Rarely ever seems to be true though....

Score: 0

By bourgeoisdude

edited Jan 17, 2008 - 3:32 PM

Agreed. If the 6mb were guaranteed why the hell would anyone ever use T1 lines anymore?

Score: 0

By sjc001

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 3:03 PM

Yeah, how dare people think...... Nothing good will come of it. Don't they understand Lawyerese? [rolleyes]

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 9:06 AM

Sorry, "Up to 6Mb" is plain English. Sorry you apparently didn't pas the third grade reading level.

Score: 0

By swattz101

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 12:37 PM

That's the point, most people don't pay attention and don't hear the "up to" part. They hear 6Mb, and then if they don't get 6Mb, they complain.

Oh and don't get me started with the Megabit and Megabyte crap they pull. :P

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 1:29 PM

That was my original point....

Score: 0

By swattz101

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 2:07 PM

Right, I saw both posts and then posted to the second out of context. My Bad. :-)

The "up to 6Meg" in the terms is pretty clear, just burried in some of the other legalieze. However, it is also almost always in the fine print of any print or online adverts. All the consumer needs to do is pull out a magnifying glass and read it, it's pretty clear. The problem, I think we agree, is that most people don't bother reading what is in front of thier face. :-)

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 2:44 PM

The problem is they don't bother to read the terms of a service they are paying through the nose for and then blame the "Company" for the disconnect between their fantasy world and reality that inevitably ensues.

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 11:26 AM

Lucky you passed the putting up with any corporate BS grade.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 18, 2008 - 1:33 PM

You're right. I should just bury my head in the sand and follow the herd instead of actually educating myself on the actual terms of the service I pay $80 a month for like everyone else.

At least I'd have plenty of company...

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 12:48 PM

Heavy users of bandwidth have recently found their connections throttled, and in some cases disconnected altogether.

3 times so far this week from Charter Communications.

I'm about ready to switch back to DSL.

Score: 0

By dvferret

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 9:36 PM

lol, wow!

Score: 0

By excelon2005

edited Jan 17, 2008 - 12:33 PM

If Time Warner ups the speeds to "darn fast," then I'll be willing to take a data transfer (NOT bandwidth) quota. If I transfer a lot of data, it's only fair that I pay for it.

Score: 0

By lazarus98

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 1:08 PM

Your already paying for it as it is... If they want to limit usage they need to change there model completely. I pay for use by the month not by the byte. it's 24/7 and I should be able to use it 24/7 as thats what I'm paying for.
There taking a play right out of Cell Phone companies collection of RAPPING anyone who actually uses what they are paying for already.
Why don't they just be upfront with there services in the first place.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Jan 17, 2008 - 2:08 PM

Why don't they just be upfront with there services in the first place.

Looks like they are trying to remedy this now. These previously undocumented "caps" are about to become very well documented.

There taking a play right out of Cell Phone companies collection of RAPPING anyone who actually uses what they are paying for already.

I've never seen Cell phone companies rapping. Anyone. Anywhere. I should know. I hate rap. (except for Run-DMC. They're okay...)

Score: 0

By Adrian79

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 2:30 PM

my cell phone company rapps only when somebody calls me :-)

but seriously i pay comcast for tv/internet $120 a month, if they charge me MORE for using what I already pay for I wont know what to do, I'm addicted to bootytorrents.com

Score: 0

By rsmiff

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 4:22 PM

TW just doesn't get it. As a former employee I know. It shows in their stock price. They don't care about credibility of services or their customers...just the bottom line. Their current customers will just go somewhere else...where it's cheaper and faster...just like AOL users did.

Idiots!!

Score: 0

By dvferret

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 9:39 PM

Well where I am, TW turned into Brighthouse, and it went downhill. Service sucks, customer support sucks, and their equipment especially sucks.

Score: 0

By dhjdhj

posted Jan 17, 2008 - 5:01 PM

Yeah, but that's hard to do in the broadband world. How many choices are actually available in every area ... maybe two at most (Verizon and Cable company) and it's going to be in both their interests to cap service.

Score: 0

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