Time Warner Cable tries metering Internet use
June 2, 2008 By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer(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.
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This is transparently a way to generate additional revenue.
If they are so concerned about fairness, please let them tell us what they do with the money they receive from people who do not use their internet bandwidth at all. Are they giving any of that money back?
I hope the people of Beaumont see through this and let TW know how they feel by cancelling their cable internet and getting DSL.
The only danger is that in areas where there is no competition allowances will be set low or prices for going over them too high. If done sensibly its the best way for everyone.
They fail to mention is that the 5% of users that are using up the bandwidth are mostly businesses/schools. I'm sure they'd rather you think it's kids/p2p.
This is a means of giving people suprise bills when they unknowingly go over the limit. I would support them implementing a system like the power company, where you would pay for different speeds during different times of the day. IE, you would have a package for 1mb during peak and 3mb offpeak... etc.
It's not fair to charge people for crap they don't want, such as banners, pop-ups and drm streaming media that doesn't work half the time... along with the cable company being able to insert ads into html. If I've got to download a 600mb file 3-4 times because my connection keeps on timing out it's not really fair to charge me for it? Are we going to get refunds for incomplete transfers? It took me two days to download debian because of connection errors.
Broadcast cable is a slowly dying media. They need to embrace the internet and start offering some dynamic content instead of hindering it.
I'm assuming they also include 'free sites' into this deal. You can DL all the shows/content you want from TW sites/partners without using your bit-allowance; justifying this as being in-network traffic, while really pushing advertizing hits...end rant...
byte reversals.
samo samo.
this time a new condom, if you're lucky
If TW did this in my area, I'd dump them immediately and switch to something else, like fios. Though I am sure they aren't dumb enough to do in an area with competitors present.
Just paying different amounts for different speeds may not be enough to make things fair. Some people may not create much traffic, but still like to get the things they do done fast; the best thing for them would be a high-speed but low-bandwidth connection. I'm a great believer in service packages that offer maximum flexibility and don't require me to subsidize other people's usage.
TW customers should get together, and max their bandwidth. Make your voices heard by taking down a few of there routers.
We are on one of the largest plan available and we are lucky as it is also one of the few that does not meter uploads. So yes i sympathise with you and yes it sucks but we have a better solution that increased costs (although $1 a gig is cheap!) our accounts ar simply shaped, we dont pay for connection speed so when our quota is reached they slow our speed down, if your really unlucky it can be quicker to connect with dial up.
My mother-in-law stays up until 3am sometimes playing free online card games. Are all the retired people that play on or surf the net going to have to pay more, knowing they are on a fixed income? I am all for the companies making the money, but when is enough going to be enough.
Well the way I see it, if they want to do this, is they at least need to get their connections working more than 50% of the time. Not to mention the people they are basicaly scaming when someone gets the 7mb connection and are only getting 3mb. Then they might worry about more money from the mettering.
If they are doing this so they don't have to cut money from their pockets to upgrade the system then I say why do we have to pay or why is it our fault you put too many users on the segments you have without upgrading the equipment or the amount of equipment they have.
All that being said, if they do go forward with this I hope that those areas and anyone else would drop their service. Even if there are no other alternative solutions. I am sure when they stop making money at all, being the money whores they are becoming, they will be more open to an alternative solution.
Maybe raising the price a couple dollars for each package. Even though some say they are not using it they shouldn't have to pay, its the speed at which you can do that should matter not how much you use. If you really want to save money from that bill if your not using it, cancel it and go to the library, ours has high speed, and dowwn load your few things there. Oh, wait you won't be able to since they will have to stop service or may be over their cap and cannot alow you to use it. If you still have yours up after this can I come over and finish my online classes on your connection?