Time Warner to Place Caps on Subscriber Bandwidth?

[Mr. Peabody]

Damn, I hope this doesn't take hold in SA anytime soon.


40GB for $55 per month: Time Warner bandwidth caps arrive

By Ryan Paul | Published: June 03, 2008 - 09:18AM CT

Time Warner Cable will launch a trial program on Thursday which will impose monthly Internet consumption caps on new subscribers in Beaumont, Texas. Following a two-month grace period, cable users will pay $1 for each additional gigabyte consumed beyond the cap.
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* Leaked memo: Time Warner Cable to trial hard bandwidth caps

Time Warner Cable's plan to test metered service was originally revealed to the public when an internal company memo was leaked in January and later confirmed by the company. The memo indicated that the results of the trial would be used to determine whether to roll out the bandwidth-capping plan to other regions.

Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable executive vice president of advanced technology, told the Associated Press that the variable billing model is being adopted to address the disparity in bandwidth consumption among Time Warner Cable users. Five percent of the subscribers are consuming half of the local line capacity, Leddy says.

The caps differ depending on the tier of service paid for by the consumer. The lowest level of service is a 768Kbps connection with a 5GB cap for $29.95 per month. The high-end package will offer 15MBps with a 40GB cap for $54.90 per month. Consumers will pay by the gigabyte for consumption in excess of the established caps. Customers will be able to see how much bandwidth they have left by visiting the Time Warner Cable web site.

As we noted in our detailed look at the scheme back in January, usage caps will likely drive consumers to conventional DSL or emerging alternatives such as Verizon's much-loved FiOS service and WiMAX-based solutions. Unfortunately, many are stuck in regions that suffer from meager broadband competition and have few options available.

Time Warner Cable's bandwidth caps might seem like acceptable limitations at first glance, but they look a lot less attractive when one considers the growing number of important services we use that soak up lots of bandwidth. The Internet is increasingly being used as a vector for distributing software and digital video content and also facilitates multiplayer gaming, video conferencing, real-time collaboration, interactive remote desktop access, file backups, and many other bandwidth intensive activities.

Generous caps (say, 200GB a month) designed only to rein in the top 1 percent of users sound more like a fair proposition, but a 5GB cap when paying thirty bucks a month? One can get uncapped DSL from companies like AT&T (that also offers more speed) for less than this.

The software I use here to automatically track my own bandwidth consumption shows that I far exceed those caps every single month on a not-particularly-fast 3Mbps DSL line. My habits obviously don't reflect the behavior of regular users right now, but it's important to note that services like the iTunes store and Netflix's new Roku offering are going to making digital video delivery highly accessible to everyone. Time Warner Cable might find itself with few customers when these bandwidth intensive services become mainstream. In the meantime, just about every other broadband ISP will be closely watching Time Warner's experiment.

[Slydragon]

I read they were going to do this months ago and they are just starting the testing on it. If they do that I will find another isp.

[exstatic]

All the ISPs are out to fuck over customers now. Comcast was dropping in random packets to terminate downloads. AT&T is allegely looking into monitoring and limiting your traffic.

If they're just going to allow enough bandwidth for browsing, I'll go back to dialup, and they can shove their limits up their asses.

[robino2001]

I didn't realize they hadn't started testing on this either.

That's a rough price for that little bandwidth... anyone know what the unlimited price is? A couple of HD movie downloads and you're in trouble.

[DoubtingThomas]

I doubt this will effect me since I don't download anything.

[TDMVPDPOY]

hahahahaa


man im payin aus$80 1.5mb/25gig cap

theres a few new plans out like adsl2+ 24mb connection 200gb 40-50gb peak/160gb off peak for 70bucks...ima change to that soon....

[CubanMustGo]

The major service providers have to pay for the bandwidth they consume. If customers demand more downloads, they have to go add additional circuits (or upgrade existing ones), add additional router capability, add capacity to the infrastructure supporting customers, etc. etc. It costs money and I see no reason with those who are downloading hundreds of GB monthly to actually pay for the privilege.

TANSTAAFL, people. They will no doubt come up with some 'reasonable' compromise (5GB ain't much) but the days of unlimited bandwidth are numbered given the ever-increasing richness of content and ever-increasing demand.

[JoeChalupa]

I doubt this will effect me since I don't download anything.

Me either. Other than pics I don't download music or movies. I alway end up getting some crap on my pc and Mouse has to flush it out.

[Melmart1]

The major service providers have to pay for the bandwidth they consume. If customers demand more downloads, they have to go add additional circuits (or upgrade existing ones), add additional router capability, add capacity to the infrastructure supporting customers, etc. etc. It costs money and I see no reason with those who are downloading hundreds of GB monthly to actually pay for the privilege.

TANSTAAFL, people. They will no doubt come up with some 'reasonable' compromise (5GB ain't much) but the days of unlimited bandwidth are numbered given the ever-increasing richness of content and ever-increasing demand.

What does TANSTAAFL mean? I swear, I am sick of trying to guess what the hell people are saying with these long-ass acronyms.

[boutons_]

melmart, sorry about your sickness. Ask Your Doctor, or:

http://www.acronymfinder.com/

[CubanMustGo]

Hell, TANSTAAFL's been around for decades.

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Courtesy Robert Heinlein.

[boutons_]

We have usage fees for other infrastructure-intensive public utilities like water and electricity. Why be surprised about (ab)usage fees for Internet?

You know the corps will jack up prices as high as possible. It's what they do. It's a "free market". If you don't like the prices, don't buy (or don't abuse).

Usually, every business tries to charge the highest price for the highest profit while delivering the smallest-input, shittiest, minimal product possible (e.g., health care). And if a business can swing itself into a monopoly (MS) or join/start a cartel, even better.

Another aspect is that the USA is way behind other industrial countries in delivering high-speed infrastructure (eg, fiber to the home) at affordable prices.

For wealthiest, most kick-ass country in the Universe, WTF?

http://freepress.net/news/14939

[CubanMustGo]

<dunno why this posted twice, sorry>

[MoSpur]

That's pretty dumb. I am sure they will lose a good amount of customers if and when this happens. I usually don't download too much from the internet, but I know a lot of people do. Why place a cap? It all comes down to the $$$$

[Dex]

Well, when it comes down to it, the people downloading more than that limit are either downloading things they technically shouldn't be, or are doing processes which probably are better served for a professional level service anyway.

That being said, I'll be pissed if Suddenlink decides to start charging per bandwidth. Right now theyve got a download limit of about 2 mb/s, which is a decent enough compromise for me.

[boutons_]

"will lose a good amount of customers"

That's the whole point, and it won't be a "good amount".

The objective is to scare away (or penalize) the profit-killing 20% who are hogging/abusing bandwidth, while retaining the highly profitable 80% who DL essentially nothing other than email and browsing.

DL limits are not, eg, 2 Mb/s, but total GB/billing period.

The technology is around (used by network operators when selling to retailers) to monitor b/w and charge for the average b/w rather than total MB. If you DLed a huge spike but otherwise were way under, the spike wouldn't be billable, would be averaged into your avg b/w.

What the MB cap should be is another discussion.

I really would be pissed if DLing 150 MB of required Windows security updates cost me $5 for the b/w.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Well, when it comes down to it, the people downloading more than that limit are either downloading things they technically shouldn't be, or are doing processes which probably are better served for a professional level service anyway.

That being said, I'll be pissed if Suddenlink decides to start charging per bandwidth. Right now theyve got a download limit of about 2 mb/s, which is a decent enough compromise for me.

So, what about the people playing 360 or PS3 over the net?

It'd be one thing if we had an awesome high speed internet infrastructure, but what we get (unless you live in a FIOS area) doesn't hold a candle to what most of Europe has (and we're paying more for it too...).

[baseline bum]

Online gaming: nope
Youtube: nope
Windows/Acrobat/iTunes/etc updates: fuck no
Watching TV shows @ ABC.com/FOX.com/etc.: no chance
ESPN.com highlights: no

$30 a month just to check my email and browse? LMAO, bullshit

[boutons_]

"360 or PS3 over the net"

I'm not a player, but my son is. Isn't the b/w used by on-line games actualy quite small? with all the high-bandwidth video created on the console?

My son used to bitch about LLBs, low-lag bastards, who dominated games because they had fast connections and fast hops all the way to the game server, short pings. ie, the response time was paramount, no matter what or how much b/w was used.

Anyway, a quick look didn't really find any useful numbers. My guess is that game writers work very hard to reduce b/w usage so their servers are not overwhelmed.

It is funny to see people thinking their 10s of frames/second are coming to them over their WAN link, as if their game box had no video capability and all the frames came from the server.

[ShoogarBear]

What does TANSTAAFL mean? I swear, I am sick of trying to guess what the hell people are saying with these long-ass acronyms.

LWGASWYT.

[baseline bum]

It is funny to see people thinking their 10s of frames/second are coming to them over their WAN link, as if their game box had no video capability and all the frames came from the server.

Who was ever claiming that?

[Heath Ledger]

Trial meaning if customers don't bitch about it, its here to stay and will spread, so you must bitch, moan and complain, threaten to cancel your service and move to verizon f.i.o.s. thats the only hope.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

"360 or PS3 over the net"

I'm not a player, but my son is. Isn't the b/w used by on-line games actualy quite small? with all the high-bandwidth video created on the console?

My son used to bitch about LLBs, low-lag bastards, who dominated games because they had fast connections and fast hops all the way to the game server, short pings. ie, the response time was paramount, no matter what or how much b/w was used.

Anyway, a quick look didn't really find any useful numbers. My guess is that game writers work very hard to reduce b/w usage so their servers are not overwhelmed.

It is funny to see people thinking their 10s of frames/second are coming to them over their WAN link, as if their game box had no video capability and all the frames came from the server.

I've seen lag in PS3 games at a buddy of mine's, I don't know actual numbers but I was just throwing it out there as an example of valid bandwidth consumption. Would love to see some legit numbers on what kind of bandwidth consumption the consoles do suck up.

[boutons_]

http://wiki.gamedev.net/index.php/Optimizing_Your_Online_Game_Bandwidth

I bet the gaming b/w isn't too bad per hour compared with DLing, but some people play many hours per week.

Anyway, I bet the Beaumont experiment goes on for months, with adjustments to the cap and charges.

Strange that Beaumont was chosen, it's a pretty poor, podunk place, even in the opinion of the people who live there.

[PM5K]

We have usage fees for other infrastructure-intensive public utilities like water and electricity.

I always thought of technology more like cellular phone service, it should get cheaper as technology gets cheaper, and faster.


the people downloading more than that limit are either downloading things they technically shouldn't be

How do you figure?

You must be the one downloading things you shouldn't.

You can download music, and high definition movies over the inernet legally using services such as Xbox Live and iTunes, add game demos, YouTube, etc and your usage can add up fast.

TimeWarner is trying to take advantage of the fact that digital delivery is the new thing, it's not that it's costing them more though...

[PM5K]

http://wiki.gamedev.net/index.php/Optimizing_Your_Online_Game_Bandwidth

I bet the gaming b/w isn't too bad per hour compared with DLing, but some people play many hours per week.

Anyway, I bet the Beaumont experiment goes on for months, with adjustments to the cap and charges.

Strange that Beaumont was chosen, it's a pretty poor, podunk place, even in the opinion of the people who live there.

It's not just about the bandwidth you spend playing a game, but what about downloading the trailer for that game, then the demo, then updates like new maps for that game, and many others.

I think a few people underestimate how easy it is to soak up bandwidth and how many legal ways your average Joe can find to do so, it's not just the people downloading things illegally via torrents for example.

[sabar]

It's not just about the bandwidth you spend playing a game, but what about downloading the trailer for that game, then the demo, then updates like new maps for that game, and many others.

I think a few people underestimate how easy it is to soak up bandwidth and how many legal ways your average Joe can find to do so, it's not just the people downloading things illegally via torrents for example.

Yep, exactly. ISPs want to abuse digital distribution. Here is a common scenario.

Joe decides he wants to play the latest MMO. He hops online and pays via credit card to download an 8 gb game. Once he has the game, Joe downloads an additional 4 gb in updates. Joe makes a movie of his gameplay and decides to distribute it online. It is too high quality for youtube so he makes it a torrent file and gives his friends the tracker. The video becomes quite popular and over the next week Joe has uploaded 50 gb of his video to other users with P2P technology.

Joe now decides to hop onto his Xbox360. He downloads a trailer for Bioshock at 0.5gb. Intrigued, Joe then downloads the trial version at 1.2gb. Later Joe will update windows and download 1.2 gb of updates.

Fact is: digital distribution is the future. it is NOW.
Fact is: ISPs see big $$$ in a world where people can watch live streaming TV on the net and download entire hi-def episodes of their favorite shows.
Fact is: Joe will be pretty mad when he gets a $120 bill for his bandwidth usage.

I downloaded a bunch of files the other day. I had over 4.4 million packets sent/received and noticed afterwards that my connection was dropping everyone 10 minutes. I had heard that AT&T had plans to do this. It is total garbage. It's hard to play a game when I get dropped from the server every 10 minutes because AT&T thinks they know what's best for me.

[Slomo]

Yep, exactly. ISPs want to abuse digital distribution. Here is a common scenario.

Joe decides he wants to play the latest MMO. He hops online and pays via credit card to download an 8 gb game. Once he has the game, Joe downloads an additional 4 gb in updates. Joe makes a movie of his gameplay and decides to distribute it online. It is too high quality for youtube so he makes it a torrent file and gives his friends the tracker. The video becomes quite popular and over the next week Joe has uploaded 50 gb of his video to other users with P2P technology.

Joe now decides to hop onto his Xbox360. He downloads a trailer for Bioshock at 0.5gb. Intrigued, Joe then downloads the trial version at 1.2gb. Later Joe will update windows and download 1.2 gb of updates.

Fact is: digital distribution is the future. it is NOW.
Fact is: ISPs see big $$$ in a world where people can watch live streaming TV on the net and download entire hi-def episodes of their favorite shows.
Fact is: Joe will be pretty mad when he gets a $120 bill for his bandwidth usage.

I downloaded a bunch of files the other day. I had over 4.4 million packets sent/received and noticed afterwards that my connection was dropping everyone 10 minutes. I had heard that AT&T had plans to do this. It is total garbage. It's hard to play a game when I get dropped from the server every 10 minutes because AT&T thinks they know what's best for me.


http://www.cikava.com/gallery/albums/Emoticons/ding_ding_ding.jpg

[Al Gore]

Soon the internet will dry up and then where will you be?

I blame Bush for this shit!

[CubanMustGo]

I always thought of technology more like cellular phone service, it should get cheaper as technology gets cheaper, and faster.


To a certain extent it already has. Plus if you want to send unlimited text messages, you pay more. If you want unlimited talk time during prime, you pay more. If you want an unlimited data plan, you pay more. Again, those consuming the most pay for it while Gramma Jo who just wants to talk to her grandkids a coupla times a month pays much less (if she knows what she's doing, anyway).

[boutons_]

"cellular phone service, it should get cheaper"

Anybody here paying LESS for their wire line than they are for the cell line?

Anybody paying their cell line at 3x more than than wire line?

[BacktoBasics]

"cellular phone service, it should get cheaper"

Anybody here paying LESS for their wire line than they are for the cell line?

Anybody paying their cell line at 3x more than than wire line?My land line ran into the 30 buck range with caller ID, call waiting and long distance. I just bought Cricket and get unlimited minutes, unlimited text, call waiting, 3-way, free 411, caller ID and long distance for 36 bucks a month regardless of how long or short the month is.

[PM5K]

And that's the whole point.

Yet I'm paying the same for Road Runner as I was four years ago, even though all of the technology that supports the service has gotten cheaper and faster over these years.

And honestly I don't have a problem with that, just don't take me for a sucker and act like you have to charge me more, or place limits on my usage, when in reality you're trying to capitalize on digital delivery...

[N.Y. Johnny]

Soon the internet will dry up and then where will you be?

I blame Bush for this shit!




INTERNET 2 :king:downspin:

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

http://wiki.gamedev.net/index.php/Optimizing_Your_Online_Game_Bandwidth

I bet the gaming b/w isn't too bad per hour compared with DLing, but some people play many hours per week.

Anyway, I bet the Beaumont experiment goes on for months, with adjustments to the cap and charges.

Strange that Beaumont was chosen, it's a pretty poor, podunk place, even in the opinion of the people who live there.

It makes perfect sense if you want to frame the results. As in 'well, bandwidth usage went down as a result of this and the (rich) that wanted the extra bandwidth paid for it. We're convinced...