Time Warner Broadband Cap Trial Rescheduled In Texas 353
jcrousedotcom writes "Time Warner cable apparently has heard that folks aren't too happy with their plan to meter their unlimited connections. From the first paragraph of the article: 'Time Warner Cable's proposed trials of consumption-based billing were originally slated to begin in several markets this summer, where customers would be a part of a tiered pricing scheme. Pricing would have started at 1 GB per month for $15, and go up to 100 GB per month for $75, and include a per-gigabyte overage fee. The public's reaction was less than favorable, and the trials in Texas have been rescheduled.'"
Re:They can either do it openly or covertly (Score:4, Informative)
But what about my god-given right to massive unmetered bandwidth without having to pay for it?
That right exists in many country, European and Asian. You just have to move there.
Re:They can either do it openly or covertly (Score:5, Informative)
So, why is it that South Korea can have 100 mb/s up and down to your house for US$18? And Japan is now rolling out 1 gb/s up/down to the house for less than $100/month?
Re:They can either do it openly or covertly (Score:2, Informative)
Competition ladies and gentleman, a wonderful thing. For some reason it seems like Time Warner Cable didn't get the competition memo. Let me be the first to say; enjoy your misguided, shortsighted failure to up-and-comer _EMPTY_REFERENCE_ !
And Verizon Says... (Score:5, Informative)
Samuel Greenholtz, a retired manager from Verizon, offered this absolutely impenetrable thinking on why broadband providers needed to impose caps on customers and were forced to charge way too much for them:
While a tiered pricing structure may have been inevitable in the long run, if the corporate bashing horde stayed out of the way, the vast majority of users would have avoided paying more for additional capacity. Time Warner Cable does give the politicians what they are looking for â" more bandwidth availability for all of its subscribers. Still, the lowest speed package is not going to be enough for most of the consumers â" and so they will have to take the higher tier offerings â" along with the new overage charges. Had the MSOs been allowed to just cap excessive users, most of the subs would have continued to receive a reasonable amount of bandwidth at the same flat price.
Ironically, all of the illogic obsession with net neutrality will result in even more of a usage-based pricing scheme. There will now be several layers of capping. The anti-ISP crowd has actually created a more beneficial pricing system for these companies. And there is certainly nothing unfair about this development. But the clamoring for so-called equality resulted in an acceleration of the removal of the all-you-can-eat advantage for consumers.
Stopthecap.com is referenced in the article to which Slashdot linked. The citation above from Sam Greenholtz was so outlandish, so clearly showing pro-corporate stances, I had to call it out. I didn't think the corporate side was so violently opposed to net neutrality and unlimited bandwidth, but with gems like "illogical obsession" and "corporate bashing horde", I'm surprised that there's not any active raping and pillaging.
Re:What was that? (Score:3, Informative)
Why bother with AT&T?
In most areas you can switch to earthlink using the same modem, same lines and switch the service over by phone in less than an hour.
Be sure to call time warner and tell them your canceling your internet with them due to unsavory business practices.
Actually. (Score:5, Informative)
They haven't rescheduled anything. This is the exact same start date I got when I called them. This is just more fluff.
I called and emailed (to make sure I cost them the most money) to verify that my price lock guarantee wouldn't allow them to charge me an extra cent or restrict my access. Once I'm done with that I've notified them I'm leaving.
This is going to be really unpopular once people understand their marketing. My mom and dad don't have cable, but they do have Road Runner. They watch Netflix Watch Now movies (as they really like old movies and British TV shows, a place where Netflix excels). My Dad mentioned that he was hoping it would lower his bill. I pointed out that he was exactly the sort of user they were trying to get more money out of. He doesn't utilize their enormously profitable cable division and he's downloading movies from a competitor. He's going to be a direct target of this price gouging.
If my Dad (who's decently tech savvy) didn't spot this then the "unpopularity" they're seeing now is going to be nothing compared to what happens when they try to attempt to bill people for it.
Re:They will get their money one way, or another (Score:4, Informative)
Did you look at their tiers? Basically they have:
1) Affordable tier for people who think the Internet means email.
2) Raping tier for people who know about websites like YouTube.
They're effectively placing all their users who use the Internet regularly in the same bucket as file traders.You only have to download a few movies monthly off of iTunes or Netflix to need their unlimited plan.
If you are a slashdot user, my guess is that you are in tier 2. Or you read slashdot using lynx.
Re:They can either do it openly or covertly (Score:3, Informative)
I've often wondered why we can't have packet meters. Too difficult to implement? Too intimidating to customers?
But tiered pricing isn't so bad if you do it right. I agree that the way cell phone providers do it sucks. But it's not the only way.
In Australia, when you hit your cap you start getting drastically throttled. That means you're pretty much limited to email and low-bandwidth web browsing. If that happens to you a lot (it wouldn't happen at all to most users) and if you care about it (I suspect most people would be content to wait until the next billing cycle before restarting their P2P software) then you call up the ISP and ask to change your plan.
Of course, overage charges are a big source of revenue to cell providers. American ISPs will certainly go the same route if we let them.
Re:They can either do it openly or covertly (Score:5, Informative)
For instance:
San Francisco: 6688 people per square km
New York: 10482 people per square km
Chicago: 4816 people per square km
For comparison, Tokyo has a population density of 5847 people per square km.
So, to re-ask the grandparents question: Why are our urban areas so far behind Japan and South Korea's urban areas?
NO change at all (Score:3, Informative)
Comcast Blocking Stop-the-Cap (Score:3, Informative)
Okay, F-them, I'll read it out of the Google cached page. That completely stalled out also. How long has it been since you've seen the Google cache stall out for minutes? Sniff, sniff, something stinks here.
Where to I find a service that gives me the IP address for a DNS lookup?
Re:They can either do it openly or covertly (Score:2, Informative)
Sweden: 20 people per square km...
Re:They can either do it openly or covertly (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They can either do it openly or covertly (Score:1, Informative)
Read the TW SEC 10-k filing: Network costs went down 11%, profits up 10%, all while we are supposedly consuming 50% more data.
Do a google search.
Also, there is no subsidising internet: They have 3 plans. Slowest speed $30, middle 40, fastest $50. If you don't use the internet much you should be paying $30. My math migh be off but $50 > $30.