Time Warner plans to cap usage

[Bman212121]

Time Warner Cable has begun putting new subscribers to its service on metered accounts. This new model, apparently limited to the area of Beaumont, Texas, provides users a certain "allowance" and will charge users $1 per gigabyte when they exceed their limit. Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president of advanced technology, told the AP that this metered billing approach is an attempt "to deal fairly with Internet usage", given the fact that just 5% of the company’s subscribers are taking up "half of the capacity on local cable lines".

According to the AP article, Time Warner Cable is offering tiers that will range "from $29.95 a month for relatively slow service at 768 Kb/s and a 5 gigabyte monthly cap to $54.90 per month for fast downloads at 15 Mb/s and a 40 GB cap." By any measure, these are pricey plans, even if we don’t consider the download cap. Both downloads and uploads will count toward the monthly cap, by the way. Justifying its metered approach, Leddy told the AP that "We think it’s the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure."

A 5 GB cap will give users a bandwidth of about 166 MB per day, which may not be enough for most users and families out there today. A 40 GB cap elevates the average daily download volume to 1.3 GB, which should be enough, if you are not downloading a movie every day. But some may argue that for $55 a month, there should not be a cap at all.

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Time-War...news-1562.html

Wow I really hope they aren't serious... I can almost guarentee that I use over 40GB a month. I just had to download the patches for COH the other day and that weighs in at about 2GB right there. Then add in a technet download, and maybe a game demo and I've already used 1/4 of the cap in a day. If you were to download at your max speed, you could theoretically use an entire months usage in about 6 hours.

Thankfully I don't have TW, but IIRC they are owned by Comcast, who also has been rumored to be looking at caps.

[nekrosoft13]

5 gigabyte monthly cap

holly hell

They have got to be kidding. That is complete Gib*****!

[Monolyth]

from $29.95 a month for relatively slow service at 768 Kb/s and a 5 gigabyte monthly cap to $54.90 per month for fast downloads at 15 Mb/s and a 40 GB cap.

$29.95 is way overpriced for such a package WAY overpriced. If this is meant to be the "people that check e-mail and do a little browsing package", they missed the mark by at least $10. And the 15mb/s on a 40GB limited service is a joke, I watch a lot of my TV shows (and some movies) online, and man someone help me if I want to watch them in HD + my normal surfing + iTunes downloads + gaming + patches + game downloads.

Wait never mind I can only do 2-3 of those things every month, guess it's time to live without...

[Runningman]

This will never survive in a market with GPON FIOS and docsis 3.0...

[crainger]

Haha welcome to my world! That's your standard Australian plan right there.

[bobmitch]

I am soooo glad I dropped Time Warner when Verizon FIOS became available...over a year ago...what a difference in speeds AND customer service. TWC was awful...and Verizon is actually pretty good. I went from 6/768 to 15/2 and never look back. Fibre Optic is the way to go...no matter what TWC promised...they never followed through...and Verizon s good to their word

[Serrasalmus]

also think about voip if your on the phone all the time....

[nrdstrm]

Originally Posted by bobmitch

I am soooo glad I dropped Time Warner when Verizon FIOS became available...over a year ago...what a difference in speeds AND customer service. TWC was awful...and Verizon is actually pretty good. I went from 6/768 to 15/2 and never look back. Fibre Optic is the way to go...no matter what TWC promised...they never followed through...and Verizon s good to their word

Yep...Not only is FIOS uncapped, but they are increasing speeds again nation wide. I think the new speeds going into effect next week look like this :
5/2 increase to 10/2
15/2 increase to 20/5
15/15 increase to 20/20 (my package...woot!)
30/10 increase to 50/20 (or somthing to that effect)

I love me some Verizon...lol

[Runningman]

Originally Posted by nrdstrm

Yep...Not only is FIOS uncapped, but they are increasing speeds again nation wide. I think the new speeds going into effect next week look like this :
5/2 increase to 10/2
15/2 increase to 20/5
15/15 increase to 20/20 (my package...woot!)
30/10 increase to 50/20 (or somthing to that effect)

I love me some Verizon...lol

lol i have faster fios...tee hee...

[mailman2]

Originally Posted by Bman212121

Thankfully I don't have TW, but IIRC they are owned by Comcast.

TWC is not owned by Comcast.

[sillyeagle]

Yeah, that's nuts. We get 10/512 for $35 and 30/768 for $50 on Cable Modem service, with no bandwidth cap. Who needs Fiber when you've got 30mb coax? lol