Time Warner to test Internet billing based on usage

"We don't want customers to feel they're getting less for more."

I love that quote.

Why?

because the customer is getting less for more.....less money in their pocket for more coporate BS.
 
heavy users, who account for around 5 percent of all customers but typically use more than half of the total network bandwidth, according to a company spokesman.
Click to expand...
I'm going to assume that this is not indicative of the the class of broadband sold only to businesses and schools, but to individuals for private use.

The number of people who can even come up with ways to use that much bandwidth legally is very small. Collateral damage.

I'm interested in the pricing. Maybe theres a bracket for very low usage thats cheaper than what they'd be paying under the old system.
 
I love how corporations will jump at this a-la-carte method for internet, but for cable/satellite television they make it seem like it would be the end of the world. What total BS.
 
The problem with this system is, as someone stated before, is that the standard users are more than likely going to continue to pay the same amount and the heavy users are going to get charged more.


[quote name='Plinko']I love how corporations will jump at this a-la-carte method for internet, but for cable/satellite television they make it seem like it would be the end of the world. What total BS.[/QUOTE]God forbid they try to make money!
 
Thats still fair, since those heavy users can take their business elsewhere, and the savings to the company for having half their bandwidth freed up probably makes up for losing 5% of their customers.

If it is profitable enough that other companies follow, eventually someone will come along and offer a deal to attract all the heavy users.

The market continues to work.
 
[quote name='Dr Mario Kart']The market continues to work.[/QUOTE]

Ugh.

You just pull a bunch of "and then THIS, and then THIS...voila!" out of nowhere and have the gall to declare "the market works"?

ugh.
 
[quote name='Dr Mario Kart']Thats still fair, since those heavy users can take their business elsewhere, and the savings to the company for having half their bandwidth freed up probably makes up for losing 5% of their customers.

If it is profitable enough that other companies follow, eventually someone will come along and offer a deal to attract all the heavy users.

The market continues to work.[/QUOTE]I'd agree with this wholeheartedly if some companies didn't have entire regions locked down where they are the only provider.
 
Its certainly a highly theoretical situation that everyone would follow that model.

What we really need is some government involvement like in South Korea or Japan to make ridiculous broadband available to everyone on the cheap.
 
The last thing we need is the government getting involved where it shouldn't be.

All they should do is bring some competition to the monopolized regions. Things will take care of themselves from there.
 
I, strangely enough, agree with Liquid on this one. The government has no right to get involved here.

However, usage-based internet service is ridiculous. It was annoying and pointless in the days of dial-up, and it's even more annoying and pointless with high speed. I need to know that there isn't a limit, and that I have free reign when it comes to bandwidth. As it stands, Roadrunner costs too much already, and they provide me with just enough speed. I don't know what the best solution is, so I'm not going to offer one, but it certainly isn't forcing an a la carte system on us.
 
[quote name='Dr Mario Kart']Pretty much[/quote]So, someone who downloads like, 5 XBL demos a month, would probably be considered a high bandwidth user. I guess they are also pirates.
 
I'm not sure why everyone is getting so upset. Time Warner is test marketing so we will know if what they are doing is fair/workable from that. They are a business and have the freedom to do this sort of thing, just like you have the freedom to not have internet services coming into your house.

My time warner already limits me because they have the ability to flip a switch and give me 1) a guaranteed stable ip address and 2) higher speed interent. However, they choose to charge more for those services and I choose not to buy them.

My wife and have talked about just cutting our internet bill altogether because we both have computers at work. Losing XBL and phone/map lookups would hurt a little, but otherwise the internet is a waste of time (case in point, me right now).
 
[quote name='umcthomas']I'm not sure why everyone is getting so upset. Time Warner is test marketing so we will know if what they are doing is fair/workable from that. They are a business and have the freedom to do this sort of thing, just like you have the freedom to not have internet services coming into your house.

[/quote]


Well it's human nature.
Of course we are going to be pissed off if it inconveniences or limits us.
We aren't going to rationalize "ohh well if it helps out the muli-million dollar company to save money for themselves then i'm ok with being screwed." .
I think you misread the complaints. We didn't complain that That "Can't legally" do this.
It's Their company of course they can do whatever they want.
We complain that If they do do it, it will piss off the 5-10% of their customers (Us) and we will simply cancel and go with another company.
But we definitely aren't gonna be happy while doing it, hence the shaq fus in the thread.
 
WHAT THE fuck?

This is like the AOL days back at version 2.5.

No fixed rates? Charging for usage amounts? My cable service already blows enough now. If my cable company tacks this shit on (with all the other problems I already have with them now), then I'd go with someone else.

Talk about taking a huge step backwards. It doesn't make any sense for consumers to take a step backwards in quality because TW can't run its business.

[quote name='Liquid 2']The last thing we need is the government getting involved where it shouldn't be.

All they should do is bring some competition to the monopolized regions. Things will take care of themselves from there.[/QUOTE]

Bingo.
 
[quote name='VanillaGorilla']So, someone who downloads like, 5 XBL demos a month, would probably be considered a high bandwidth user. I guess they are also pirates.[/quote]

You seem to be thinking that I said that 100% of private heavy users are pirates, when I'm actually saying its something that can easily be rounded up to 100%, with the rest being collateral damage.
 
I'm tired of Insight constantly sending me "Your connection has been slowed for reaching your daily quota" messages every other day. I don't even download that much to reach it, but it must mean I am a heavy user. To think my rates would go even higher on a service with Time Warner would be awful.

I'd be switching services, ASAP, if I were affected (and I assume most of their "5%" will do the same).
 
[quote name='Dr Mario Kart']You seem to be thinking that I said that 100% of private heavy users are pirates, when I'm actually saying its something that can easily be rounded up to 100%, with the rest being collateral damage.[/quote]

...What's the point of making a blanket statement like that? Okay, yeah. A ton of the people using the internet "heavily" are pirates. Does that mean the rest of the users don't deserve fair treatment?
 
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