40GB for $55 per month: Time Warner bandwidth caps arrive
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
* 768Kbps connection with a 5GB cap for $29.95 per month
* 15MBps with a 40GB cap for $54.90 per month
* Customers will be able to see how much bandwidth they have left by visiting the Time Warner Cable web site.
* $1 for each additional gigabyte consumed beyond the cap.
In any case, I'm glad I live in an area with decent ISP competition. If I was charged like this I would switch in a heartbeat.
I believe I might actually prefer the expensive and fair model.
Or, you know, they could have enough network capacity to support the speeds they offer.
Ironically I moved to Beaumont (the city in question) last week (girlfriend earns big bucks with Exxonmobil). I'm definitely glad I have a 6m/768k dry loop DSL plan with AT&T that doesn't have any bandwidth limits... especially since it's only $38.99 a month.
If they were really trying to fix a network problem by modifying behavior, it'd make sense to go after the top 1% of bandwidth users (which according to my last cable company used 35% of bandwidth) by setting really high caps and higher per gb fees. By applying silly things like 5gb caps, all they are trying to do is milk more money out people that don't know any better.
(If anyone in the Texas/Oklahoma/Kansas area wants dry loop DSL, you can save yourself time by calling the dry loop department directly at 1-800-264-0002. Sadly I don't even like AT&T that much, but at least they don't do retarded stuff like this.)
Rationally speaking: These blokes were given a free rein and tax breaks by Clinton to develop sturdy networks capable of handling great loads and redundancies at multiple layers and levels. The fact that they sat on their asses all the while eating the money and spent virtually nothing on improving the internet experience makes them monopolizing culprits. If anything,the government should penalize them to the tune of billions for the disservice they've done the public. And oh btw, for these rates I'd switch providers immediately if I had an option or go back to dialup.
What I meant was, this is slightly more honorable than telling the customer that it is unlimited and then cutting off the account without warning when the magic undisclosed number is reached. This way the customer knows in advance that the service sucks monkey balls and can choose an alternative if possible.
They are doing this knowing that high bandwidth customers are likely to leave and they either a) don't care or b) are doing this specifically to lose the high bandwidth users. Cable is already pushed to its limits and providers are spending a lot of money to keep up with satellite's HD offerings.
Unfortunately for TWC, there are plenty of options and eventually this model will cannibalize their entire broadband business.
Heh, watch out for bittorrent clients on your network!
40 GB = 42,949,672,960 bytes
1 month = 2,629,743.83 seconds
40GB/1month = 16,331 bytes/second
8 bits per byte -> 16,331 * 8 = 130,648 bits/sec
So round about 131 kilobits / second.
Dialup was 50 kilobits/second practically so almost but not quite 3 times the speed of dialup.
Ridiculous.
I suppose it's not held up the massive expansion of broadband as much here because the alternative, dialup, is even more expensive, at generally between €0.01 to €0.015 (~$0.015-$0.02) per minute. We've always been used to paying a premium for internet access, so when something comes along that's better value for money, more people jump on board.
The capped or pay-per-megabyte contracts are still the norm on mobile (EDGE, 3G/HSDPA/HSUPA) internet access though. But mobile communications contracts in general already have pretty draconian terms in my experience. (minimum runtime 24 months, small print overload, etc., at least you aren't charged for receiving calls/texts these days anymore)
ESPN360 (from a 'content company') has been only available to users of ISPs ('delivery providers') who've paid licensing fees to ESPN. [1] This arrangement has existed for a couple years, at least. That would seem to undercut the claim such agreements are illegal.
[1] http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-espn-opens-broadband-ac...
This is one of the key issues in the "Net Neutrality" debate.
But mostly it reminds me of why I cut all ties to the local cable monopoly last time I moved.
For what it's worth, I haven't had a moment's trouble with verizon, despite being firmly among the top 1 percent of users.
Why would I pay $29.95 with a 5GB cap, when I can get 1.5mb/s DSL for $19.95 with no cap
Why would I pay $54.90 for 15MBps with a 40gb cap, if I can get 20MPps FIOS for $39.99.
I'm pretty much stuck with time warner (offering 10+mbps downloads) or sbc (best is 3mbps for me and I don't even get those speeds) both for around $40 and I live in Los Angeles. There's a few other options, but not many that are uncapped (or have a more reasonable cap like Comcast's) or are reasonably priced.
If Time Warner ever decides to expand this program I'll definitely be one switching away even if it's something slower. On second thought, the more expensive offerings might be worth it compared to what I use every month and I'm not even counting the BitTorrent (legit or not) traffic, sigh.
Sadly most people don't know any better.