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Time Warner to Charge Extra for Over-Quota Bandwidth
duckygator writes: "I just came across this article on NetworkWorld discussing Time Warner's announcement that they will begin charging users a fee for exceeding a monthly download limit. The actual limits and associated fees aren't discussed. Guess I knew this would be coming sooner or later ... Now I guess I'll just have to guess where the threshold will be. Anything more than email? Active gamer? Graphic artist?"
If it ends up that 5% of users end up paying extra, good. If it ends up that 95% of users end up paying extra, there's a problem.
I think the biggest thing I fear is that the latter case will become the norm. Just like those per-pound salad bars, you never know how much you've used until you check out. I'm sure the cable companies would love to use that model, and want everyone to have $200 bills at the end of the month.
What percentage of users paying "extra" is appropriate?
In my area, a cable modem costs $40 on top of cable, but a very nice DSL feed with 5 static IP's is only $65. This is only a 25 dollar difference monthly. If the differences closes up any, I'll simply switch. 5 static IP addresses are in and of themselves worth quite a bit to me. TW only offers static IP's with their business class service, which, IIRC, is $150 monthly.
C//
Why not? If I follow the terms of the terms of service, I see it as the providers problem, not mine
I paid for the service - essentially you're telling me if I go to McDonalds and eat all of the food I ordered, I have bad manners. I draw the line at breaking the terms of service - I see it as a contract for the service rendered. "Back in the old days", the internet was an academic resource. Now it's a commercial resource. It costs money. For money, I get a service. If I don't use that service, it's my perogative. If I use the service as much as I possibly can, it's my perogative. It might be their network, but for the time I "rent it" for $40/month, I'll do the hell I want with it.
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Kinda goes against the purpose of "broadband" doesn't it. Wonder if Comcast is next.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
Alot of times, these Cable Modem guys sink thier own boat. They KNOW they can't handle additional users, but then I see adverts all over the freaking place for Road Runner. This is like selling pepsi when you ain't got none. Why in the world would you market it if you know you can't handle it? Although I am not holding my breath on this happening either. It could happen, but my guess is they want to see how pissed people would get. The funny thing is, all of the things they advertise ARE heavy bandwidth uses. Streaming Video and all of that are high users of bandwidth.
Gorkman
- Fraud. Several prolific warez kiddies figured out how to
change their MAC address to bill their service to their neighbors or even
to our own router (!). We're still not sure exactly how that
happened. Sure, we cut them off and connected their modems to a high
voltage source as punishment (our contract allowed it), but how many more
are there who we didn't catch?
- Billing issues. People who obviously ran up a very high
bandwidth bill would call us and complain when they got their statements,
asking us to lower their bills. Our position was that it wasn't our
responsibility that they couldn't figure out how to close Napster or stop
downloading porn. When they paid with credit card we would sometimes lose
the dispute, but things were okay when they paid with cash or check.
- Expectation of quality. As you know, a cable modem is a shared
medium and cable companies are not at fault for your neighbors' downloading
habits. However, it was considered a potential legal liability to be
providing a service of varying quality.
For these reasons and many others, metered cable modem service just won't work.I wonder if it would be possible to setup a few processes to ping a range of IP addresses to cause accounts to run over their quota. Would they distinguish real traffic from garbage such as that?
You know, if there was any REAL competition in broadband, I'd say that this is good, because it'd sink AOLTimeWarner, as all their subscribers flee to alternative providers.
But, since getting broadband internet is a lot like getting cable television, I think that the consumer is going to get screwed big time by this.
Seriously, has deregulation ever benefited consumers? I can't think of a time off the top of my head when it has. It seems to me that it always benefits big business at the consumer's expense, and this is yet another example of the consumer getting screwed by a deregulated conglomerate.
No less attractive, just offline with CDRs or DVD-RAM or online with ad hoc wireless networks that will displace the corporate mavens if this becomes widespread. Just like the death of Napster spawned Gnutella, the death of the flat-rate Internet will spawn loosely confederated wireless networks. If the governments and corporate whores think they have a problem controlling the flow of information now, they ain't see nuthin' yet.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
I understand the net access limiting in college dorms - most people in college don't give a shit about bandwidth, so they just let kazaa/morpheus run unrestricted all they want - it isn't their money. They just end up fucking the people who really need the bandwidth. These people NEED bandwidth limits.
However, excedding bandwidth limits on a cable modem is not supposed to happen. That's what the 12k/sec cap on uploads is there for, right? If they want to charge me for the extra bandwidth i use, why not allow me to take all my alloted bandwidth in one lump sum? If i upload the latest release of my Linux distro once a month, i'll be using, say, 600 megs of "bandwidth" that month. What difference does it make to them if i spend 10 hours uploading it, or 2 minutes? I still use the same ammount, and still have to pay extra when i go over.
I don't think its fair that they implement upload caps to limit our bandwidth usage, and then say how much we can use what little sending speed we have. Of cours, this is corporate America, and nothing is fair from the consumer's point of view.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
I run a rather unpopular website with some pictures of my coral reef tank. Sadly, Time Warner doesn't want me to run a server because of the traffic it could consume.
Now that they have a per for traffic model, can I run my server?
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
P2P piracy? Someone please just come to my house and shoot me...
I can't imagine how low we've all come since just 2 years ago.
In another 2 years will there even be an internet left? The day I see a 10 10 220 plan for paying for internet time...I'm just gonna pull the trigger.
Everything that's happening is the THE EXACT AND DIAMETRIC OPPOSITE of what was supposed to happen!
We were all expecting BETTER service, FASTER service, MORE applications, MORE companies, MORE global communication. And just look at what's been happening!
Then this asshole posts that P2P is just about 14 year old kids trading warez and pr0n!?!!? Are brainwashed chimps like this guy all we've got left in the geek community?
P2P is a godsend!
BUT WE'LL NEVER GET A CHANCE TO IMPLEMENT IT IF CONNECTING TO THE NET COSTS 10 CENTS A MINUTE!
This is the same model us here in Australia have been offered. With my cable ISP, Telstra BigPond, you can download a maximum of 3GB a month before you are charged 11 cents per MB (there are different plans available with more or less data, but the 3GB one is the one most users are on, and is the best value).
All Telstra content is exempt from this, and does not count towards your quota. Telstra mirror the major Linux and *BSD distros, service packs, game demos, movie trailers as well as providing video streams (including full replays of every NRL and AFL game).
The other major cable ISP, Optusnet, allows users to download up to 10 times the average of all customers over a 14 day period. Currently, the average user downloads 75MB a day. They have a tool called Netstats that allows users to get this information. Optus does have a fairer system, but they haven very limited availability (only selected parts of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane; nothing outside those cities), and you cannot run servers at all (Telstra allows this). There are also rumours that since SingTel bought Optus, they are looking at changing this system to a flat download limit.
I'm going to go against popular opinion and say that I don't mind this system at all. I download less than 3GB's a month, I get all the Linux distros for free, and can comfortably download whatever I like. It costs a hell of a lot to send data to and from the US, and I'd rather that my ISP is profitable and won't sink.
I also don't see why I should subsidise 12-year old warez kiddies; if they want their warez, they can damn well pay for it.
Streaming video, music, etc is *nothing* compared to the guy who runs a 100 gb 0-day ftp server from his cable modem. Those people send several gigs a day over the pipe, and its hurts everyone.
Wow, I almost feel angry at those theives that are stealing my bandwith, thanks for pointing out the evils lurking on my local cable net. I'll be sure to phone "r-u-shutup" if I notice any unauthorized port 21 traffic.
Now let's get real and pull apart what you said. Let's start with the purpose of the internet: to share information and computing resources. It was made for "servers". ISPs that don't let you run a server are not Internet Service Providers, but something else like a Browser Provider of Adverts. Now let's think about those 100 Gig/day ftp sites. When was the last day you made 100 Gigs of original content? I hate to admit it, but my ftp site does not see anything like that kind of creativity or traffic. People downloading Warez, movies and other comercial garbage deserve to have their line cut and will. It has NOTHING to do with what is happening here which is a pay per the minute fee for downloading adverts.
What you see is the inevitable result of the death of "broadband" competition. The local Bells feel free to crush their DSL competitors and the cable companies have municipal monopolies in most of their areas of domination. With your coices left to two or fewer providers, is it any supprise that you will pay for the minute? People once tollerated this for phone service and seem destined to put up with it again, even if they decide to re regulate the whole mess.
Attitudes like yours make the local Bell, large publishers and the government happy. None of them want you to publish, and all of them want as much of your money as they can grab. "Shut up and give it up, Bitch" is their song. Why would you want to sing it?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I agree, this, on the face of it, is a good thing. If your usage causes increased costs, you should pay more.
Though, the real cost is provisioning for peak usage. Having enough bandwidth to keep users happy at 6-12 pm (time varies in different environments, but this pretty much covers it for residential usage) is what drives the costs up as they need to engineer and provision for that load. The rest of the day it is (for the most part) "free".
What I think they should be doing is only metering during those peak periods and leaving it status quo the rest of the day. They would find users would start those ISO, Warez, etc. downloads before they go to bed, or setting up a cron job for 3am or whatever, turn off their P2P server during the billable time, etc.
I think this would solve the problem they are trying to solve and more accurately pass on costs. The phone company has been doing this forever, it only makes sense.
The only athletic sport I ever mastered was backgammon - Douglas William Jerrold
Right and left, I see personal sites dropping like flies or going members-only because they're being hit with multi-thousand dollar bills because they suddenly got popular. Why does it cost so much? What resource is being consumed that justifies these huge amounts of money?
It's an honest question -- I really don't know how it works, and I'm curious to know.
Let me say that I work for a DSL company. The comparison that is always made is the one of the normal connection being the equivalent of a t-1 line. However what most people don't understand is that dsl and cable traffic is mostly burst traffic. Meaning that there are relatively quick spikes. The norm at least in my area is that you can fit 125+ users on a t-1 line all at a full 512/512 symetric. If one person is cranking away all the time, there is bandwidth to spare, however if you have three people cranking then there is a problem. You simply take care of those users, or you upgrade the line to the backbone. My dsl company is a sister company with a phone company, so for us it's no big deal to just drop a DS3 in from the hut to our main offices.
:-)
Even the smaller dsl companies have deals setup to get better pricing for bigger pipes, because remember they can get a burstable DS3, so you have 3 people cranking all the time, so what you other 120 odd users aren't.
Now, I'm all for charging those trouble users, but I think the cable companies are just simply over selling their lines and taking steps to punish everyone. We get away with 125+ users per t-1, but that's because we've looked at it, and it works. Keeps everyone happy.
The cable companys on the other hand are just over selling their cable lines, and it's hard to just up and rollout more cable lines. So for now it's mostly the cable companies fault, and I think they are just looking to further pad their wallets by punishing everyone.
Mod this as you will, I'm not so sure anyone will even see it.
One simple and well-known algorithm to implement this solution is a token-bucket. (More information from Cisco's web site) The basic idea is that you have a bucket that collects token at some rate. This rate corresponds to the peak rate of transfer. The bucket also has a maximum capacity which corresponds to the size of the 'burst' you'll allow. When a packet arrives and the bucket is non-empty, the packet is forwarded and one token is removed from the bucket. When the bucket is empty the packet is queued or dropped.
Going back to the above example, consider a token-bucket where tokens arrive at 56kb/second, and the bucket can hold (60*60*512) kbits of tokens. This bucket would allow full peak allows full use for a hour or two, at which time the bucket would be close to empty and packets could only be sent the sustained rate.
This kind of setup would not effect most users at all, but would limit the worst offenders to 1/10th or 1/100th the bandwith usage.
Oh my god, what tripe you utter. One of the primary benefits, if not the primary benefit of Linux is how it is free for download, and for several very, very valid reasons.
a) It means someone (say, the 16-year-old using the familay computer)can try out a new operating system without paying $50. Seriously, how many people would have ever tried Linux, would have ever used anything besides Windows, if they had had to pay for a boxed distro instead of downloading one? (I know I sure as hell wouldn't have - let me tell you, when I started using Linux, I was in high school, and I did not have $50 lying around to test something I didn't need.) That's how Linux started - people in colleges freely downloading Slack to try out on their 386s.
b) You know Linux's vaunted stability and high bug-catching rate? Yeah? You know where that comes from? I'll tell you. People downloading betas and unfinished distros to test them. Your plan would entail causing the download a beta to cost more than buying a release version. You know where Linux's stability and security goes from there? Down the drain.
Repeat after me: Allowing people to download Linux gratis is good.
-raph
I read thru all the post and it amazes me that nobody (Maybe I missed it) has picked up on the fact its Time Warner. This is as much an attempt to protect their Music and Film biz as its a "cost of bandwidth" issue. We are just about now getting to the point where its somewhat practical to download DivX movies in addition to Mp3 music. If they can cap the bandwidth at this point they have bought themselves a few years to try and figure out how to avoid movies going the route of music.
Help fight continental drift.
You'd be surprised at how much you've been ripping your provider off all these years.
I have to disagree. I haven't worked in the NOC of an ISP in years, but this is much is still true. If you own the network, you don't have to pay to use it. Also true, if you own a big enough network, other peer networks allow you to connect to them at what amounts to a reciprocal cost. (I connect to UUNet, and they connect to me. In that way we usually use the same amount of each others network, and thus we charge each other the same price for connection < the charge is a formality >)
All ISP's have to build staff, support, maintenance, and growth cost into their billing. And so while those are huge expenses, if the company is loosing money on those services it's because they made a choice to do so.
There is no additional cost to the provider if i download 1Meg/Month vs. 100Meg/Month, because they own the network. Now someone who downloads 1Mbps vs. 100Mbps is a real issue. While the company owns the network, the network is still a finite resource. There are only so many Mbps at any given second. And if you are using 80% of the company's bandwidth, then you cost them more, because all of the other customers share only 20% and then leave the service because they are unsatisfied with the speed. So in that you drive away customers by hogging the bandwidth, you cost the company more money.
That being said, let's say "47&7" company owns a network big enough to let each of their customers have 50kbps simultaneously. If I keep my 50kbps open at 100% 24/7/52, then I cost the company nothing. I am only allowed to use what I am allotted and I am not using someone else's bandwidth. There is an algorithm out there that says that between X o'clock and Y o'clock z number of people is using the network. So then if they calculate the number of people that use the network, and the average amount of time that they spend, you can lock in a bandwidth number that doesn't infringe on you bandwidth limit.
Now, The problem with what they are doing is they are going to charge you guys for using what they have already allotted me. I keep my bandwidth open as much as mechanically possible, but people like me are part of the fore mentioned algorithm. I'm way ahead of the yahoo games playing mom, or the porn-browsing dad. But I'm not new to the game. ISP have been dealing with the likes of me for years. I don't have a problem paying more than the average Joe. I would gladly pay $10/Mth more to keep my bandwidth open, but It's not fair to those who have "excessive" downloads 1 or 2 times a month.
Corporate greed it still nothing more than greed. And when you say that I have no idea how I'm stealing from my ISP, you're wrong... I do have an idea, no I have the answer. And the answer is, under the user agreement that I signed, and under the limits that they set on my connection, I'm not stealing at all, but rather, I'm taking full advantage of the service that I pay for.
</soapbox>
Sorry, but they advertised the service as faster than DSL and about the same price. Toss in quick installation and you've got yourself a customer base. Now you've got people *gasp* using the bandwidth they're paying for. It doesn't matter if you never turn your PC on or if you never shut Grokster down, you have the right to what you paid for. If their business model wasn't profitable to begin with, then they are being the disingenuous jerks that conned you into connecting into their cable network when you could be on a DSL connection instead.
This is another example of short-sighted business plans, a desperate grass at building a customer base, and then selling-short until most of the competition in the area gets finacially hurt.
Why people feel that the grokster 24/7 kid should be punished is beyond me. They sold him the service now they must deal with it. Conversely, if heavy users are going to be punished then give breaks to lightweight users. Of course that means the same pricing plan as DSL, which is who they're fighting and distancing themselves from. Sorry, but this is more corporate bullying than anything else.
Capped bandwidth reduces the cost of the service to ordinary users by not making the rest of us pay for what is probably P2P piracy.
Which could possibly be the big reason behind this.
It's also going to kill net radio services like shoutcast.
Another thought: It's going to make people (well, me at least) even more resentful of advertising.
I have to pay for (1) simple access, then I have to pay for (2) metered usage, then I have to be bombarded with (3) advertisements to see anything of value -- which I am paying to (4) download, and I have to (5) register with the content provider to get the content and advertisements.
I've got an internal network for testing and development. But I've been spoiled by the net. Maybe I'll just switch back dial up, and use lynx to read slashdot, google groups, search.cpan.org and java.sun.com. And pine (though Evolution is pretty nice) to read email. Maybe I'll resubscribe to a print newspaper and a weekly news magazine for news again.
I'll miss having so much technical information immediately at my disposal, but I've paid for all these technical reference books on my bookshelf. And many of them come with a digital version of themselves. Maybe it's time to use them as a first resource instead of google groups.
Yet another thought: I've been lazy wasting all this "precious" bandwidth by continually accessing content that doesn't change regularly. I'll start using local copies.
I'll have to look inito creating a caching server.
I'll certainly get some junkbuster software running now.
If they want us to *really* pay attention to bandwidth, it will kill a lot of the internet. Animation Express will die. That stuff is interesting, but I'm not going to pay to see it. Even stuff like Yahoo! Games (which I haven't played in while) won't last.
Think about it. A lot of the Internet is entertainment. What sorts of entertainment are people willing to *pay* for? Movies, Music, Pr0n... what else? This is all high-bandwidth, and outside of mp3, the online quality sucks.
Dancing Hamsters? 3 minutes Flash cartoons? Are you kidding?
Quickly changing information is useful to have. Weather, stocks, news. Which can all be distilled down to text and tranferred efficiently.
Technical documation, I can have a local copy of.
This is why I cancelled cable. If they started making you pay for each tv show you watched, how much of it is really worth watching? Not a whole hell of a lot, that's for sure.
So, for me, the internet boils down to two things: one-to-one communication (email and instant messaging) and e-commerce. I shop online to save trips to the store.
Here's a good question. If you had to pay for metered access, can you name any reason at that you ever, ever go to these web sites:
Burger King
7-Eleven
insert usless site here.
Lastly, one of the beautiful things about the Net was the smaller niche and fringe communities that conform without being bound by geographical boundaries. With metered access, those communities will have one more barrier. If you have to pay for acesss, people will more likely stick with the "tried and true" sites, rather that sifting through the mountains of crap to find the gems. This will undoubtedly result result in more concentration of users, content and money around the Big 10 Media Corporations. Which will incredibly boring.
Maybe this internet thing was a fad after all.
Don't mind me. I'm just bitter.
Software Wars
There is a difference:
What happens if you get infected by a trojan/virus?
It's unlikely someone can sneak into your house and use your electricity. It is perfectly possible someone uses your internet connection.
Also, if I decide to 'ping bomb' your box, should you be required to pay?
You can't have electricty forced down your wires if you haven't turned on the lights, you can have bits forced into your PC if you haven't powered up IE.
Thoughts, thoughts...
*r
--- My dad's political betting