Slashdot Mirror
Time Warner Cable Tries Metering Internet Use
As rumored a couple of months back, Time Warner is starting a trial of metered Internet access. "On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte... [T]iers will range from $29.95 a month for... 768 kilobits per second and a 5-gigabyte monthly cap to $54.90 per month for... 15 megabits per second and a 40-gigabyte cap. Those prices cover the Internet portion of subscription bundles that include video or phone services. Both downloads and uploads will count toward the monthly cap."
Time-Warner Sued By A Bazillion Customers Over Bandwidth Charges
.....seriously, I don't think TWC would be stupid enough to deliberately install spyware on its subscribers' computers, but this will fail as soon as hundreds of thousands of clueless Windows users running zombie botnet boxes start cancelling their service en masse "because they jacked up the price". This is not the way to either fix broadband usage policy nor to stop botnets.
$slashdot_user writes: "Time-Warner today was served with a class-action lawsuit from nearly every single subscriber to its metered internet service, launched in June. The suit claims that Time-Warner willingly and complicitly installed spyware onto its subscribers' computers to run up bandwidth charges. The program, which affected primarily Windows-based computers, repeatedly downloaded and uploaded a 1.5 MB file of random, uncompressable data up to a thousand times per hour each way, causing subscribers' caps of 5 GB to be reached within hours. Further GB of bandwidth was charged at $1 each, with some subscribers receiving 'overage' bills stretching upwards of $700. Representatives for Time-Warner were unavailable for comment."
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
Good question, why doesn't Comcast add up all the time in the commercials I watch and subtract that percentage of time from my bill
Quite the contrary. Comcast will soon be introducing a "Promotional Materials Viewing Fee", since after all you are watching their Intellectual Property. They plan on charging you a very modest 55 cents per commercial per view. Of course for $10 a month you can view all their ads an unlimited number of times per month.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Ah yes, AT&T. I'll keep this short :-)
I've been waiting for AT&T Uverse to become available in my neighborhood to provide some competition to Time/Warner. I got a flyer in the mail saying that Uverse was was now available to me. I logged onto the web site and tried to order it. It took me several tries to actually place an order because I followed the instructions that said that my driver's license expiration date had to be entered in mmyyyy format. The day before the install date, I had to reschedule due to a sick family member. No problem, the new installation date was verbally confirmed with me by the CSR on the phone. On the day of the install, I waited and waited. 30 minutes after the close of the 2 hour installation window, I called and was informed that I was scheduled for installation the NEXT day. The next day the install tech comes out and asks to look in my back yard. No problem. I've got both the cable and phone boxes in my yard for about 6 houses in my neighborhood. While the tech is standing there looking somewhat confused, I say, "If your looking for the network interface, there insn't one. We've never had a landline at this address." The tech then tells me that a different tech has to install the network interface and run the drop to it and asks if they could reschedule the install for Monday. I say that's fine, but Monday is a holiday, and asked if they really did installations on holidays. The tech said yes and told me that someone would be by after 19:00 that day to install the network interface and run the drop.
No tech shows up that day to install the network interface and run the drop, so the first thing Monday morning, I call AT&T and tell them that it wasn't installed and asked if it would be installed prior to the tech arriving to do the install. I was informed that they didn't do installs on holidays and they rescheduled my install for the next day and assured me that both the install tech would be there and the person to do the network interface installation and run the drop.
The next day, the install tech showed up and I asked him where the other tech was who was going to do the network interface installation and run the drop. He got a funny look on his face and went outside to make a phone call. He returned and said that the other tech was on the way. While we waited for the other tech, I showed im the 2 TVs that needed set top boxes and where I wanted their router installed to connect into my network wiring. The other tech arrived and they started working. About 15 minutes later, they had the network interface installed and the drop run and then things got REAL quiet for about 15 minutes and suddenly a third AT&T person showed up. It turns out that Uverse has a max length of 3,000 feet from their box in the subdivision to the house and we were 3,400 feet away.
Our subdivision is less than 5 years old, so I asked who decided to lay out their cable in such a manner that almost everyone on my street would be unable to have Uverse service and they admitted it was one of their engineers.
So, the end result is that most of the people on my street in the subdivision can't have Uverse service and AT&T spent who knows how much money figuring it out. Oh, and I'm still getting solicitations for Uverse. Maybe I should order it again. Maybe I should order it every time I get a solicitation until they stop sending me solicitations.
Without the 2nd Amendment, the others are just suggestions.
Is your TV metered? No? That's why. You don't get charged if you exceed your "TV allowance" as there is no "TV allowance".
I think GP's question is perfectly legitimate. You mean, "there is no TV allowance...yet".
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
wow, no mcdonalds for you, huh?
When you're identifying a bird, you might say that it matches the "hue and cry" of a certain species. Hue means color, and naturally cry refers to the noise the bird makes. That's where this term came from - and usually it's used in the same situations where you might say "Well, if it walks like a duck..."
It doesn't make sense for there to be a "hue and cry" as a reaction to something. Unless, perhaps, you imagine people are going to change color in anger.
But I'm guessing your interpretation is as though both words are verbs, like people are "hew"ing and crying in anger or something.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
I'm very very persistent. Ask the wife (second baby already on the way).
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
But people's faces do change colour when they're angry; they tend to flush pink.