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."

Comments

Re:Welcome to our world

[d3ac0n]

Yeah. Extortion.

Dunno if you were aware, but the big American oil companies make a roughly 4% profit on their sales of Gasoline. That's it. Roughly 9 cents on every gallon of Gas sold goes to Oil Exec profits. A whole 9 cents.

In case you also wondered, about 15% goes to State and Federal taxes. The rest goes to pay the salaries of the people that work to get the oil out of the ground, to refine it, to transport it to you, to service both you and the station you buy gas at, and to keep the entire process safe under ever-watchful eyes of OSHA and an alphabet soup of other government agencies.

Of course, even these figures don't paint a complete picture. You ALSO have to keep in mind that American oil companies have to compete with other oil companies on the world market. Unfortunately, for the American oil companies, the vast majority of the other world oil companies are nationalized and have a lock on most of their oil. The market is so restricted that a mere 7% of the total world oil production is available on the open market to compete for. That's right, SEVEN PERCENT. ALL the rest of it is locked up by nationalized oil companies and totalitarian governments. So the US can't even TOUCH 93% of the world's oil supply. It's just not available to buy! Now compound that with the fact that America has to import over 80% of her oil to supply daily needs, and every day the weak dollar and increased market pressure from China and other countries drives the cost for crude higher and our ability to buy lower and lower.

Oh yeah, and add to all that the fact that the vast majority of American oil reserves are locked up in areas where drilling is BANNED (ANWR, both East and West coasts, the west coast of Florida, and the High Plains fields.), AND the fact that we haven't built a new refinery in America in nearly 30 years (if not longer) and you will BEGIN to get a picture of the real reasons why gas costs are currently so high, and why they are historically so volatile.

But hey, you just go ahead and keep blaming those Eeeevil Big Oil Execs and their OBSCENE 4% profits! Ignorance like yours must be fucking bliss.

I want this

[Gothmolly]

I have Cox cable and I don't need the 6 down/2 up speed. I don't surf porn, I don't use Limewire. I read email, I check Slashdot and Fark, and read news. At the same time, I don't want to suffer with 640kbps DSL. Why can't I buy a 2mbps/512mbps package for $20 a month?