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Time Warner To Offer Unlimited Bandwidth For $150
unr3a1 writes to tell us that Time Warner Cable has responded to the massive criticism of its new plan to cap user bandwidth with a new pricing model. Users will be given a grace period in which to assess their pricing tier. The "overages" will be noted on their bill, allowing them to change either their billing plan or their usage patterns. "On top of a 5, 10, 20, and 40-gigabyte (GB) caps, the company said this week that it would offer an additional 100GB tier for heavy users. Prices (so far) would range from $29.95 to $75.00 a month, with users charged an extra dollar for every GB more they download, although that charge is also capped at $75. An 'unlimited' bandwidth plan, therefore, tops out at $150."
Time Warner To Offer Unlimited Bandwidth For $150
When will the hurting stop? Bandwidth is measured in kbit/s, Mbit/s, etc. Please express this in some rate related to seconds if you're going to use it because the phrase "unlimited bandwidth" means to me that I should be able to sit down and at the drop of a hat (or the spinning of several platters) have a DVD from my friend's computer located on my computer.
... not as seksi as bandwidth but for the love of god please keep these ideas separate. Unless you're going to start talking about bandwidth as in GB/month or TB/month which would drive the hardware and network guys nuts because that is a meaningless metric.
I think a more appropriate term would be something like "no monthly download limit" or some such thing
My work here is dung.
At current exchange rates, $150 works out to be about £100. By comparison, I'm getting uncapped 24mbps ADSL downloads for £22 per month in the UK. I think this might be the one sole instance where the UK gets a better deal on something than the US.
Definitely disappointing, but not surprising.
The problem is, residential broadband networks were never designed to handle the uses many people make of them nowadays (particularly due to P2P) - there are some heavy users who transfer terabytes of (sometimes of dubious legality) information every month.. it is unreasonable for these people to pay the same price as someone who just checks their e-mail and sends photos to their grandchildren.
The caps and prices here are quite unacceptable - double the cap and half the price, and maybe we're talking..
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Because I, the ISP, have formed a pact with your local government to prevent Speakeasy (or any other meaningful competition) from servicing your area of the country.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
I think the problem is your math, not their service. 60 MB for 1 hour does not equal 1 GB in 4 hours, not even close -- a gig is 1024 megabytes.
Assuming your estimate of 60 MB per hour is correct, their 100GB/month account will let you play Left4Dead for 56 hours a day without paying any overcharge fees. Is that enough for you?
I just pay for a business connection....nice and speedy, no caps, no blocked ports, I can run servers all I want and I even have a very low level SLA for uptimes. Service is normally great (a little less great post Katrina). All for only $70/mo....
Nice side benefit...you can split the incoming line, and get free analog tv off it, as well as the free HDTV/digital channels that are unencrypted. I run these into my mythtv boxes.
Anyway, does this company not offer a business connection? If you want more bandwidth than they give on the consumer side, get a business connection. It isn't like you have to show them a license or anything....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Funny, their filings state:
"High-speed data costs decreased for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2008 primarily due to a decrease in per-subscriber connectivity costs, partially offset by subscriber growth.
"In 2007, TW made $3,730 Million, on high speed data alone, and then had to turn around and spend $164 Million to support the cost of the network. 2007 total profit on high speed data: $3.566 Billion"
"In 2008, TW made $4,159 Million, on high speed data alone, and then had to turn around and spend $146 Million to support the cost of the network. 2008 total profit on high speed data: $4.013 Billion"
Considering that the parent company of Time Warner is the same as Warner Music and Warner Bros, they don't have to do anything for it to make its way into their hands.
I'm one of the fortunate few to be in Rochester, NY and fall under the tyranny of Time Warner Cable. I've talked to their customer service reps. I've read their statements. And yesterday I had the opportunity to hear some of their low-level execs try and defend the plan at a town hall meeting with our congressional representative (who's on our side BTW).
They simply don't acknowledge that access (bandwidth) is not at issue here, limiting the use of that bandwidth in terms of some arbitrary amount of data is the issue.
If you look at their 2008 SEC filings (linked by their corporate site timewarnercable.com then you'd see their costs went down about 12% from 2007 and their revenues and new customers both rose about 10% over 2007. Clearly usage is not really an issue.
The issue they're not admitting to (except in their SEC filing) is Internet video like Hulu and Netflix is their primary threat and the way to mediate this threat is to make it more expensive to watch videos on the Internet than to pay Time Warner for cable and Video on Demand services.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
You were saying?