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Time Warner ToS Changes Could Mean Tiered Pricing, Throttling
Mirell writes "Time Warner Cable has recently changed their Terms of Service, so that they are allowed to charge you at their discretion via consumption-based billing. They were shot down a few months ago after raising the wrath of many subscribers and several politicians. Now they're trying again, but since they make exclusions for their own voice and video not to count against the cap, this could draw the attention of the FCC."
i beleive a change in TOS/contract that changed the ammount you can be billed should typically excuse you from any early termination fees, see point 3 in this article: http://consumerist.com/272305/6-ways-to-cancel-any-cellphone-so-you-can-get-an-iphone
I would have to say that these large Cable Companies are probably getting scared of possibility of IP based Television Companies cropping up and taking their client base. Their core product has to change from Cable Television service to IP Connectivity.
That is nice, but most people have four choices for Internet service:
Cable
DSL
3G
Dialup
For a lot of people, choice #2 or #3 isn't an option due to coverage areas, choice #3 and #4 are too slow to be useful for a lot of things.
So, essentially Cable is a monopoly. This is why they are trying the usual garbage.
Its ironic that while the rest of the world gets faster links like 4G, US bandwidth actually suffers and gets more expensive as time goes on.
I'm also pretty sure that it is only a matter of time before a company like NebuAd or Phorm makes a deal with a cable company to insert ads into people's web pages.
This is not about regulation so much as the fact that this monopoly (all Telco ISP entities are monopolies) wants to add charges at a rate greater than that of anything approaching reason while at the same time strangling anything close to competition by anyone other than themselves. These are the same phone companies that have been gouging us for years - first for phone service, then for government mandated "fees" they were allowed to keep and now broadband.
I realize this was an intentional troll but I am waiting for Verizon to play the same game in a few years regardless of the fact that they have bandwidth to burn. Comcast and TimeWarner are a lot worse but there is likely to come a day when they will take a look and decide it's free money. For the moment Verizon is the company that is busy taking the others lunch and when they have enough of the competitors customers they will decide it's their turn.
bob@Osprey:~>
Itâ(TM)s probably illegal. If itâ(TM)s not itâ(TM)s so anticonsumer the FCC will have a lot of fun with these jokers.
HAHAHahahahahahahah
Oh, you weren't kidding. uh ... wow
Ok, lemme spell it out for you. The FCC is full of industry cronies. They will look the other way. If of any of them causes any trouble, the media companies will step in by using one of the politicians that they own (oh hey look, that's all of them, whaddaya know?) and replace the troublemakers within the FCC with good little puppets that will blather about how these caps and anticompetitive measures are actually good for the consumer and all.
You are correct about the reasons why the media companies want to impose these caps, but that's really captain obvious stuff. The simple fact is these media companies have the political clout to see to it that internet does not replace TV. They simply will not let it happen. They have the power to ensure their local monopolies in many markets and keep regulation out of their hair. They will do it. They will get away with it. You are already watching it happen. Kiss your fat pipe goodbye.
In Australia, we get to choose our plan by both speed AND quota. If you exceed your quota, in most cases you will get shaped to 128kpbs. Some of the bigger players like Telstra charge you excess usage per megabite over the limit. This pricing structure has been in Australia for many years.
I intend to live forever, or die trying. - Groucho Marx
>I'm stuck talking to my neighbor two apartment buildings away at 384kbit/sec.
The problem is that you dont know where the bottleneck is. Im sure in cable networks the bottlneck in many scenarios is local and in other times its the backhaul. Assuming there's 100mbps of unused bandwidth between the cable node you are on and the node your pal is on may not be correct.
Not to mention, the docsis protocl may not be able to understand who to lift the cap for and who not too. Considering there's no business reason to provide that service, perhaps you and your neighbor should spring for a wifi link.
I think the sad part of this scenario is that there should be a business reason to provide this type of service. I imagine a municipal run ISP would be able to handle this pretty well and it would help the community. It would be nice to have a 50 or 60mbps link to everyone on my local node. Oh well, perhaps someday the municipal government will wise up.
You can write whatever you want on your checks in 1 point font, it normally has zero effect on the agreement, although it may in theory be taken as an anticipatory breach of contract on your part..
That is, because an attempt at changing the agreement under such irregular conditions is an unenforcable one, and you're obligated under terms of existing contract with TWC to send payment. You cannot impose new conditions before you meet the terms required of you.
As a result, you also can't automatically bind TWC into an agreement based on them having payment made from your check.
Even if you had no prior agreement with TWC, you couldn't do it, because of the special nature of a check.
To condition accepting terms based on a payment, you have to make them sign the contract before or separate from the check.
And all the requirements to have a contract have to be met; consideration, meeting of minds, etc.
e.g. You'd have to send them a document that is the agreement but not a check / payment instrument that has another clear intent.
1 point font is also small enough as to make its contents unenforceable, as the other party can rightly claim the text was not visible.
Not really, you can't pick ANY old arbitrary combination. But there are a good range of plans (most ISPs will offer a dozen or more plans). Also, unlike in the US where there's usually only 2 or 3 ISPs to choose from in a lot of places, virtually everywhere in Australia will have 10, 20, 30+ ISPs to choose from. So competition is healthy - although being an English-speaking island we still have expensive rates overall due to the fact that we pull 90% of our data from the US through expensive undersea cables.
In general, for ADSL-based services, speeds (downstream in kbps) you can pick from are:*
- 256 or 512kbps (very low end plans, not commonly seen anymore)
- 1.5 mbps
- 8 mbps (full ADSL1)
- 24 mbps (full ADSL2+).
Those on longer telephone lines might not receive the full speed from the 8 or 24 mbit services, in which case you get the highest speed your modem can negotiate on your line. Upload speeds are generally 1 mbit for the 8 or 24 mbit plans, although some ISPs offer AnnexM which increases ADSL2+ upload capacity to a max of 2.5 mbps.
Once you've chosen a delivery method (aka speed), you pick a plan based on how much data you need. Some ISPs are cheaper. Some are more expensive. The more expensive ones generally have better service, lower contention ratios and are congestion-free. Most also have their own mirrors of content that do not count towards your allowance (e.g. sourceforge mirrors, tucows, linux repos etc.). Uploading isn't counted,* and for some ISPs, traffic within that ISPs own network isn't counted.
If you exceed your allowance, you get shaped (i.e. your speed is reduced, usually to 128 or 256 kbps, depending on ISP)*
Example of a cheaper ISPs 24 mbps plans: http://www.tpg.com.au/products_services/adsl2plus_pricing.php
Example of a more premium ISPs 24 mbps plans: http://www.internode.on.net/residential/internet/home_adsl/extreme/pricing/
An advantage of data allowances is that it allows ISPs to know how much data, on average, is required by their network. They can then plan ahead and provision capacity as required. Increases in THEIR costs are matched by increases in the cost to the consumer. As such, Australian ISPs don't need to do packet inspection, throttle torrents, block certain ports etc. It's a completely unrestricted and 'neutral' service. Plus it's always fast (on my ISP at least ... some cheaper ISPs do have problems with overcontention/congestion at peak times).
The disadvantage is obvious: it does discourage the takeup of some high-bandwidth services. But then again, you get what you pay for. If I need a higher allowance I can always increase my plan. There's no penalties for doing so (on my ISP at least) and I can change up and down as required. Personally I'm on the 25 GB plan and find its perfect for my needs. I generally end up using around 20 GB per month (which includes a fair bit of torrenting and streaming media). The next plan up is 50 GB which is quite a jump, but only 10 bucks more.
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*There are exceptions to this stuff, of course (e.g. Telstra counts uploads and charges per MB instead of shaping you). But for most ISPs, this post is how things are.
Funnily enough, you can get sorta close to both of those plans.
There are ADSL2+ plans (i.e. 24 Mbps) with 2 GB/month allowances: http://www.tpg.com.au/products_services/adsl2plus_pricing.php (first plan in the list).
There are also 100+ GB plans from several ISPS at the 'standard' ADSL1 speed of 1.5 Mbps, which is quite close to your 1 Mbps example.
If you wanted to get upwards of 200 GB though, you'd have to buy a 24 Mbps plan with 200+ GB and tell your modem to connect at 1 Mbps if you insist on it ... why you'd do that is beyond me though. The 24 Mbps plans are not really any more expensive than the 1.5 Mbps plans usually, as it's a function of what equipment is in your area and the condition and length of your phone line. Since you pay for the data you use, the ISP doesn't really care what speed you get it at. So they are happy to sell you 24 Mbps plans for the same as 1.5 Mbps plans, if they have the hardware to supply it to you in the area. :)
But changing the TOS in a small-type on a flimsy insert sent with the bill that takes a law degree, additional experience, and hours of careful reading to comprehend constitutes a "meeting of the minds"? Bullshit.
The fact that this sort of thing is legally accepted shows only that common sense in the application of the law was thrown out the window long ago in order to accommodate the existence of mega-corporations.
It may be a necessary evil, but that's no reason to dissemble about what's actually happening.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Well the reality is, it is not about what they are planning to charge it is about economically excluding other content distribution companies from potential customers and establishing a content distribution monopoly.
This is forcing a legislative stance, where bandwidth providers will only be allowed to supply bandwidth and absolutely nothing else, otherwise the will always attempt to restrict use of that bandwidth so as to increase profits well beyond reasonable terms for cost of provision of that bandwidth to arbitrary content valuations, invented access restrictions and claiming access to their customers as a profit centre whilst hiding constraints and disruptions of their customers services from those customers.
The same laws that applied to controlling telephony or even public roads have to be applied to the internet to ensure what has become a vital public service remains so.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen