Time Warner Cable Tries Metering Internet Use

Llian said:
whilst at the same time having more expensive tiers to those idiots who think DLing everything they find is OK.
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I dont get people like you and King.

Just because you dont download movies or tv shows its all of a sudden "dumb and stupid"? Someones legal use of the internet is no less legit than yours. If someone wants to use the internet for dl'ing their movies rather than walking to the store to get it then how is that any less legit then you surfing the web or playing a game?

Just because a few of you people pay whatever you pay a month to do what you could've done on dial-up doesnt mean that you're some how a model example of what kinda of internet usage a costumer should be. I didnt get broadband so I could "surf the web 52x faster than dial-up!" I got it so I could download meaningful sized files within a reasonable amount of time.

If you people got a problem with people like myself, then dial-up is back that way.
 
Its like having an all you can eat restaurant and after you eat 2 plates they charge you more or cut you off. "Well most people don't eat more then 2 plates!"
You know what, Occasionally the fat guy walks in...and you have to face the music
and after all the parts are installed, I look at it as a fixed cost. What is thier loss if someone downloads a ton, they don't promise service limits anyway. Quick to set a max DL cap but slow to set a MIN DL Speed
They are just waiting to see if the public goes for it, people are sheep. $150+ for cable, $100+ cell phones.
Damm I wish that internet satellite sold to the us, than all this greedy bastards could go to hell.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/23/japan.satellite/
 
Wow,

There's s few things going on here that don't make very much sense.

Speed is speed.

Consumption is Consumption

I don't give a rip what speed you are offered, Unlimited is unlimited.....that means that the bandwidth cap IS whatever you can theoritically download in a single billing cycle.

Few if any ISP's operate on the assumption that anyone except maybe a business would use all of the bandwidth that (such and such speed) ISP xyz provides.

Metered billing is the correct anwser and model for the future.

Part of the problem is perception, part of the problem is greed.

And yet that greed is both our greed and there greed
.
Do you know how much you can really download in a month?
1.5Mbps is near 486GB per month
3Mbps is approx 972GB per month.
6Mbps is just under 2TB per month
From a business profitability model offering unlimited service at todays prices is not sustainable given the amount of traffic generated by bots spam and virri.

Its my responsibility to not let the water faucet run all month long. If I do, you can bet that the water company will bill me for it....or if I am on a well, I ll run out : ).

The point is this is all going to cost us. I know metered billing it coming, and I am looking forward to seeing a glass half full at some point.

Possibly after comgress sets sharing regulations data transport mediums aka DSL regulation.

Out,

Mackintire
 
Heh, and just when all of our caps are just going to be blowen out of the water with this one:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=985407

Also, good luck to the time warner customers when they impose uploads counting. Your torrents will go to hell because lots of people block leech networks.

Metered works for me when I choose an isp that doesn't count uploads, only downloads. :)
 
Man now im stating to think cable companies have too little competition in the US. Seriously, either its Cable, DSL or if ur really desperate SAT. I will cancel beofre they think ill agree to a bandwidth cap.
 
Like god 5GB month is 1 Debian DVD and then casual web browsing per month, thats bullshit. I cant stand my internet its damn slow but i manage 8GB/day lately for the past month.
 
For fucks sake TW.

I moved from my parents house and 1Mb/s down to my new house with 15Mb/s RR Turbo and now you impose a fucking cap. Give me a fucking break, 40GB/month? I used that in the first day I got internet service. I just re-installed Vista and downloaded all my Steam games. (9 games) That doesn't even included the Netflix video's I watched or the browsing I did.

As pissed as I am, i don't have a problem with tired service, if they do it correctly. I'd be wiling to pay more for an Unlimited Cap. I'm sure many people would. Geezus, 40GB, give me a fucking break.

Now, as long as Verizon doesn't go the way of the dodo, i'll be happy. I could live with 3Mb/s unlimited DSL.
 
digitalfreak said:
Note how it cable companies that are talking about implementing caps and metering? DSL doesn't have the shared bandwidth issue, so telcos are immune to this problem. ...
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Actually DSL does. Your dedicated pipe is only dedicated untilk it reaches the telco, then it;s stuffed onto a pipe with all the other traffic to your ISP, wether the ISP is the telco or a 3rd party.

So, you're sharing. Just not at the same place.

FIOS is a shared passive optical loop in a neighborhood. But it's still stupid fast 24/7.
 
We'll see how this works in the end. We could see a whole new player in the game with WiMax and even possibility of free wireless from the sale on the current analog TV band. If TW isn't careful, it could see people dropping its cable modem service faster than people dropped AOL dial up.
 
Llian said:
As mentioned earlier, caps/throttling can be done in a sane way if the companies want it. Living in Oz, we have a choice of a few good ISPs and alot of bad, all with caps so it can work. ISP's just need to look at what actually gets used by a sane person and market to them (Sane defined as probably 50-100GB caps min to allow for streaming whilst not charging your firstborn.) whilst at the same time having more expensive tiers to those idiots who think DLing everything they find is OK. Most people won't use 50gb per month, only a few will, but they need to know they are doing it without being penalized.
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So using my 'unlimited' connection is all of a sudden not ok anymore. Sorry but TW can go fuck themselves with barbed wire.
 
lets rephrase that:

"I have no idea why internet users think bandwidth is an unlimited resource".

there, that makes much more sense. as mackintire pointed out even 'unlimited' services do have limits - if you have a 1.5 mbit pipe, there really IS only so many seconds worth of data you can move in one month. short of moving to mars for the extra ~40 minutes a day....

if you have FIOS there is a hell of a lot more headroom - add another wavelength. but Cable/DSL only have so much, those ISPs only have so much etc etc. granted in the US there is an insane amount of oversupply; its not a big problem for you guys - yet. We aussies have commented on our situation earlier, and its really an issue of in and out data use at the ISP level and the fact there are currently only a few BIG pipes into the 'neighbourhood' as it were (there are two major cables to Australia due to be lit in the next couple of years though).

if one really big ISP uses all the data available and smaller entities have to wait for links to not be so saturated so their data can get passed, thats a problem. and as consumer intake increases you get to the problem stage faster. 1GB a day use is pretty legitimate, 8GB of data daily (250GB/month say) is great if you watch lots of netflix and use other large data sources but once enough people at your ISP's local aggregation point are doing the same thing even people 'just' using the internet for email get affected.

It certainly happens here; there is a cabinet known as a RIM (remote interface multiplexor) that takes a fibre line in, but it is so choked it can only do 8MBit. from memory they only take 8 or 10 connections; so Telstra limit the boxes to 3mbit to consumers - even though using the fibre backhaul would unlock much higher speeds. it is a really small, very tiny example. but you guys are pushing what , 300 million population now? if that happened in not just pockets but swathes of your country, not just once but a thousand times, ten thousand times. people would be screaming, given how much you love your data.

i would be very much surprised if this isnt the thin point of the wedge, and more and more ISPs concede it simply isnt possible to keep offering 'unlimited' internet. to the bloke who said he would just keep jumping ISPs and then steal, grow up. i dont know what termination costs are like in the States, but a fee every time you quit an ISP, multiplied by however many you jump to is just spiting ones own nose to save ones face.

Shaped suppliers are popular here; they dont start charging once you hit your limit but cut the internet speed so that the impact of leaving BT on for 8 hours doesnt affect other users so much, which is fair IMO. much better than the $150 per GB that Telstra charges... other ISPS also throw in free data, particularly the stuff that comes off their own mirrors - it costs less to shunt bits from internal to a company than it does to drag that data from outside.

having a cap does not necessarily mean the sky is falling, like im getting the impression here. its different, yes. you may *actually* have to start picking and choosing what data you really want, instead of sucking down indiscriminately (just because you can). i dont think that is necessarily a bad thing.

However, 5 GB of data i will absolutely agree, even for here in OZ, is laughable. For the US, id say 50-60 GB should be the *start* point. that way the idea of a cap might not seem so intimidating, for some at least?
 
cant find the edit button - been a loing time since i had a H forum login LOL - had one about 3-4 years ago but its lapsed it seems .. :p

forgot to mention those counting uploads are also satans spawn. there has been a resurgence in the technique here but most ISPs do not count uploads.

Incidentally, iinet did mention they are watching upload volumes. their download to upload ratio has been creeping upwards to almost 1:1. given our dsl is asymmetric (uploads are far slower than down, eg 1.5mbit down, 256Kb up), their users are uploading to a degree that iinet has had to increase throughput *just* to cope with uploads AND downloads - which is another factor to keep in mind. most data pipes are intended to take the maximum surge as it were - it used to be surges down, now it is when lots of people turn on their upload pipes. even worse is when both groups are active at the same time.

(thats why the residential 200GB plan linked earlier has a 3am-9am period for 160GB of usage, and the other 40GB for the rest of the day. the peak usage is moved (or attempted to be) to low usage hours, to take some of that peak usage away from daytimes when business data is also competing).
 
LOL, you guys will take it. Just like you take all the other fucked up shit that happens in this country everyday. You will turn your heads and say Ho Hum. This government can't and wont even tell you where you tax money goes. Nobody cares. Bahhh.. bahhh... say the little sheep. You did it to yourselves. No one can stop it but you. Imagine if next year no one payed taxes. What would they do? We fought a war over this once you know. Carry on.
 
It's beaumont. I used to live in beaumont. That said, I am not surprised in the slightest. For those of you that have never been there, it is a small town that wants to be big, and the economy and "technical mindset" is influenced by a small number of big whigs. Oil and god knows what else....

Where I live now I see contractors laying fiber everywhere. I haven't asked who is behind it yet, but FIOS would kick serious ass given the price/performance ratio.
 
yikes. i hope this doesnt come to san antonio. ill change providers if it does. i download tons of shit all the time. 5gb is nothing...
 
Bandwidth costs per Gb for most providers to pass on, ISP work on this idea of users subsidising each other when some have high usage and others have low. Now that the usage delta is getting so large this model is failing, eventually people will be expected to pay per Gb or have limits set on thier account.

The reason this seems lame is because we've been spoilt for many years with the idea of unlimited broadband for cheap prices. Theres a reason that uncontended lines for businesses run into the thousands of £/$ per year because the potential for huge throughput. If you want unlimited bandwidth you have to pay for it, same for unlimited water or unlimited gas/electrisity. It costs per usage.
 
Seems everybody in this thread who thinks that any ISP should be able to provide 100% advertised bandwidth to all customers 100% of the time have absolutely no clue about what it costs to route data in the real world.

These aren't $60 Linksys routers like you got in your house. If you want to route 10+GigE connections you're looking at $50000-$250000 pieces of hardware. FIOS has 15MB transfer rates? Super, but a $100k router can only support ~600 customers running at full speed. You want dedicated bandwidth to your house, you're talking $150 JUST for your share of that one router. Throw on the other even bigger routers they'd have to install just to support your guaranteed connection, all the fiber you have to run (yes I know we have dark fiber but not enough to give every customer in the US full broadband dedicated bandwidth), and additional maintenance costs maintaining this infrastructure, you'd be looking at thousands of dollars in installation fees and hundreds of dollars a monthly fees.

Wait isn't that what most of these companies charge their business class customers?
 
It's Time Warner; one should expect this. I do understand that $1/Gig doesn't seem bad initially - that's beside the point. Given how the big industry push is to stream everything into the house digitally, space will come at a premium. People will be charged for movies/games/music from the parent site, then charged again by the carrier?! This doesn't seem like anyway to fill a potential cravat; rather just another chump way to make sure it's a bang up fiscal year. People can get used to "anything" if need be, but only if they let companies take advantage of them. Power is in the people. If users didn't want this to happened, it wouldn't have to...

Why are we going back in time to timed/sized usage? WTF!
 
Dan_D said:
Yes it is. :cool:
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50/20 over here in Staten Island. If it's a shared loop then it truely is stupid fast, I max out my connection at anytime during the day. I think most of my neighborhood moved to FIOS.

Around these parts Time Warner would not even think about pulling that bandwidth cap nonsense. They want to keep their customers because FIOS is going door to door snatching up customers left and right. Verizon just got through the first couple of stages of franchise approval to offer TV in the NY area and some folks I know inside VZ say we'll start seeing it being offered to customers sometime around August. That's one more threat TWC has to be concerned with, and people who haven't switched to FIOS haven't done so because they want the TV service as well.

Personally I would (and have) switch to the internet and phone service to start saving some bucks along with receiving better service, thenswitch to the TV service as soon as it becomes available. To each his own.

TWC can eat a dick, their customer service sucks, their video quality sucks and you get 2/3 of the bandwidth you paid for while paying 20% more over the nearest comparable FIOS package.
 
Ockie said:
I don't disagree for thier limiting, but 5gb is a little low. However, its their service and product and they can do what they want to it... if we don't like it, we should talk with our wallets and go elsewhere.
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Exactly. And, with any luck, people will stand up for themselves and move to another provider after this.
 
If this comes to my town, voting with my wallet will mean moving to the only other high speed in town DSL, which costs more and is slower. Competition is great...
 
BallerX said:
LOL, you guys will take it. Just like you take all the other fucked up shit that happens in this country everyday. You will turn your heads and say Ho Hum. This government can't and wont even tell you where you tax money goes. Nobody cares. Bahhh.. bahhh... say the little sheep. You did it to yourselves. No one can stop it but you. Imagine if next year no one payed taxes. What would they do? We fought a war over this once you know. Carry on.
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+1

thats exactly it, we get indignant but don't want to be inconvenienced with putting our money where our mouth is...it is semi understandable for some though. Think about it, because of the sheep mentality, those that do vote with their wallet or go out of their way get screwed because the others that are angry see someone stand up and they shy away with the "i dont know him" attitude. No one wants to stand as a majority...and unfortunately unless you stand as the majority it won't be more than a pinprick to those you are trying to hurt.

i mean i understand how it is to be cut off from the internet, but think about it, if EVERYONE who is bothered by bandwidth restrictions moved back to dial up temporarily, or dsl that isn't capped or ANYTHING to prove the point, when the financial quarter totals come in and their profits are in the toilet. They will have some explaining to do to share holders and policies will get changed.

However that tends to be wishful thinking.
 
Dear Time Warner,

Please let me know when you will be metering your customers in California so I can move to DSL.

Sincerely,

Your Soon-to-be-gone Customer
 
Frostex said:
Bandwidth costs per Gb for most providers to pass on, ISP work on this idea of users subsidising each other when some have high usage and others have low. Now that the usage delta is getting so large this model is failing, eventually people will be expected to pay per Gb or have limits set on thier account.

The reason this seems lame is because we've been spoilt for many years with the idea of unlimited broadband for cheap prices. Theres a reason that uncontended lines for businesses run into the thousands of £/$ per year because the potential for huge throughput. If you want unlimited bandwidth you have to pay for it, same for unlimited water or unlimited gas/electrisity. It costs per usage.
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Correct.
 
tesfaye said:
50/20 over here in Staten Island. If it's a shared loop then it truely is stupid fast, I max out my connection at anytime during the day. I think most of my neighborhood moved to FIOS.

Around these parts Time Warner would not even think about pulling that bandwidth cap nonsense. They want to keep their customers because FIOS is going door to door snatching up customers left and right. Verizon just got through the first couple of stages of franchise approval to offer TV in the NY area and some folks I know inside VZ say we'll start seeing it being offered to customers sometime around August. That's one more threat TWC has to be concerned with, and people who haven't switched to FIOS haven't done so because they want the TV service as well.

Personally I would (and have) switch to the internet and phone service to start saving some bucks along with receiving better service, thenswitch to the TV service as soon as it becomes available. To each his own.

TWC can eat a dick, their customer service sucks, their video quality sucks and you get 2/3 of the bandwidth you paid for while paying 20% more over the nearest comparable FIOS package.
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It's 15/15 here. I can opt for a 30/15 package but its' stupid expensive.
 
I'm on the fence with this one. I can somewhat understand why TWC or any ISP wants to do this now that many users are becoming much more bandwidth demanding. Some people only browse the web while others download hundreds of gigs per month. Does it really make sense for both the pay the same price? If done right, some sort of metered pricing might work decently well.

On the other hand, as a consumer I feel as if I'm being shafted. What was once "unlimited" is now being severely restricted. As bandwidth demand increases these restrictions may get worse; as a consumer I'd expect the restriction to be relaxed while the Internet becomes more bandwidth hungry and interactive. Implementing bandwidth caps/metering now seems like a step backwards. Maybe I'm just spoiled...

In my local area, I have two choices: Sprint EVDO (which is currently unlimited but will be capped at 5GBs soon with possible metering) and DSL (residential plans have a 50GB soft limit; above that and you're labeled an "abusive user"). I use a lot more than 50GBs a month.

A possible solution I'm looking into is getting business DSL, which is essentially identical to residential plans but you pay quite a bit more (for example, it's about $100 for 3 megabit versus $50 for the residential equivalent; with the residential also having a discount on the first 6 months). However, there'd be no bandwidth cap or metering, restrictions on sustained bandwidth use, restriction on server use, and the customer service seems better. That's something I'm willing to pay for.
 
The thing that bugs me is people that come into threads touting that we don't know how much it costs for the ISP to provide service to us.

We know, this isn't dslreports or cnet bs.

I for one know first hand. I do a lot of contract work for a small local ISP (~1500 cable modem customers). They went from 9Mb to 45Mb to 135Mb in 3years. (Yes, they were pissed because they had to fork out $200k to support 3 DS-3/T-3's) That is how fast people are requiring more bandwidth. Web 2.0 is here and Web 3.0 is around the corner.

Comcast, Time Warner and other Large ISP's say 5-10% of their customers eat up all the bandwidth. Yea, we're talking about ~250,000 customers.

If they can't take the heat, get out of the fucking kitchen. Verizon and others will gladly take your customers and give us the service we deserve.
 
"ISP give a inch, customers take a feet" is what describe the current situation and it's unfortunate. Like some guys here said, people is spoiled by the "Unlimited" offering and think they can get anything they want. There is always a price for free or unlimited offerings and someone must pay for this. Just go check the prices businesses is being charged to have LIMITED internet bandwidth and you will be grateful you pay for cheap.

I'm also in the metered bandwidth method, which is much more fairer. Instead of offering various speeds to customers, offer various bandwidth plans like 10 GB/ Month (casual user browsing), 50 GB / month (normal users like me) and 200 GB / month (for those who download movies/torrents) for a nominal fee. You use too much, you pay a lot... This is why gas is sold by liter, electricity is sold by kwh, water is sold by lph, etc... If we offer free gas for 200$ / month, we will be seeing Hummers in the entrance of each house.

However, for the current news, I do agree that 5 GB / month is laughable so vote with your wallet. I have a cap with my ISP (Videotron) and it's 20 GB down and 10 GB up per month.

 
Xilikon said:
Like some guys here said, people is spoiled by the "Unlimited" offering and think they can get anything they want.
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Sounds like somebody shouldn't have been advertising their service as unlimited. If the ISP is saying unlimited, and not actually giving unlimited, then they're breaking their contract with the customer and probably also committing some sort of advertising fraud.

Charging per byte would be the best way to go.
 
-Dragon- said:
Super, but a $100k router can only support ~600 customers running at full speed.
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$150 per customer is peanuts. What costs do they have other than keeping the wires in one piece? Pay for upstream bandwidth, I guess, but that's cheap these days. And when the connection costs $60 a month to each consumer, you can pay off that investment in a year or less.

At school we pay $130 for nine months of unmetered 100/100 internet right to your room. Yes, you really get a hundred megabits both ways, pretty much all the time even during peak hours.
-Dragon- said:
Wait isn't that what most of these companies charge their business class customers?
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If it comes to it, I will buy a slow T1 line that doesn't limit me at all rather than a Comcast connection that gives me 5GB/mo. A couple hundred bucks a month of money I'd be glad to pay Comcast if they changed their policies should drive home the point.
 
Xilikon said:
"ISP give a inch, customers take a feet" is what describe the current situation and it's unfortunate.
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But it's UNLIMITED. How is unlimited = to an inch?

I will admit, I am a VERY heavy downloader, but maybe not as heavy as I thought after hearing how much some people here download.

The most I have ever downloaded in 1 month was about 700GB. That was WAY over my norm. I probably usually download around 200GB to 300GB in a month. Is it unfortunate that I download that much? the top 5% of customers may be using 90% of the bandwidth, but maybe the top 1% are using 50% of the bandwidth.

I think metering is the way to go, but rather then charge MORE, just reduce bandwith. Maybe even for a limited time. If you download 20GB in one day, then for the rest of the 24hr time period throttle their bandwidth to 2mb/s. That is still fast, but would seriously slow down how much they are taking in.

I am actually looking at getting a business account with Comcast. I would like to setup a web server that is within the TOS, and I am a heavy downloader, so two birds with one stone. I really need to check into pricing.
 
King_Pariah said:
I use my internet to game and check my email...I don't download movies or other crap...

Why should my connection and prices be jacked to make up for the people that think bittorrent is their own personal film library?
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You arn't paying that monthly rate for the massive bandwidth consumption of 3 people in your state using bittorrent... You are paying that money because it is not cheap for an ISP to set up and maintain a network of any sort, AND provide customer service. Regardless if your internet provider has the capability to move a packet of data from your pc to the outside world or not, doesnt affect their costs much.

On the flipside, the providers should be compensating me for using LESS bandwidth than the average person...
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Well, as ive said above, for the most part its not about the bandwidth. Bandwidth is inexpensive (to a certain extent) compared to the rest of the costs for an ISP. Even a small Wireless ISP needs several full time employees, trained techs to set up equipment, money to buy equipment, money to pay for the electric bill, property taxes to pay, and somewhere a profit has to be made.
 
Switching to Verizon FiOS asap if/when it is available in my city. Screw Time Warner. I hope they see a lot of canceled accounts.
 
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