Time Warner To Test Internet Billing Based On Usage

If they do this they are a bunch of A Holes. Insterad of increasing their backbone and upgrading their data centers and networks they rather try to discourage everyone from using their network and pay even more money then they are now. This is exactly why we keep falling behind in the work on connection speed and technoloy because big business keeps cheeping out everything and hardly ever upgrade and find ways to screw their customers instead of trying to make them happy and keeping them for life.
 
Here's the plan, we are going to start charging you a monthly fee based on how much you used. We will start you off at 10Gigabyte's of Bandwidth a month for a low $29.99 after that we will charge you .05 cents per byte. That sound good? Great, we will get you started right away.

I can see that going down like that very quickly.I'm glad that I am on Cox that provides me 12Mb internet connection for $59 a month that also has Power Boost so that if there is Extra Bandwidth availible, I would get the file I am downloading even faster. I don't believe many people see 2MB speeds on their downloads.

Cox Communications RULES.
 
this is going to fail horribly on the backlash from customers alone. Heres the deal: everything today and tomorrow is going to high speed bandwith streaming/broadcast. You stream net radio while working/browsing. You download/stream movies and music(legitimately). You play multiplayer games online. You make phonecalls/chat/video conference online. You download that 395mb "patch" file to version 1.2005 so that you can still play your games online. You get your newsfeeds online, and soon enough all your tv will be sent this way. It all adds up, and you expect us to reduce bandwidth useage? Yet you tout all these wonderful things we can do with our fiber cable coming into our homes. And if your the only high speed provider available here, im basically screwed. I cant just drop you on the spot and go with another provider as DSL here is worthless and cost 2x as much for same "supposed" speeds which i'll never attain with the DSL connection. Way to alienate your largest part of your customer base. :mad:
 
soulman901 said:
I'm glad that I am on Cox that provides me 12Mb internet connection for $59 a month that also has Power Boost so that if there is Extra Bandwidth availible, I would get the file I am downloading even faster. I don't believe many people see 2MB speeds on their downloads.

Cox Communications RULES.
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FIOS > Cox (hehe I said Cox) 2.5MB over here. ;-P At least they do that for ya though. The second FIOS was available in my area, I was all over it. I dropped Time Warner faster than you can say Roadrunner. I just things stay competitive and FIOS survives, this way us FIOS subscribers don't see any of this monopoly bullshit like the Cable customers are starting to see.
 
"We here at Time-Warner Cable would like to whole-heartedly endorse the affordability, speed, and reliability of Verizon's FIOS."

That's what I got out of this announcement. :p
 
a typical mmo player has the game, vent and or streaming internet radio going at all times. Plus imagine the youtube fiends.
 
So instead of threads with tags like "Dial-up Beware" or "56.6K NoNo" we're gonna start seeing "Warning Viewing this thread will cost you 34.63$"
 
What do you do if someone is using your mac address....? You end up getting hit with an astronomical bill that you barely contributed to.
 
k1DBLITZ said:
Case in point, we recently lost power for 4 days due to the ice storms in Oklahoma. Many people were without power for up to 3 weeks. Our electric bill was much HIGHER that month than it would have been even though we had no power whatsoever for 4 days. How is that fair? Their justification was that it cost them x amount of dollars to restore power, so they in effect, passed that cost on to their customers so that they could still turn a profit that month.
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As some insight I work for a power company and we are regulated by federal mandates. For rate increases you are required to present your case with 800 some page documents. I have worked storms that take days to restore and for the most part people work very hard during those times so some paitence is appreciated. If you saw your rate increase that quickly it sounds like you get your power from a muni which is doesn't make a profit and probably the cheapest power you can get.

Back on topic i'm with everyone else that this is a horrable idea and just screams for abuse. I broke down and bought my own cable modem so I wouldn't have to rent comcast's and saw my rate go UP this last month. Looking at it, it appears they added a nice 5 dollar increase to basic cable. My bills from comcast are around 120 dollars a month. 50 for regular cable, 20 for high def, and another 40 for internet. I believe in less government but the way this stuff is set up they are just screaming for regulation. They consistantly screw over the customer and I think they spend a lot on greasing legislation so they continue to get away with it.

I have seen more buisnesses get away from the customer is always right idea to an im a big buisness and can do whatever I want as long as I put in my TOS. I hope someone steps up soon and gives us little guys some leverage back.
 
Ockie said:
DSL is available in most areas. Other more drastic options would be to go with other connections such as T1 or similar (although this would be extreme).


Now if they charged more for those 5% of folks, but offered unlimited bandwith, then I think it may not be such a bad idea.
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Wow. You just justified Time Warner's charging more for the same thing they already advertise and sell right now. I never knew people supported false advertisement and agreed with a bullshit tactic of screwing consumers out of what they were sold.

If they succeed in this nonsense, I am personally blaming you :mad:
 
Well I feel bad for all my neighbors with unsecured wireless networks.(about 7 of em') :( They have no idea how many people steal from them. Their bill is going to be ridiculous if this shit ever came to Lincoln Nebraska.
 
I don't have a problem with this as long as the tiers are clearly marked and priced appropriately, and there is still an "unlimited" option (obviously, the most expensive). The satellite industry has used this model for years successfully. What I do have a problem with is invisible caps and unspoken restrictions on traffic when the service is clearly marketed and label as "unlimited" (can you hear me, Comcast?). This had better be clearly communicated too; they'd better not pull a Cingular special and surprise you with $500 of vague "excessive" charges on a bill.
 
Bomber18 said:
As some insight I work for a power company and we are regulated by federal mandates. For rate increases you are required to present your case with 800 some page documents. I have worked storms that take days to restore and for the most part people work very hard during those times so some paitence is appreciated. If you saw your rate increase that quickly it sounds like you get your power from a muni which is doesn't make a profit and probably the cheapest power you can get.
/QUOTE]

Nah, they found a loop hole. They claim they were not able to read the meters because they were too busy making repairs, so they "guessed" at what your usage would be based off of last years records. Their "guess" was much higher than usage had ever been. ;)
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If they ONLY charge based on usage and not have a base fee also, then it depends on how much they charge. If they charge a base fee on top of a variable fee, are they going to refund money to users that use less than normal? I highly doubt it.
 
"Largely, people won't notice the difference," said the Time Warner Cable spokesman. "We don't want customers to feel they're getting less for more." News of Time Warner Cable's plans was originally leaked on an online industry forum BroadbandReports.com.
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"We don't want customers to feel they're getting less for more." ... I'm sure they don't, but that's exactly what they're getting. Before, they were getting unlimited internet at a fixed price... now they'll be paying more. How is that *not* getting less for more?
 
This will NEVER work. It affects the ability to download. People like Apple who sell downloadable material (through itunes) will make sure this doesnt happen.
If more legit media download continues, companies will start to shy away from paying top dollar to mr. time warner. Yes they lose sponsors. Forcing them to stop. After all the majority of the population in the US is lower to middle class. People who dont and will not pay for it. It will be born in texas and die in texas. Thats if it ever gets going to begin with. Im sure someone smarts enough can tell them this is a very bad idea and it has nothing to do with the PEOPLE. Sponsors mean more to these type of companies than anything else.
 
watertown28 said:
I am confused here. Light users will only get charges a very small amount... lower then the base rate that is in place now...
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Ahahahah...You're a funny guy...

Yeah this'll "affect 5% of the users" and they'll LOWER prices for 95% of them? I'd love to see that. I bet you they'll charge those 5% tons of money while charging the regular users the same. They're only out to make money not to be fair. I'm glad here in Montreal Sympatico (Bell) still has unlimited downloading and uploading.
 
OH yea, internet going the way of cell phones... FUN.... wait NO

I can just see it now. $0.25 per MB.... my monthly bill, and I don't download movies or music. I see my bill being around $2500 a month just using bandwidth for games and patchs and utube
 
Way back in the day when I first signed up for internet access finding an ISP was all but impossible, it simply wasn’t a viable business so there was no reason to start one.

I did however sign up for CompuServe which was the only alternative to local BBS services and they had more and better indexed content. AOL didn’t exist yet and at that time there were no forums, no web sites, and no chat rooms.

To participate in CompuServe you first had to buy their kit at $24.95 and after a whopping 12 free hours your account reverted to $2.50 per minute connect time and if you actually owned a 2400 baud modem you were the shiznet.

The entire system was text based and really was nothing more then a better organized BBS with more content that you could actually access at will. When trying to use someone’s personal BBS they were mostly free but were limited to 2 or maybe three phone lines and after x amount of time you were simply cut off to allow access for other people.

CompuServe being text based with no real menu system could easily cost you a small fortune in one evening just learning your way around. Oh, if you had no local access in your area CompuServe would be glad to still have your business and provide you with a toll free number for only $5.00 a minute.

Along came AOL with a GUI based system and much bigger network of phones lines and bigger modem tables and they actually started the social community idea and chat was the norm. At first they started at the same rates as CompuServe but had much more to offer and a much better navigation system, especially the private chat rooms.

The internet did exist through out this period but was limited to Government and educational facilities. AOL was the first, or among the first to actually grant individuals to the internet, local ISPs were suddenly viable and the rest is history. I only bring all this up for those of you who are unfamiliar with how we got where we are today.

For years the only access to the net was through your local dial up ISP and the idea of 24/7 connections were out of the question. That too changed and for usually $10.00 more per month you could stay connected 24/7 and you needed a ping program to keep from being cut off but the open online community was now available to anyone for free by way of IRC and EF Net. Chat, love and online romance blossomed plus you could transfer files if you had unlimited time and didn’t get cut off.

Along came high speed access, cable and things got much better. Personal web sites abounded commercial web sites, complete with advertising came along and again, it was all good. No ISP anywhere was prepared for the advent of Napster or any PtoP programs and streaming data was a dream way off in the future.

Look where we are now. I pay about the same as I did when Comcast started offering high speed access and I guess I’m one of the few who still looks at that as a bargain when compared to a mere 10 years ago.

Now we live in an age of Bit Torrents, Pipes and God knows how many other file sharing programs all of which consume tens of millions times more access then ever and you folk expect the ISP to simply eat that because you figure you are entitled to do as you please with your connection.

Why should I pay more because of your abuse? I keep bringing this up but read your TOS, you are not allowed by any ISP to become a server and that is exactly what you are doing.

Go ahead and move to another ISP and you will find the same situation. Even FIOS is monitored as is DSL and when your usage hits a certain point, boom, you get the letter first, you get cut off second, or you have the option of paying by usage. You seem to forget that regardless of your ISP they buy bandwidth from a fixed number of hubs around the country and the hubs want more money.

Add to all this everyone wants streaming content such as TV service and someone has to pay for it and those of you with your Bit Torrents etc. are simply giving the ISPs the very excuse they need to rethink the whole business model. Why would you want to continue to sell a product for no profit? This very forum probably uses less bandwidth then 15 to 20 Bit Torrents running 24/7/365 yet do you think Kyle would try to run this thing over his home ISP? I don’t think that would last very long.

I got asked the other day “Who pissed on your cheerios?”. Well, right now you abusers of bandwidth are. Why do I have to suffer because you are too cheap to go by a CD or DVD or High Def DVD?

Your pure greed and entitlement thinking will cost the rest of us money and at the same time you are playing right into the hands of the RIAA types and creating a problem that shouldn’t exist.

It sucks, and I blame YOU.:mad:
 
For those of you worried about getting a high bill, and threatning to cancel, this is what hey want, they dont' want th "potential" high users, they want grama and her email checking once a year people with them.


bottom line is they are over selling capacity and now punishing people who beleive their ads about

"share video, music and photos with friends and family with high speed"

but if you do that we will throttle you and now charge you more for it!
 
So billR, your pissed because an ISP told ME i could use my Internet with NO limits, no nothing, go nuts, share those files with friends and family, and now that i am, i am getting punished with "invisible limits" not clearly defined anywhere, being threatened to be cut off because i am using what i thought i had paid for...

Oh, and i am not using Bittorrent or P2P for illegal reasons, lets say i make home movies? or i use msn or something to send many pictures over my 10mb/1mb FIOZ or cable line? OH wait, or download Linux, or amny other free, legit software you can get over P2P networks.......

So , now it is my fault that i was lied to by advertising and a company by actually EXPECTING to get to use what I PAID FOR, i PAID for it so i should be able to use it how I WISH, if not, then make it clear in your contracts that i am capped @ X speed, and you are going to throttle my bandwidth because YOU think i am doing something illegal Oh but not tell me and deny it all!

it is like buying a car and being told, sorry you cant drive that on a highway cause it will add to traffic, you have to stay on side roads cause we cant be bothered to update our roads and through ways, cause god forbid people actually expected to use a highway to go fast.

ISP's don't want to spend the money on their end to hold up their side of the deal about high speed access, streaming content TO YOU from other sites, what about Apple now renting DVD and soon HD content? there are many legit ways to use alot of bandwidth....
 
MrGuvernment said:
So billR, your pissed because an ISP told ME i could use my Internet with NO limits, no nothing, go nuts, share those files with friends and family, and now that i am, i am getting punished with "invisible limits" not clearly defined anywhere, being threatened to be cut off because i am using what i thought i had paid for...

Oh, and i am not using Bittorrent or P2P for illegal reasons, lets say i make home movies? or i use msn or something to send many pictures over my 10mb/1mb FIOZ or cable line? OH wait, or download Linux, or amny other free, legit software you can get over P2P networks.......

So , now it is my fault that i was lied to by advertising and a company by actually EXPECTING to get to use what I PAID FOR, i PAID for it so i should be able to use it how I WISH, if not, then make it clear in your contracts that i am capped @ X speed, and you are going to throttle my bandwidth because YOU think i am doing something illegal Oh but not tell me and deny it all!

it is like buying a car and being told, sorry you cant drive that on a highway cause it will add to traffic, you have to stay on side roads cause we cant be bothered to update our roads and through ways, cause god forbid people actually expected to use a highway to go fast.

ISP's don't want to spend the money on their end to hold up their side of the deal about high speed access, streaming content TO YOU from other sites, what about Apple now renting DVD and soon HD content? there are many legit ways to use alot of bandwidth....
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Not to mention he made a piss poor comparison about the old internet bills and new ones. They had to be by the clock back then because they had to make a profit somehow. Nobody had the internet back then.

Now everyone and their dog has the internet, and I would think $50 per household MORE than covers their need to get their shit working and upgraded, but I guess they want a Scrooge McDuck swimming pool instead, right?
 
I'm sorry, but everyone that is on here bitching is an idiot. It makes good business sense to charge by usage. Set a flat rate for a bandwidth limit that 95% of people won't go over, and have people pay extra for extra bandwidth in tiers and by units if they go over. Phone, electric, water, gas, etc companies all do it. And yeah, okay, it's annoying, but it makes sense: these systems are finite. Everyone keeps whining about some sort of entitlement to an unlimited internet. That's absurd. Grow up.

My personal preference would be to have them do away with bandwidth limits at a given time and just charge by usage. Use a load balancer to distribute maximal bandwidth to every concurrent user, and then what you pay for in tiers is the total bandwidth not instantaneous bandwidth. This would then give the companies proper incentive to beef up their infrastructure so they can make more money off the people maxing out their connection a lot.

I think this is a good pilot program, but it needs some work. For instance, late night bandwidth should be unlimited (i.e. between the hours of 1AM-8AM), and then if you want to dl a torrent, set up a scheduler. I think you'll see providers moving towards this just as cell phone companies have.
 
BombermanX said:
I'm sorry, but everyone that is on here bitching is an idiot. It makes good business sense to charge by usage. Set a flat rate for a bandwidth limit that 95% of people won't go over, and have people pay extra for extra bandwidth in tiers and by units if they go over. Phone, electric, water, gas, etc companies all do it. And yeah, okay, it's annoying, but it makes sense: these systems are finite. Everyone keeps whining about some sort of entitlement to an unlimited internet. That's absurd. Grow up.

My personal preference would be to have them do away with bandwidth limits at a given time and just charge by usage. Use a load balancer to distribute maximal bandwidth to every concurrent user, and then what you pay for in tiers is the total bandwidth not instantaneous bandwidth. This would then give the companies proper incentive to beef up their infrastructure so they can make more money off the people maxing out their connection a lot.

I think this is a good pilot program, but it needs some work. For instance, late night bandwidth should be unlimited (i.e. between the hours of 1AM-8AM), and then if you want to dl a torrent, set up a scheduler. I think you'll see providers moving towards this just as cell phone companies have.
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OK well since you think you're a genius among us, why don't you go ahead and tell us idiots what you think we should be paying. Because I think $50 a month more than covers it. AFAIK, cable lines are shared resource in neighborhoods, so ISP's are effectively getting thousands of dollars per node per month, more than it's worth per month. But what do I know, I'm an idiot.
 
Azhar said:
OK well since you think you're a genius among us, why don't you go ahead and tell us idiots what you think we should be paying. Because I think $50 a month more than covers it. AFAIK, cable lines are shared resource in neighborhoods, so ISP's are effectively getting thousands of dollars per node per month, more than it's worth per month. But what do I know, I'm an idiot.
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You should be paying exactly what market value is for the amount of bandwidth you use. If the companies go ahead with this sort of billing they'll probably put something similar to say $40 a month for 20GB/month so that most users will see it as a positive that the billing has changed. And if you go over that, then you deserve to pay more. If you left your computer, washing machine and dryer on all the time, you would expect to pay a lot more on your electric bill. How is internet different? That's just naive.
 
Kristofff said:
Wow. You just justified Time Warner's charging more for the same thing they already advertise and sell right now. I never knew people supported false advertisement and agreed with a bullshit tactic of screwing consumers out of what they were sold.

If they succeed in this nonsense, I am personally blaming you :mad:
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Yeah :rolleyes:


Please re-read my post. They currently do not offer an "unlimited speed", nor do they even honor their current SLA's.... if they did that, it would be worth the price alone. If I could pull DS-3, OC-3, or even higher speeds out of my pipe with a guaranteed throughput, I don't see where the problem comes in... let me pay.

I'm worried the SLA's and throughput guarantees, not the price.


Try to re-read my thread then proceed to blame me.
 
MrGuvernment said:
So billR, your pissed because an ISP told ME i could use my Internet with NO limits, no nothing, go nuts, share those files with friends and family, and now that i am, i am getting punished with "invisible limits" not clearly defined anywhere, being threatened to be cut off because i am using what i thought i had paid for...

Oh, and i am not using Bittorrent or P2P for illegal reasons, lets say i make home movies? or i use msn or something to send many pictures over my 10mb/1mb FIOZ or cable line? OH wait, or download Linux, or amny other free, legit software you can get over P2P networks.......

So , now it is my fault that i was lied to by advertising and a company by actually EXPECTING to get to use what I PAID FOR, i PAID for it so i should be able to use it how I WISH, if not, then make it clear in your contracts that i am capped @ X speed, and you are going to throttle my bandwidth because YOU think i am doing something illegal Oh but not tell me and deny it all!

it is like buying a car and being told, sorry you cant drive that on a highway cause it will add to traffic, you have to stay on side roads cause we cant be bothered to update our roads and through ways, cause god forbid people actually expected to use a highway to go fast.

ISP's don't want to spend the money on their end to hold up their side of the deal about high speed access, streaming content TO YOU from other sites, what about Apple now renting DVD and soon HD content? there are many legit ways to use alot of bandwidth....
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I have no clue who your ISP might be, and frankly it doesn’t matter. Please check out the links below and show me where anyone has “unlimited service”. Point of fact, in every one of these TOS policies if you are my neighbor and your use of your account slows my use and enjoyment of my account, your account may be terminated with no notice.

If you are over 18 you agreed to not only the TOS but you agreed they may change it at will with no notification to you however, YOU remain responsible to read the contract from time to time.

If you are under 18 and agreed to this contract, you broke the law and your parents are totally responsible. Have fun explaining to Mom and Dad why they now have no phone or Cable TV service.


http://www.comcast.net/terms/use.jsp

http://www.cox.com/policy/default.asp

http://www2.verizon.net/policies/tos.asp

http://www2.embarq.com/legal/acceptableuse.html?rid=acceptableuse

http://www.timewarnercableoffers.com/6/terms.php

As for home movies? Pahleeeese, don’t lubricate my shoes and tell me it is raining.:rolleyes:
 
I want to walk into a Time Warner Board meeting and shout "FAGS" into a megaphone, loud enough to startle them.
 
I'm guessing it will only affect 5% because they are only testing it on 10%

Wasn't it AOL that went to unlimited use back in the dial up days FIRST, now they are going back to that model. This is BS
 
Good solution from the user's point of view but will never be implemented because it won't benefit ISPs:

Have a tiered class system based on given time window (say, 30 day average)

Example:

Light user: < 1GB
Medium user: 1GB - 10GB
Heavy user: > 10GB

Then, once total bandwidth usage exceeds a certain threshhold, start throttling traffic based upon class.

For example,

Say total usage is over 80%. Light users would be left alone, Medium users would be someone limited, and heavy users will be more limited.


This way even during peak hours light users will still get full benefit from their connection, yet medium and heavy users will still be functional. And during off-peak hours anyone can use the available bandwidth.
 
balthan said:
Good solution from the user's point of view but will never be implemented because it won't benefit ISPs:

Have a tiered class system based on given time window (say, 30 day average)

Example:

Light user: < 1GB
Medium user: 1GB - 10GB
Heavy user: > 10GB

Then, once total bandwidth usage exceeds a certain threshhold, start throttling traffic based upon class.

For example,

Say total usage is over 80%. Light users would be left alone, Medium users would be someone limited, and heavy users will be more limited.


This way even during peak hours light users will still get full benefit from their connection, yet medium and heavy users will still be functional. And during off-peak hours anyone can use the available bandwidth.
Click to expand...

This doesn't benefit the user because it gives the ISP's no incentive to improve their bandwidth. That's the whole issue with the current billing situation.
 
k1pp3r said:
they are just going to us it to judge customer reaction
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This is exactly what it is. They are trying to see how many people will put up with something like this. If the models they have constructed show a larger profit by continuing with "pay as you go", they will implement it everywhere. What many people do not realize is that the current model of selling different speed tiers would be changed to include bandwidth tiers.

These bandwidth tiers would be much smaller than the current "invisible lines" that many ISPs now have. Many of us on here would be affected by something like this. I know that many places in Australia have a system similar to this. Once you go over your 10 GB bandwidth limit you don't pay more but you speeds are cut down to basically 56k until the next billing period starts. This is the type of business model many broadband providers would love to switch to.

I'm not going to say that people don't rape their connections and I'm not going to say that it's not a problem. However, broadband providers keep raising the speeds of their basic packages. This signals to me that they want people to use that extra speed. This means that more people will download different media or possibly cruise the web more since they don't have to wait as long.

From a profit/business standpoint I can understand the reasons why broadband providers would like to change the current model. However, I do not see it working in the long run. It's very difficult to change from a customer friendly model to a customer unfriendly model and still be able to make a decent profit. Plus, there will always be some providers (even though they won't be everywhere) that won't adopt this type of model just to take in the users that abandoned the other providers that adopted the model. In this way competition will win out.

Personally, I think this is a stupid move by TimeWarner. I don't think this type of model will be adopted by those in areas that currently have broadband. However, this type of model may work in areas that don't currently have broadband and it's not currently cost effective to bring broadband to those areas.

When companies look for ways to limit customers as a way to increase profits it's a bad business decision in most cases. The goal of companies should be to increase profits by providing better services/products by pushing into new areas or enticing customers of another business to change over. The limiting of customers shows stagnation in the business and a lack of ability or desire to look forward and innovate. This stagnation is not normal. If it was normal, we would all still be using 300 baud modems.

I understand that bandwidth isn't free, but most of the fault of any problems lies with the ISP selling the bandwidth to the customer.

 
BillR said:
I have no clue who your ISP might be, and frankly it doesn’t matter. Please check out the links below and show me where anyone has “unlimited service”. Point of fact, in every one of these TOS policies if you are my neighbor and your use of your account slows my use and enjoyment of my account, your account may be terminated with no notice.
Click to expand...

Microsoft's EULA also says that they can terminate your license at any time and for no reason, but no reasonable person actually expects they will do it. You seem to understand a TOS well enough to also know that they put a lot of that language in there to protect themselves from legal action, not so that they can use it as a "Gotcha!" to terminate customers at will.

The MPAA and RIAA will be loving this, of course, as it should help reduce downloads, but the real problem here is that this is a cultural step backwards. We are using the Internet for more and more things. I can go to a news site and watch a streaming video of a newscast, I download movie trailers. I download software that I paid for online via Steam, for example, which is over 50GB of data if I have to download it again after an OS reload, or more if you buy games online regularly (buying two games a month is easily 10GB).

Online distribution is becoming a good way to do business, all of which is threatened by this concept. Let's face it. The real goal here is to make money, so they can increase their bottom line, so their profits go up, so their stock increases, and the CEO can keep his job for another year. Let's face it, if investors weren't so fickle, jumping ship if the stock doesn't increase by a certain percentage over a certain period of time, company officers wouldn't be pulling these kinds of stunts to try to make money, and would be focusing on providing a good service instead of making the black ink even blacker. I don't like what they're doing, and I'll vote with my dollar if it happens to me, but I understand it.
 
BillR said:
Way back in the day when I first signed up for internet access finding an ISP was all but impossible, it simply wasn’t a viable business so there was no reason to start one.

I did however sign up for CompuServe which was the only alternative to local BBS services and they had more and better indexed content. AOL didn’t exist yet and at that time there were no forums, no web sites, and no chat rooms.

To participate in CompuServe you first had to buy their kit at $24.95 and after a whopping 12 free hours your account reverted to $2.50 per minute connect time and if you actually owned a 2400 baud modem you were the shiznet.

The entire system was text based and really was nothing more then a better organized BBS with more content that you could actually access at will. When trying to use someone’s personal BBS they were mostly free but were limited to 2 or maybe three phone lines and after x amount of time you were simply cut off to allow access for other people.

CompuServe being text based with no real menu system could easily cost you a small fortune in one evening just learning your way around. Oh, if you had no local access in your area CompuServe would be glad to still have your business and provide you with a toll free number for only $5.00 a minute.

Along came AOL with a GUI based system and much bigger network of phones lines and bigger modem tables and they actually started the social community idea and chat was the norm. At first they started at the same rates as CompuServe but had much more to offer and a much better navigation system, especially the private chat rooms.

The internet did exist through out this period but was limited to Government and educational facilities. AOL was the first, or among the first to actually grant individuals to the internet, local ISPs were suddenly viable and the rest is history. I only bring all this up for those of you who are unfamiliar with how we got where we are today.

For years the only access to the net was through your local dial up ISP and the idea of 24/7 connections were out of the question. That too changed and for usually $10.00 more per month you could stay connected 24/7 and you needed a ping program to keep from being cut off but the open online community was now available to anyone for free by way of IRC and EF Net. Chat, love and online romance blossomed plus you could transfer files if you had unlimited time and didn’t get cut off.

Along came high speed access, cable and things got much better. Personal web sites abounded commercial web sites, complete with advertising came along and again, it was all good. No ISP anywhere was prepared for the advent of Napster or any PtoP programs and streaming data was a dream way off in the future.

Look where we are now. I pay about the same as I did when Comcast started offering high speed access and I guess I’m one of the few who still looks at that as a bargain when compared to a mere 10 years ago.

Now we live in an age of Bit Torrents, Pipes and God knows how many other file sharing programs all of which consume tens of millions times more access then ever and you folk expect the ISP to simply eat that because you figure you are entitled to do as you please with your connection.

Why should I pay more because of your abuse? I keep bringing this up but read your TOS, you are not allowed by any ISP to become a server and that is exactly what you are doing.

Go ahead and move to another ISP and you will find the same situation. Even FIOS is monitored as is DSL and when your usage hits a certain point, boom, you get the letter first, you get cut off second, or you have the option of paying by usage. You seem to forget that regardless of your ISP they buy bandwidth from a fixed number of hubs around the country and the hubs want more money.

Add to all this everyone wants streaming content such as TV service and someone has to pay for it and those of you with your Bit Torrents etc. are simply giving the ISPs the very excuse they need to rethink the whole business model. Why would you want to continue to sell a product for no profit? This very forum probably uses less bandwidth then 15 to 20 Bit Torrents running 24/7/365 yet do you think Kyle would try to run this thing over his home ISP? I don’t think that would last very long.

I got asked the other day “Who pissed on your cheerios?”. Well, right now you abusers of bandwidth are. Why do I have to suffer because you are too cheap to go by a CD or DVD or High Def DVD?

Your pure greed and entitlement thinking will cost the rest of us money and at the same time you are playing right into the hands of the RIAA types and creating a problem that shouldn’t exist.

It sucks, and I blame YOU.:mad:
Click to expand...

Perhaps your argument would be better if the industry didnt increase its profit margins each year by such substantial sums... RIAA loves to complain about .mp3s.. yet the industry sees othing but growth and no loss, Cable companies love to complain and make easy targets of high bandwidth users, yet their profit margins rise on a yearly basis regardless.

Perhaps you'd like to turn a blind eye to the fact that our ISPs are the most expensive yet cant even compete with speeds in Europe, or East Asia on neither a users-per-area nor speed-per-user area. The networks overseas are far more powerful, with Japan the clear leader.

You're pointing the finger at the wrong place if you're looking for GREED in this sector. The cable companies (particularly AT&T) made a pact with the FCC that for a discount and extra funding (your Tax dollars) they would create a nationwide fiberoptic network years ago, it never happened. There is more profit in throttling people and this is exactly what they are trying to do.

Heres the law to live by: Communications companies dont experiment in ANYTHING unless they see a pot of gold at the end of the CFO's wet dream.

Dont be ignorant just because you dont use your own bandwidth to its full potential. This will have MAJOR impact on not only file sharers, but all content providers will see traffic die across the board. THIS COULD KILL THE INTERNET when it forces sites to limit everything so they can generate less bandwidth traffic to attract people.

Areas of MAJOR IMPACT that use high amounts of bandwidth will be, in no particular ranking:

#1 YouTube and all video sharing sites
#2 iTunes
#3 Web Search Engines
#4 News Websites
#5 Internet Advertising Firms
#6 Internet Sales Sites of Every Kind
#7 Gamers of EVERY kind
#8 ESPECIALLY MMO GAMERS
#9 Open Source Development
#10 The enormous multi-state-economy-supporting Porn Industry
#11 Forget Steam, Digital Distribution would IMPOVERISH you, not just your gaming
#12 Online Dating sites
#13 All p2p file sharing, legal or otherwise
#14 News Groups
#15 ANY AND ALL DIGITAL DISTRIBUTIONS (such as buying software off websites that you can download)
#16 Ebay browsing and Searching
#17 browser Cookies
#18 UPDATING and PATCHING any software Online. Windows, Virus definitions, Everything!
#19 Absolutely devastate access to the internet and all its functions for the unprivileged.
#20 Put us FURTHER behind the entire world in Internet development, even though our nation invented it.

Please, THINK before opening your mouth and professing the goodness for profiteering at the expense of everything we've built online since the internet came into being.
 
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