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Time Warner Cable Inc said on Wednesday it is planning a trial to bill high-speed Internet subscribers based on their amount of usage rather than a flat fee, the standard industry practice.
The second largest U.S. cable operator said it will test consumption-based billing with subscribers in Beaumont, Texas later this year as a part of a strategy to help reduce congestion of its network by a minority of consumers who pay the same monthly fee as light users.
The company believes the billing system will impact only heavy users, who account for around 5 percent of all customers but typically use more than half of the total network bandwidth, according to a company spokesman.
Slowing network congestion due to downloading of large media files such as video is a growing problem for Time Warner Cable. The company said the problem will worsen as video downloading becomes more popular.
But the move could prove controversial. Unlike with utility bills such as the phone or electricity, which have traditionally been based on usage, U.S. high-speed Internet subscribers have come to expect a fixed monthly charge. An Internet bill typically only varies based on the speed of the consumer's Internet access.
Time Warner Cable, which has 7.4 million residential Internet subscribers, is hoping the move will not confuse consumers if introduced nationwide and is planning a trial period.
"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.
Other cable operators may follow Time Warner Cable's lead and phone companies such as Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T Inc are likely to be watching the New York-based cable operator's plans.
As U.S. consumers have become more used to streaming and downloading digital media over the Web, their Internet service providers have started to come under pressure to be able to keep up with growing demand in a cost-effective manner.
Comcast Corp, the largest cable operator with around 13 million Internet subscribers, has been accused by consumer groups of blocking Web traffic moving across its networks, prompting a notice of inquiry by the Federal Communications Commission earlier this week.
Comcast denies it blocks any Internet traffic saying it uses bandwidth management technology to help improve the customer experience but which may slow down some file transfers.
awesome... telecom is an interesting area. It seems as though cell phone companies are ripping us off big time, and yet they still are "in trouble" and cable companies are all pissed off that we have found new uses for the internet.
It is funny because the world is changing. What "the people" feel is fair and right is shifting.
You know, I am going to go out on a limb here and say this is a full blown revolution. Not just a revolution as you may seen on TV being tossed around or written in your standard newspaper article. I am talking a full scale radical shift in perception.
For the past 50 or so years the growth of America, and many other countries in the world, has largely been stagnant and built around the conception of a "corporation" and traditional nuclear family style values. I am guessing based on the ideas of the 1950's.
Now the people have waken up and really taken matters into their own hands. Not just IT, we are talking many aspects of our lives. What we buy, what we expose ourselves to, furthering green energy, making stands in oppressive countries. All helped by computing and our information sharing. Things are changing fast and you will notice that all the people who are playing catch up and throwing their little fits are those companies and people still trying to hold onto the corporation ideology.
The people are going to win this. They should just try and plan for their business models to change. It is all about people controlling their own exposure and sharing ideas with one another. I think if we can survive this global warming issue, we will eventually be so fully connected that we will virtually be living in our worlds customized by us.
Just a few ideas I wanted to share.
This post has been edited by Martyr2: 19 Apr, 2009 - 08:04 PM
Comcast denies it blocks any Internet traffic saying it uses bandwidth management technology
Don't you love when they contradict themselves in the same sentence?
The problem is, in many areas, the "cable company" is essentially a monopoly; it's the only game available. The cable versus phone thing is the only thing keeping the cable company, and the phone company for that matter, trying to keep any consumer good will. May that war never end.
This post has been edited by baavgai: 20 Apr, 2009 - 03:37 AM
You know, I am going to go out on a limb here and say this is a full blown revolution. Not just a revolution as you may seen on TV being tossed around or written in your standard newspaper article. I am talking a full scale radical shift in perception.
I too have felt this. There is a definite energy of rapid shits in ideals going on. I have been meaning to really find the time to really take a look at this and get a feel for it but I don't really have time, and it is happening really rapidly. Everywhere I turn my attention to I see these shifts.
I mean IT, air travel, entertainment, science, politics -- the old models are breaking down, peoples expectations are shifting, people are waking up a little (My eavesdropping has picked up many more issue conscious conversations going on around me).
I don't think your wrong about the revolution... there are some huge social and economic changes in the works.
They seem to be doing what the mobile phone companies did with data services. Now with 3G network they charge you monthly rate for an allowed amount of data, then charge you more if you go over.
Put on my Sticking To Man Hat On. The reason they want to change is they believe they'll increase revenue and more profit.
This post has been edited by AdamSpeight2008: 22 Apr, 2009 - 04:25 PM
I live in this area and I think this going the be the start of something BIG. Been having thoughts of Microsoft building a part of the Window Azure infrastructure (ie a Data Center) in the town.
Should also note the a private commercial company VirginMedia has a 50Mb network currently in the my town, with higher speed coming.
i laughed pretty hard when i saw that. but the cable providers where im from limit our download if they notice we are using bit torrent. They promise that we will reviece our high speed but we get throttled constantly down to 300 kb/s and thats not even when we use bit torrent. when being a pirate (arrrr) we get cut down to about 60kb/s i want that open acces 25mb
i laughed pretty hard when i saw that. but the cable providers where im from limit our download if they notice we are using bit torrent. They promise that we will reviece our high speed but we get throttled constantly down to 300 kb/s and thats not even when we use bit torrent. when being a pirate (arrrr) we get cut down to about 60kb/s i want that open acces 25mb
comcast got into a lot of trouble in the states for pulling that crap and not telling their customers.
Wow. Internet throttling is SO not an issue in Canada (at least, as far as I've seen). We all have high speed internet and I'm pretty sure there's more bandwidth available than out entire population could ever hope to use I can't imagine why the American ISPs haven't kept up with the kind of service we have here. Maybe you should ask them
Wow. Internet throttling is SO not an issue in Canada (at least, as far as I've seen). We all have high speed internet and I'm pretty sure there's more bandwidth available than out entire population could ever hope to use I can't imagine why the American ISPs haven't kept up with the kind of service we have here. Maybe you should ask them
Yeah why does Time Warner even feel like they need to make us pay for usage? That just means no more downloading any kind of big files, even if they're legit. Anyone ever downloaded the Trial versions of World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online? Those are GB sized files.
And besides it's not like there isn't really enough bandwidth. The US doesn't rank very high in highest of high speed internets, mostly because our ISP's just don't want to give it to us, and would rather keep it for themselves. Look at Japan with their average internet connection of 40MBps in the average person's home. What do we have in America? A lot of people still use Dial-Up internet, and Time Warner's "RoadRunner Standard" is only 7MBps (Of which you can't fully utilize at any one time) Because they most I've ever been able to download a file at is the rate of 1 Megabyte per second, they just need to suck it up and take all of our 60 dollars a month and invest in better infrastructure. They're gonna have to do it eventually regardless. Because if they think Americans are going to get by with a 15MBps (The new RoadRunner Turbo, which still only ever gets to 12MBps or so for me) maximum connection forever, they got another thing coming.
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