Time Warner Central Texas - Tiered Internet Pricing

[Lovetroll]

New article today regarding the rollout of new usage-based broadband pricing plan that will be rolling out this summer that will directly impact how those of us with Time Warner will be able to use our TiVos.

The plan summary:

Service plans ranging from $29.95 to $54.90 with caps ranging from 5 to 40 GB of data a month. Customers will be charged an additional $1 for each additional GB of data.

The reaction (according to the reporter):

"It’s been two days since we first reported that Time Warner Cable would be rolling out usage-based Internet service pricing this summer and the reaction has been… what’s the word? Intense? Outraged? Apocalyptic?"

Today's article is complete with links to the original articles, Twitter postings from a Time Warner rep, links to Tech Web site's stories on the page, a Facebook group, an online petition, link to a City of Austin Community Technology & Telecommunications Commission meeting for consumers to "voice their concerns", and much, much more.

Remember, if they implement it here in Austin & San Antonio, it's only a matter of time before it comes to your backyard. Enjoy your all-you-can-eat broadband habit while you can. :)

http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/digitalsavant/entries/2009/04/03/time_warner_cab_1.html

[JoeTaxpayer]

Are they offering you an on line meter to track usage?

[pmiranda]

Supposedly there will be a meter but I haven't seen anything that says where to look for it.

5GB/mo isn't remotely enough. Hopefully they will honor their price-lock guarantee and when that's over I'll drop their internet service if they're still pursuing such stupidly low caps.

Gotta love the cheap honchos at TW...
Need to add more channels but don't want to pay for infrastructure improvements? Roll out SDV and break channels for cablecard customers and make even the settops flaky.
Running out of bandwidth at peak times and you don't want to throttle the abusers with infrastructure fixes or actually improve infrastructure for everybody? Set an absurdly low BW cap and overcharge for usage beyond it.
All the while touting "turbo" roadrunner with 10Mb/s speeds.

[Hawkeye22]

Both Ars (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/get-ready-for-metered-broadband-texas.ars) and Tom's Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com/news/time-warner-cable-bandwidth-cap,7466.html) reported on this.

The Ars article makes mention of a 100GB/month tier also. Tom's makes mention that 40GB/month is only 7.25 hours of streaming video.

[jmfirestone]

I am in Greensboro, NC and I saw an article saying it's coming here too.

How is this legal when they so obviously picked areas where Verizon's FIOS is being blocked from entry? We have no choice but to use them for decent HSI, so they gouge us. Sounds on the up and up to me! :rolleyes:

[ljcaswell]

They're also trying this cr*p in my hometown of Rochester, NY. Our local congressman is coming out strong against it.

There's also no FIOS here - only Frontier DSL. My parents, who live out in the boonies have more options than me for high speed internet.

It's a complete cash grab.

Visit www.stopthecap.com for more info.

[JoeTaxpayer]

5GB/mo isn't remotely enough. Hopefully they will honor their price-lock guarantee and when that's over I'll drop their internet service if they're still pursuing such stupidly low caps.


The problem isn't the cap, per se, but the marketing. If 5GB/mo is $19.99 and will save grandma (assuming she emails and little else) $30/mo, that can be good.
All our ISP need to offer a meter first, or put usage on the monthly bill a few months, and show how 99% of their customers will not be negatively impacted. The TiVo user is more tech savy, and likely to be a higher user.

[ycrazyy]

Is this what POTUS meant by "Broadband for everyone!" (but with a cap of course) :)

[DrMark]

I was all ready to finally buy an HD Tivo, motivated largly by the ability to download from Netflix or Amazon. Unfortunately, I live in Austin, TX, and Time Warner has a monopoly in my neighborhood. It looks like the bandwidth cap is going to kill me.

--Mark

[Resist]

So what does this have to do with a Tivo Series3? Shouldn't it be in another thread?

[JWThiers]

It affects how some people use their S3/THD. i.e. drop cable in favor of OTA combined with downloaded content (Amazon, netflix, videopodcasts, etc). You have an unreasonable bandwidth cap and that competition for video content is dramatically curtailed. You can download a lot of content from amazon for the $60 a month (most like much higher so even more) you save from dropping cable.

[Hawkeye22]

This is freakishly insane. Here is an email address you can write to, realideas@twcable.com (mailto://realideas@twcable.com). It's posted in this Ars article (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/time-warner-cable-please-complain-about-our-usage-caps.ars).

Also, here is a new article (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/the-price-gouging-premiums-of-time-warner-cables-data-caps.ars) showing just how badly TW is gouging people.

[jmfirestone]

Thanks for that email, I sent one off.

[echoout]

So what does this have to do with a Tivo Series3? Shouldn't it be in another thread?

This relates directly in my world because Tivo is the one thing keeping me with TWC's cable service. Otherwise, I'm switching my DSL and phone to AT&T.

[Lovetroll]

This relates directly in my world because Tivo is the one thing keeping me with TWC's cable service. Otherwise, I'm switching my DSL and phone to AT&T.

That probably won't help. AT&T started testing caps in Beaumont with Comcast and Time Warner last year:

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/12/sorry-beaumont-att-brings-bandwidth-caps-to-texas.ars

I am not a lawyer but isn't this sort of behavior illegal? Can the only (or majority) providers of a service be allowed to raise their prices in this seemingly collusive manner?

[Hawkeye22]

For anyone that is interested, here is a petition you can sign.

You can do something about TWC and others. A for-consumer organization called FreePress has an online petition, which is 500,000 strong at the moment, aims to convince Congress to put a stop to net capping schemes (scams?). Sign up here (https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=311) and make a stand.

[JWThiers]

For anyone that is interested, here is a petition you can sign.

You can do something about TWC and others. A for-consumer organization called FreePress has an online petition, which is 500,000 strong at the moment, aims to convince Congress to put a stop to net capping schemes (scams?). Sign up here (https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=311) and make a stand.

I would follow that up with real SNAIL MAIL letters to Time Warner, and you represenatives (Local, State and Federal). Email and on line petitions tend to be ignored.

[DaveDFW]

If this is correct, Time-Warner has stopped the tiered experiment, for now:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/theyre-gone-after-outcry-time-warner-uncaps-the-tubes.ars

Given the anti-consumer sentiment in Texas, I wouldn't be surprised if it's only New York that gets the reprieve.

TTYL
David

[DougJohnson]

If this is correct, Time-Warner has stopped the tiered experiment, for now:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/theyre-gone-after-outcry-time-warner-uncaps-the-tubes.ars

Given the anti-consumer sentiment in Texas, I wouldn't be surprised if it's only New York that gets the reprieve.

TTYL
David

The New York Times says they are shelving it everywhere, at least for now:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/04/16/business/AP-TEC-Metered-Internet.html?_r=1

-- Doug

[inahaz]

The Columbus Ohio news tonight ran a story saying the pilot testing of the new pay-per download pricing had met strong customer pushback and they were not going to pursue it.

[cartouchbea]

I'm not getting too excited about their supposed change of heart. According to the statement from the ARS Technica article: 'In response, TWC will shelve the trials "while the customer education process continues."'

So I guess TWC feels we're all a bunch of dumb a**'es and they'll try it again once we've calmed down. They just need some time to develop a message our little pea-brains can understand. :rolleyes:

cartouchbea