Time Warner Links Web Prices With Usage

[MessiahRp]

Source: Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) - Time Warner Cable will experiment with a new pricing structure for high-speed Internet access later this year, charging customers based on how much data they download, a company spokesman said Wednesday.

The company, the second-largest cable provider in the United States, will start a trial in Beaumont, Texas, in which it will sell new Internet customers tiered levels of service based on how much data they download per month, rather than the usual fixed-price packages with unlimited downloads.

Company spokesman Alex Dudley said the trial was aimed at improving the network performance by making it more costly for heavy users of large downloads. Dudley said that a small group of super-heavy users of downloads, around 5 percent of the customer base, can account for up to 50 percent of network capacity.

Dudley said he did not know what the pricing tiers would be nor the download limits. He said the heavy users were likely using the network to download large amounts of video, most likely in high definition.

More at link....

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20080117/D8U7KREO0.htm...

[nebenaube]

1. Lead Zeppelin.....

Lousy excuse for not upgrading capacity.

[awoke_in_2003]

13. Please call it a Lead Balloon

a lead zeppelin sounds too much like the greatest rock band ever

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. And on-line games like WoW are reduced to the dustbin of history

World of Warcraft, EverQuest, EverQuest II, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot and a lot of similar games all require that the user contantly downloads data from the game server. I cannot see how they can survive when the cost of a database connection is dependent on download volume.

[ret5hd]

3. Games will be for the rich...

sorry, you'll be too busy bussing tables to worry about WoW.

[TechBear_Seattle]

6. Which is why they will have to close down

The vast majority of people who play these games are working class people looking for diversion. The rich have other toys to play with. The games are designed to require groups; if there are not enough people online to form a group, no one will want to play.

[CRF450]

16. MMO games suck anyways.

Nothing like the fast paced action of a FPS game like FEAR being played online!

[TechBear_Seattle]

17. I would disagree with you about MMO games

Then again, that would be like an alcoholic disagreeing with the statement, "Booze sucks."

[CRF450]

19. Just my opinion though

They just seem so boring to me.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

7. You're right. This WILL kill MMOs.

I can't see that many people willing to pay extra to their cable company to play an MMO.
Not after purchasing the game itself, the internet access in the first place, and the monthly fee.

With Blizzard posting $1.1 billion in revenues for 2007 ($520 million in operating profit), they're probably not liking the prospect of seeing their game base cut in half for World of Warcraft.

Should be an interesting fight.

[theredpen]

21. How much data?

Sure, these games require frequent updates, but how much data are we talking about?

I'm thinking that Second Life will suffer because when you move around, you are always encountering new images that need to be downloaded.

[TechBear_Seattle]

24. It depends on the game

Some games (EverQuest) have a lot of small zones; moving from one zone to another requires downloading a very large block of data, which is updated as you move around using very small blocks of data.

Some games (Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft) use a "wandering zone," with packets of a consistent size notifying your computer of changes in images, objects and other characters.

Some games (EverQuest II) use a hybrid of fixed zones and wandering zones, which averages out the advantages and disadvantages of the other two methods.

Over time, the same amount of data is exchanged regardless; the only difference is the size of individual packets. But the actual amount of data is pretty significant.

[theredpen]

25. Thanks

For those of us breathlessly awaiting StarCraft II, I certainly hope this metered bandwidth DOESN'T catch on then.

[Occulus]

29. This won't just affect MMO's

This will also affect first-person shooters that have a multiplayer. Some FPS games- such as the entire Unreal franchise- are exclusively multiplayer. One of the reasons these games are so popular with the FPS crowd is because, once you buy the game, you play it free online forever.

This would destroy that entire group of games as well. I just can't see the whole by-the-byte pricing going over well at all; they're going to be stepping on the toes of an industry worth billions of dollars if they try this.

It would be amusing if the outcome were more certain, but the fact is, there been a quiet push in the last few years to get people to accept subscriptions of software, rather than outright buying a license. Micro$oft wants to do this eventually with Window$, for example.

Ultimately, though, this is an effort to kill the internet to the point where it can be strictly controlled, and since the vast majority of us using the internet rely upon a commercial ISP, we're the ones who will be under that control.

That doesn't just go for gamers, but everyone who uses the internet. Conveniently, this would also kill linux (which I'm using right now; compiz fusion makes Aero look like an amateur hack job by comparison) in one swift stroke, as nobody would be willing to pay the extra to download a 4 gigabyte disc image. This whole idea has lots and lots of very bad ramifications for the internet as we know it.

I wonder what Hillary etc. think of this...

[geomon666]

4. They're basically experimenting with failure.

Stop trying to punish people who use your service. What the hell is wrong with you?

[bigworld]

5. As much as I hate the cable companies

this isn't a bad idea. Now how about only charging me for the channels I want to watch?

[xxqqqzme]

8. They do - it's called HBO.

[cstanleytech]

Eh, I disagree,

Rates based on usage will kill the future expansion of the internet and slow its growth.
They need to increase their capacity is what is needed and if that means some rate hikes I'm willing to pay for that but I wont support a pay as you go method, its doomed to failure.

[harmonicon]

11. maybe in theory....

...but I'm guessing they don't just shut down your connection when you go past the limit you've paid for. You'll likely be charged an exorbitant rate for every bit you go over - just like they do with cell phone deals where you pay for a fixed number of minutes and go over (and also with no monitoring that the customer can do).

[Habibi]

9. Yanno,

it probably wouldn't be a terrible idea if more people got away from their 'puters and, I dunno, went out and organized a neighborhood social night or sumpin'.

I know I really should get out more.

[Occulus]

30. That's difficult or impossible for a lot of people who work afternoons and nights. n/t

[southerncross48]

10. Bad Idea

This is a bad idea that will only make money for the companies. They have this in New Zealand and I can only tell you it really sucks!!!!!!!!!!!

[Eurobabe]

38. They won't even get this off the ground in the US

Test market my ass.

Once their customer base dumps their butts, they will get the message.

[Jack_DeLeon]

12. Glad I have DSL...

I have ATT, yeah some people think they suck, but I've used it a while and like how its more affordable than cable.

They have different price levels, but atleast you are charged by how fast you want to download, not how much you want to download.

[regnaD kciN]

27. If this catches on...

...I'm sure AT&T will modify their pricing structure accordingly.

[Xithras]

33. Doubtful.

AT&T is aware that cable has DSL beat in the performance, and that it's only market advantage at this point is DSL's lack of port blocking and dedicated per-user bandwidth. When a DSL customer orders a 5 megabit line, he knows that he'll have 5 megabits of throughput day or night, at noon or 5PM. This contrasts with cable in that cable systems are shared bandwidth networks...every download your neighbor makes reduces the throughput available to YOU. This is the only reason that DSL isn't dead. I use DSL because I can run my servers on it without AT&T complaining, and without worrying about bandwidth fluctuations and utilization issues throughout the day (Comcast flat out prohibits its customers from running personal email servers and web servers).

Besides, AT&T already does regulate the amount of throughput users get, based on their pricing plan. The cheapest $7 a month 512k DSL (don't bother looking, its not on their website...you have to call them to get info on it) has unlimited usage, but the 512k bandwidth cap limits the amount of data you can get anyway. The more you pay for your service, the more bandwidth you get and the more you can download. In that regard, DSL already has a limit similar to what is being proposed here. If AT&T were to implement an actual data limit ON TOP of that, they'd piss off all their customers.

[rockybelt]

14. What a good advertisement for satellite!

These ass bags charge me way too much as it is for a system that does not work the way it is supposed to work. When I call them and tell them about the problems I am experiencing they say, "Yes, we know about the problem." They never do anything about the problem, they just know about it and don't give a shit if it works right or not.

They start charging me for the amount I download they can kiss my ass goodbye.

[tabasco]

18. Satellite puts you at dial-up speed when you d/l too much.

If you go over about 5 gigs a month you get fapped to dialup speed.

After a while your speed is restored but Wild Blue and Hughes are both severely restricted.

[rockybelt]

26. arrrrghghggghhhhh!

[Auggie]

15. These companies won't rest until they ruin the internet

[northzax]

20. why not?

This isn't a new pricing model, it's a return to an old pricing model from the old days of the Internet. Everything else has a tiered pricing plan, why not local Internet service?

[high density]

23. Well they keep telling everybody in ads about how fast Road Runner supposedly is

And now they're whining when some of their customers actually utilize that speed!

If only I could get my cable television billed by usage.

[northzax]

28. ah, cable wouldn't work that way

under the current model, ala carte cable would be a mess and most channels would vanish.

[tabasco]

35. Yes, the shopping and religious channels would disappear.

What a shame.

[northzax]

39. no they wouldn't

things like Discovery and National Geographic would. The shopping channels pay cablesystems (like religious ones) to carry them, not vice versa.

[high density]

22. Say hello to DSL!

I'm very happy if Time Warner wants to put themselves out of business.

[lurky]

31. I have Time Warner and they suck ass.

In the past, I have used AT&T, Comcast, and RCN, and TimeWarner is by far the worst of the bunch. And it's not just me: I know people in other parts of the country who have had the same experience. It sounds like they are trying to blame their customers for their overloaded routers, constant outages, dropped packets, and hideous latency. Or maybe they are intentionally letting their service degrade so that they can sell this new new price structure to their customers, as well as using it to push their tiered Internet pricing proposal (anti-net-neutrality).


Anyway, I don't think it will work. Some competitor will come along and offer flat-rate service, and that will be the end of it.

[ima_sinnic]

32. I make my living editing papers that I download from a Web site

I use Wild Blue satellite (which sucks to begin with, but all I can get besides dialup out in the boonies)--if I'm going to be billed for that extra downloading, the customers are just going to have to be billed more for their editing. This is going to truly suck.

[daleo]

34. Hmm...Your internet usage is very high

Have you been downloading movies? Off to the clink!

[WittyUsername]

36. Are we going back in time???

argh...

[DemIdeals]

37. FIOS is going to ruin Time Warner anyway

I switched from Road Runner to FIOS and I get faster downloads for a lower monthly rate. WIth the tv and phone thrown in on FIOS too, it's a fantastic deal.

[alarimer]

40. They already have a two-tiered pricing structure here

"Regular" broadband and "high-speed" broadband. I've noticed that mine seems slower. I am paying $50 a month for this; I should be able to use it as much as I like. I've noticed download speeds are MUCH slower. I am downloading a file from Sendspace that is currently downloading at 101 KB/sec. Very slow. This sucks. If they do this to me, I am switching to AT&T or Clearwire.