Time Warner Cable Tiered Broadband Test Begins
from the if-only-there-were-competitors dept
Earlier this year, the story came out that Time Warner Cable wanted to experiment with capping its "unlimited" broadband, trying to force the heavy users to pay more. Even worse, it appeared to want to use exceptionally low caps that would discourage innovation. Despite all of the concerns, Time Warner Cable is moving forward with the test as planned.The end result will be taking away value from customers -- not just in limiting how much bandwidth they get, but by adding a huge mental transaction cost. Basically, what Time Warner is doing, is adding a huge overhead in terms of whether or not users are willing to actually use the bandwidth they signed up for. Just the fact that people need to think about how much they're using will decrease usage significantly. While that may be what TWC wants, what it really does is annoy customers. This would never actually happen if there were real competition, but with very little competition out there, TWC can try out this plan. Any other broadband provider competing against TWC in areas where this test is going on should be hitting on the limits in any advertising campaign. TWC is free to do whatever it wants, of course, but it's never a good business move to take away features from customers -- especially if in doing so you add an annoying mental transaction fee.
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Filed Under: broadband, broadband caps, cable, tiered service
Companies: time warner cable
Reader Comments
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Re: Doesn't TW know there are alternatives
If this were offered in TW's market, I wonder how many people would be switching and contesting any sort of early termination fee (which is currently being litigated as a class-action lawsuit here in California).
Why is TW shooting themselves in the foot here? Don't they see their monoply business model is a thing of the past and that it's only a matter of time before customers vote with their wallets?
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Re: Re: Doesn't TW know there are alternatives
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Re: Re: Doesn't TW know there are alternatives
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It will be losing its customers to all this BS.
As customers we need to start a 0 tolerance policy with these companies and learn to drop them like hotcakes even if it means not having cable or internet. As long as we DEMAND to have these services, they will continue to RAPE us!
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Re: And RAPE they will!
Speaking of which, you'll probably find this $3 Million Dollar Comcast bill interesting:
http://pixible.com/2008/06/3-million-dollar-comcast-bill-accused-of-rape/
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I am used to it
Point is, I have learned to live with that amount. Its too little for a group of 3 or more internet users for a month, but for 2 it works. I just have to stop going onto Youtube as much and other video websites so I can cut back on data usage.
That being said, I miss unlimited data plans..
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Re: I am used to it
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This isn't new
Currently I pay AU$60 for (supposedly) 24Mbps with 20GB per month. I'd hardly call it 24Mbps, the fastest I've ever downloaded is 1.5MB/s. Either way, I can understand why Americans are frustrated with this, but many of us already live with it.
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same in NZ
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I can say it but nobody will listen.
Show them that limiting isn't going to work long in a web-slinging world. They need to suck it up and invest in the future growth of their networks, not just lounge around on their bottom line after promising us "the world". Make them live up to their promises.
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In the end, I think a move like this would not only hurt the Telcos in terms of angry customers cutting off their service but less overall revenue because businesses and individuals who once used the internet's various services will find other, more cost effective ways to get what they need done.
People definitely need to put their foot down and tell these greedy douchebags to lay off. I personally pay quite a lot for my connection and am already ready to draw the line. I pay nearly twice as much for my internet connection as I pay for gas and electricity combined. I even had to bitch out and threaten to go to cable some local manager when they tried to raise my rates. If my current provider told me that they were moving me to a tiered, capped system, I'd terminate the contract and go elsewhere, and if there were no elsewhere, I'd try to do without or with the absolute minimum.
I've done it before, and I'll do it again. Vote with your wallet, people. Write letters. Make phone call. Be annoying and make them hate living.
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Re:
As Mike says the infastructure of cable and tel are different and that does adversely effect cable.
The reality here is that cablecos jumped into the Internet game without, by and large, making the upgrades they needed to in order to provide the service.
Now they expect you to pay for something they should have done ages ago.
Fun, eh?
ttfn
John
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Time-Warner
You're one of the few people who recognizes that without real competition, the broadband services providers can do pretty much what they want, and few consumers will complain. I don't understand people who look at the broadband market but fail to acknowledge or realize it doesn't operate like "normal" markets. My thoughts are here - http://tinyurl.com/6xnpmo.
Mark
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gamers??
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080602/tec_time_warner_cable_internet.html?.v=4
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I won't stay with them
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Re: I won't stay with them
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Hooray for competition. :)
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Just what they want
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Re: Just what they want
I really don't think this would be the case. If alternate providers are offering better service for a cheaper price, heavy and light users alike are liable to move. Many business are still continuing to move towards a more internet reliant structure as well, so they'll likely be tempted by the same superior offers.
And if the Telco losing my business is happy about it, then I guess we both win. However, I don't subscribe to the idea that the major providers will only lose their top 5% users to the competition and that the newly freed up bandwidth will destroy said competition.
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Re: Re: Just what they want
The principle is the same, though.
Throttling bandwidth either in the background (ie Comcast and Bell Canada) or by charging for "excess" usage isn't gonna make the customer happy.
Making the caps so low that just about everyone ends up paying isn't the way to do it either.
This is about attempting to control the uncontrollable as it is about sharing the available bandwidth, though that is an issue that affects cable far more than it does tel.
I wonder if they'll charge for overuse because of the spam!
ttfn
John
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First Get The Bugs Out!
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Broadband Competition
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This is the price of stupid:
I'll also be doing my part to make sure to switch services of friends and family so TWC learns a lesson from this.
If the recent customer outcry against EA's SecuROM feature can change a massive game company's decision, then I hope a public stand against Time Warner Cable will have a similar effect.
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Anthony read my mind
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So Much for "Always on & Always Connected"
I can't wait to move and get FiOS. Fuck Time Warner.
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Dan, wtf?
So instead of gaining customers as demand for more bandwidth increases, TWC is willingly giving up more and more as time goes on.
That's like saying 8 years ago that rather than provide an unlimited plan for heavy cell phone users, we're going to just get rid of them and solve the problem. Now look at what would happen? They'd have practically no customers.
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Fioz
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Idiots Vs Engineers.. BIG gap...
I love bloggers.
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Re: Idiots Vs Engineers.. BIG gap...
I hope Time Warner gets killed by the competition now. Hopefully, it will encourage a competitive local startup like it did in Kansas City. Amazing what a little competition does to throttle Time Warner's monopolistic behavior here.
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Re: Re: Idiots Vs Engineers.. BIG gap...
Internet access measured only in bandwith is stupid. If we had to stick to that model (which we did up until now, and then ISPs suddenly realised some people download *nix distros and HD media and started disconnecting people), It'd logical to cap access at around 20 Kbs, and not 1.5 Mbps.
Here's math :
20Kbs = 72 MB/hour
1.7GB/day
=~50GB a month.
This is what happens when a user uses just 20Kbps.
Now let's assume the same user goes from dial-up to low-end broadband with 1Mbps.
20*50=~1Mbps
= 2.5TBit a month
So, instead of sending the users back to 20Kbps dial-up speed due to inability to deliver 2.5TB/user, they do this.
As I see it, it would actually create more competition because ISPs have a lot of flexibility with deifining tier/caps for their programs (unlike bandwidth), and users will finally get full disclosure, instead of super-fine print .
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Re: Re: Re: Idiots Vs Engineers.. BIG gap...
Only he could create two magnificent characters in two brilliant books, and proceed to butcher them over 3 books, each.
Bastard did it two times. 2 brillian books +6 books of garbage.
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Re: Re: Re: Idiots Vs Engineers.. BIG gap...
People use the Internet for a hell of a lot more than they realise.
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Re: Re: Re: Idiots Vs Engineers.. BIG gap...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Idiots Vs Engineers.. BIG gap...
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hopefully the trial fails miserably
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Grreeat...
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I live in columbus, oh and could always switch to WOW. They use time warner's infrastructure.
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upper tier customers
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I love university internet
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Monopoly has it's privileges.
The most disturbing part are the chuckleheads saying "No big deal" or even worst "in our country that's cheap". Hate to inform you but you are what people with reasonable, or any in some cases, expectations consider; the lowest common denominator.
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Mental Transaction Cost?
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Re: Mental Transaction Cost?
> effect me. I don't even think about it, primarily because so
> far I seem to be under the limit.
You won't be so smug when software providers move to a SaaS model and you are moving data and files between your desktop and their servers.
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Wouldn't this be fun
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Re: Wouldn't this be fun
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which means that "my" internet resource has gone from an infinite good (ie marginal cost to me 0) to a scarce one, i.e., every bit transfered does has a non-zero cost (to me)...
...so should I then not be able to sue any software/application/device manufacturer who "forces" me to let their product phone home (or wherever) for compensation or have them arrested for theft?
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lol
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Re: lol
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I Hate Time Warner Cable
Fuck time warner cable. I just bought 2 web-sites about time warner, because of all the hype on the web. it will be free for all. I bought
screwtimewarner.com and screwtimewarnercable.com
It will have forums and everything you need to get the word out all over the web about time warner cable. its time to stop the monopoly and take back our freedom.
What I hate the most is that they will remove channels that you have been paying on from the beginning, but will not reduce your bill and not even tell you that they removed these channels. Now we cant even get the NFL network, because they hate time warner and think they are scam artist.
When you call time warner, your on hold for fucking 1 hour and then they don’t even speak any fucking english. (( I’m not racist in any matter )), but if you live in America, you better learn how to speak some fucking English, don’t come here and not learn our language. Also, I shouldn’t have to go to my own banks ATM and choose a language, get the fuck out of here with that crap, ( this is fucking America ) Now on DVD you have a setup for other language, this is getting out of hand. Just had to vent some.
Take Care,
screwtimewarnercable.com
screwtimewarner.com
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stop complaining already
Please stop complaining about time warner cable and the rest of these ISP's that are really just a business trying to make a buck....
I work for a fortune 500 company in the network engineering dept. The bottom line is there is not infinite bandwidth or capacity
(in fact the network is really just a best effort facility, kind of like a highway, too many cars and you have gridlock, you can't just quickly build another highway cause more cars are on the road, you have to come up with ways to manage the cars, carpool hov lanes, charge tolls,etc.)
but employees think there should be until we tell them how much it costs per month to upgrade thier bandwidth at thier location. Then they start to look at thier income that would be derived from the additional bandwidth and make a cost benefit decision. Do they really need it? Is it worth the cost. Are some of the things currently being done on the network not really important.... (e.g people browsing the internet on company time, listening to music,etc. etc.). In other words do the most important things first (in the case of a business run it, then if there is any bandwidth left - just be happy and use it for unimportant stuff...)
Additionally all ISP networks are shared environments. Expecting there to be infinite capacity at a fixed cost simply demonstrates how naive you are. Is there anything else you purchase for a fixed price that comes in infinite supply....? We all pay for water by the gallon, electricity by the kilowatt, gas by the gallon. etc. etc.
The only solution to this problem is for people to simply pay as they go for bytes transmitted and a premium for higher transmission speed. Those who use more pay more. Isn't that fair? There is an incredible amount of money spent to keep the network healty, swapping out old gear for new gear, dealing with new hardware and software testing. Support new protocols on the network, upgrading vendor equipment. It costs a lot of money.
The flip side is the ISP's should really reduce thier costs so that users who use very little pay very little.... that helps people to be self policing (more conservative people just pay less).
anyway go ahead and flame away with your responses....
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wow cable
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