When You Measure Broadband Caps In Terms Of How Many Emails, Something's Wrong

from the that's-not-broadband dept

We've already talked about how low it appears some ISPs are making broadband "caps." Doing so seriously destroys the value of a broadband connection and will likely backfire on the ISPs who provide it. But, for those companies that are putting in place such low broadband caps -- a small suggestion: when discussing how much the caps allow, listing out how many emails you can send or receive under the cap is probably a bad idea. If the cap is so low that the number of emails is even worth mentioning, you've got a serious problem.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband caps, cable, tiered service
Companies: time warner cable

Japanese Broadband Caps Compared To US Broadband Caps

from the take-a-look-around dept

With various US broadband firms implementing usage caps sometimes as low as 5GBs/month, we are quite concerned about how these moves will hinder innovation by effectively placing much greater mental transaction costs on using any kind of application online. In defense of these caps, some have pointed out that even Japanese ISPs (sometimes used as an example of a much better broadband system than in the US) are also implementing caps.

Broadband Reports now has the details on some of those caps, and they're much higher than in the US (just like Japan's broadband speeds). The cap is 30 gigs per day of upload. There are no download caps. So, yes, the Japanese caps (that some want to use as an example of why caps are necessary) are many times greater per day than what some US firms want to offer per month -- and it's only for upload, rather than download. Suddenly, I get the feeling we'll be hearing the example of Japanese broadband caps a lot less frequently.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband caps, japan, us

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.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband caps, cable, tiered service
Companies: time warner cable