Time Warner To Offer Unlimited Bandwidth For $150 479
unr3a1 writes to tell us that Time Warner Cable has responded to the massive criticism of its new plan to cap user bandwidth with a new pricing model. Users will be given a grace period in which to assess their pricing tier. The "overages" will be noted on their bill, allowing them to change either their billing plan or their usage patterns. "On top of a 5, 10, 20, and 40-gigabyte (GB) caps, the company said this week that it would offer an additional 100GB tier for heavy users. Prices (so far) would range from $29.95 to $75.00 a month, with users charged an extra dollar for every GB more they download, although that charge is also capped at $75. An 'unlimited' bandwidth plan, therefore, tops out at $150."
'Bandwidth' is a Misleading Term Here (Score:5, Informative)
Time Warner To Offer Unlimited Bandwidth For $150
When will the hurting stop? Bandwidth is measured in kbit/s, Mbit/s, etc. Please express this in some rate related to seconds if you're going to use it because the phrase "unlimited bandwidth" means to me that I should be able to sit down and at the drop of a hat (or the spinning of several platters) have a DVD from my friend's computer located on my computer.
... not as seksi as bandwidth but for the love of god please keep these ideas separate. Unless you're going to start talking about bandwidth as in GB/month or TB/month which would drive the hardware and network guys nuts because that is a meaningless metric.
I think a more appropriate term would be something like "no monthly download limit" or some such thing
Cheaper across the pond - for once (Score:4, Informative)
Not terribly surprising (Score:5, Informative)
Definitely disappointing, but not surprising.
The problem is, residential broadband networks were never designed to handle the uses many people make of them nowadays (particularly due to P2P) - there are some heavy users who transfer terabytes of (sometimes of dubious legality) information every month.. it is unreasonable for these people to pay the same price as someone who just checks their e-mail and sends photos to their grandchildren.
The caps and prices here are quite unacceptable - double the cap and half the price, and maybe we're talking..
Re:'Bandwidth' is a Misleading Term Here (Score:5, Informative)
Amen. It's not "unlimited bandwidth"; it's "unlimited usage".
And it's not even that; if you drill down, the $150 plan is actually a $75-for-100gb/mo, with a promise to cap overage charges at $75 -- thus virtually unlimited usage for $150. How long before they renege on that particular promise?
Here's the article's source; sadly, it's the original source of the confused use of the term "bandwidth": http://a.longreply.com/109511 [longreply.com]
Re:Wheres the friking backlash? (Score:4, Informative)
Because I, the ISP, have formed a pact with your local government to prevent Speakeasy (or any other meaningful competition) from servicing your area of the country.
Re:Oblig (Score:1, Informative)
Obligatory reality check that you can get genuinely unlimited 16mbps packages for £10 a month in the UK.
Stop ranting about BT and shop around (e.g. O2, Be etc)
Re:Sorry, but those limits will never happen (Score:4, Informative)
Assuming your estimate of 60 MB per hour is correct, their 100GB/month account will let you play Left4Dead for 56 hours a day without paying any overcharge fees. Is that enough for you?
Re:No such thing as unlimited (Score:3, Informative)
They have to cut you off eventually because they don't own the entire network. Yes, throughput is "free", but its the easiest way to charge for usage over a period of time. That way downloading at 6mb/s one day, and not downloading at all the next, evens itself out.
The ISP itself cannot hammer the entire internet continually, but it -can- spike. Thus -> throughput over time. If you use 6mb/s for 1 hour, its not as big a deal as if you use 1mb/s for 6 hours. You have a much more lasting impact in the later case, and have much higher odds of conflicting with someone else.
Re:Clarification on $75 (Score:3, Informative)
Is there a 'horse's mouth' release anywhere that doesn't have that ambiguity?
http://a.longreply.com/109511 [longreply.com]
Re:Oblig (Score:5, Informative)
I just pay for a business connection....nice and speedy, no caps, no blocked ports, I can run servers all I want and I even have a very low level SLA for uptimes. Service is normally great (a little less great post Katrina). All for only $70/mo....
Nice side benefit...you can split the incoming line, and get free analog tv off it, as well as the free HDTV/digital channels that are unencrypted. I run these into my mythtv boxes.
Anyway, does this company not offer a business connection? If you want more bandwidth than they give on the consumer side, get a business connection. It isn't like you have to show them a license or anything....
Re:Not terribly surprising (Score:3, Informative)
Those of us that are more technically inclined should not be punished because of the "average user", who are in all likelihood the people on the phone with Dell when their wireless mouse runs out of batteries...
Who cares if you're "technically inclined"? If you're using orders of magnitude more bandwidth than the average user, I think it's perfectly reasonable that you pay significantly more.
Ideally, prices should boil down to a reasonable margin over actual costs. It costs your ISP a certain amount to install and maintain the equipment that supports your connection no matter how much you do or don't use, and every MB of bandwidth that you consume that goes out of their network has a cost. The price to you should ideally be an appropriate combination of those costs, plus amortized support and business overhead costs, plus profit margin. Nobody likes pay-as-you-go plans, though, so they should then break the pricing into capped tiers.
In other words, exactly what Time Warner is doing. Well, except that their prices are too high. On that we agree.
Re:Not terribly surprising (Score:3, Informative)
I agree, and actually, I'd propose that what is considered "average" use is changing. The story of typical usage being light browsing and checking email is tired. Average use now is downloading music and movies from iTunes, streaming video from Hulu, Youtube, and Netflix. And online gaming via Xbox Live and Wii Arcade.
What happens when today's "heavy" users become tomorrow's "average" users?
Time Warner has rising costs? (Score:4, Informative)
"High-speed data costs decreased for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2008 primarily due to a decrease in per-subscriber connectivity costs, partially offset by subscriber growth.
"In 2007, TW made $3,730 Million, on high speed data alone, and then had to turn around and spend $164 Million to support the cost of the network. 2007 total profit on high speed data: $3.566 Billion"
"In 2008, TW made $4,159 Million, on high speed data alone, and then had to turn around and spend $146 Million to support the cost of the network. 2008 total profit on high speed data: $4.013 Billion"
Re:Oblig (Score:5, Informative)
Considering that the parent company of Time Warner is the same as Warner Music and Warner Bros, they don't have to do anything for it to make its way into their hands.
And that's the problem - they don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
I'm one of the fortunate few to be in Rochester, NY and fall under the tyranny of Time Warner Cable. I've talked to their customer service reps. I've read their statements. And yesterday I had the opportunity to hear some of their low-level execs try and defend the plan at a town hall meeting with our congressional representative (who's on our side BTW).
They simply don't acknowledge that access (bandwidth) is not at issue here, limiting the use of that bandwidth in terms of some arbitrary amount of data is the issue.
If you look at their 2008 SEC filings (linked by their corporate site timewarnercable.com [timewarnercable.com] then you'd see their costs went down about 12% from 2007 and their revenues and new customers both rose about 10% over 2007. Clearly usage is not really an issue.
The issue they're not admitting to (except in their SEC filing) is Internet video like Hulu and Netflix is their primary threat and the way to mediate this threat is to make it more expensive to watch videos on the Internet than to pay Time Warner for cable and Video on Demand services.
Re:Oblig (Score:5, Informative)
You were saying?
Re:'Bandwidth' is a Misleading Term Here (Score:4, Informative)
(I picked up a nasty pedantic habit in college from a professor, so sorry I just have to throw this in :)
Bandwidth is the capacity of a communications channel and is measured in Hz and Mhz. kbit/s and Mbit/s are data rates, not bandwidth.
Re:WOW (Score:3, Informative)
Re:'Bandwidth' is a Misleading Term Here (Score:3, Informative)
No, "bandwidth" is the correct term. They're charging you for a rate... 50GB per month, or whatever. The might have saved themselves a little confusion saying something like "aggregate bandwidth", but bandwidth it is.. amount / time.
Re:Oblig (Score:3, Informative)
Vast majority of ISPs (Time Warner included) will not offer business services to residential addresses.
Re:Oblig (Score:3, Informative)
Even 200GB/month is nowhere near testing "unlimited" on an 8Mbps line. It's only 600Kbps (or about 7.5% utilization), continuously.
3200Kbps is what I have my BitTorrent client limit set at during the "I'm likely to be doing something else that I don't want delayed" times.
I've averaged about 6.5Mbps over the course of the last few months, which is about 2TB/month. Most of that is upload...I only download about 200GB/month. And, I'm still using only about 4% of my download and less than 40% of my upload bandwidth.
Re:'Bandwidth' is a Misleading Term Here (Score:4, Informative)
(I picked up a nasty pedantic habit in college from a professor, so sorry I just have to throw this in :)
Bandwidth is the capacity of a communications channel and is measured in Hz and Mhz. kbit/s and Mbit/s are data rates, not bandwidth.
Actually, you're wrong to make that correction.
Your definition is correct, and historically your definition was more common, but bandwidth now has two definitions:
1. The numerical difference between the upper and lower frequencies of a band of electromagnetic radiation, especially an assigned range of radio frequencies.
2. The amount of data that can be passed along a communications channel in a given period of time.
So when being pedantic, do it right at least.
Also note that, as people have said, bandwidth is still being used incorrectly in the article, because they can't possibly supply unlimited bandwidth, but not for the reason you state.
-Taylor