Time Warner Shelves Plans For Tiered Pricing 210
The FNP writes "Time Warner has postponed their plans to test tiered data caps in Greensboro NC, Rochester NY, San Antonio TX, and Austin TX. This announcement comes shortly after the media started reporting on Eric Massa's opposition and protests planned for this Saturday outside of Time Warner's offices in Greensboro and Rochester." There's also a good piece at Ars on the fall of the current tiered-pricing plans.
Mealy-mouthed bastards. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's exactly like normal hell; but your nose also itches.
Wha? (Score:2, Interesting)
Huh.. well cool.
Thank god... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It will be back (Score:5, Interesting)
From their recently filed 10-K report:
"Technological advancements, such as video on demand, new video formats and Internet streaming and downloading, have increased the number of media and entertainment choices available to consumers and intensified the challenges posed by audience fragmentation.
The increasing number of choices available to audiences could negatively impact not only consumer demand for the Companyâ(TM)s products and services, but also advertisersâ(TM) willingness to purchase advertising from the Companyâ(TM)s businesses.
If the Company does not respond appropriately to further increases in the leisure and entertainment choices available to consumers, the Companyâ(TM)s competitive position could deteriorate, and its financial results could suffer."
Full Document Here:
http://ir.timewarner.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=950144-09-1481 [timewarner.com]
Re:Good riddance (Score:3, Interesting)
See, we just set up a router in our room with the correct settings, then when one port hit its limit, we switched to another port. 3 ports per room, and 3 rooms jumped on this bandwagon. The downloaders could download, the laptops users could sit anywhere, and nobody could bitch.
You shoulda seen how we wired it though....each wall jack had a cable run to a 16 port hub, then the hub ran to a linksys router running dd-wrt with a few scripts to auto-switch the port it was using once a bandwidth limit was approaching. Was genius. We coulda sold them for cash on ebay.
Re:It will be back (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It doesn't have to be gov't owned (Score:4, Interesting)
However, the wires should be owned by a regulated entity that doesn't play favorites with interconnection carriers and data providers.
That won't happen. Every regulatory body will play favorites, heck, just look at MS basically buying out ISO, an international standards body. Congress is supposed to be in the favor of the people, that doesn't happen. The truth is, regulatory bodies don't do anything good. In fact, I'd rather be screwed by a company that I have a power (no matter how limited) to get into the market and make a better product then to be screwed by the regulatory bodies where I have zero control over them.
Re:Good riddance (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the issue is bigger than that. When you start hearing reports that the cost of upgrading the infrastructure ends up only being $75-$100 to handle it, what is the consumer left thinking? We're getting screwed. But now, I'm not satisfied with them merely walking away from their cock-eyed ideas for caps. Where's my infrastructure upgrade? Can I pay the one time $100 upgrade fee to get the 20Mb service? (I know it doesn't work that way, but come on!)
I think they got more than they bargained for by opening up this can of worms.
Pay for what you watch TV. (Score:1, Interesting)
I'll accept pay for what you use internet from a cable company as soon as I can pay for what I watch on Cable TV.
What the fuck do I need the Lifetime channel for?
Re:Good riddance (Score:3, Interesting)
If it's only 5%, set the cap just below where they are and only punish the *actual* problem children...or better yet, don't 'cap' but rate limit.
Why? Why must the heaviest users per se be punished for using what they bought?
You'll always have some asymmetry in the use of bandwidth. Why not just charge people what the Internet actually costs*, and let them use it as much as they care to pay for?
(* plus a reasonable profit)
Oh right, I know the answer: the company exists not to fulfill societal needs and wants, but to move money from customers to shareholders.
Someone should set up a non-profit ISP; in general, non-profit companies rule: you pay less taxes and you don't have to shave off money for shareholder(/owner) profits, so you can offer more competitive prices for equal services (or better services for equal prices).
It's also the kind of company one should want to work for: where you contribution is evaluated not in terms of how much money you can give to the suits, but how useful a service you can provide for society.
</young-and-naive>
Secret Conversation (Score:5, Interesting)
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Yeah?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Sure been tough lately being a Democratic member of Congress.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Tell me about it. Tea parties. Fox News.
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): I know a way you can get real popular.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Go on...
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): People hate Congress and are afraid we're spending too much. I mean we're just rewarding our constituents after 8 long dry years but...
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Yeah, I know.
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): But there's someone even less popular than we are.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Lawyers?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Call that one a tie. Think even worse.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Uhhh...where's my teleprompter? Oh yeah, loaned it to Barrack. Wait, I got it!
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Right, the cable television companies that we're supposed to be regulating to the benefit of the consumer.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Ha ha ha ha ha...
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Well Time-Warner just decided to screw over their customers even worse than before, and they're starting it in our own great state of New York.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): What are they doing?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Their costs are dropping and their profits are up.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Profits are up? Aren't we taxing them enough yet?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Probably not, but that's not the point.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): But raising taxes on other people and spending the money on pork is about all I know how to do - except to blame Bush for everything, that is.
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): This is easy. I'm just a small member of the House and they're not listening to me, but you're the senior Senator from a powerful state. They can't ignore your voice.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): What exactly are they doing.
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): They imposing caps that will raise the average user's bill by at least 66% while calling them pigs for using the Internet connections they actually paid for.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): God Forbid! We can't have that - unless they need the money for more campaign contributions [wink][wink][nudge][nudge].
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): I think they need new private jets.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): So what do I need to do?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Tell them to cut it out, or else - and you'll be a hero to millions.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): That easy?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): That easy!
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): And if I don't, what's the downside?
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): They'll be protesting in the streets this weekend.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): We can't have any more of that. Except for NBC who is already in our pocket, I don't think we can shut down the rest of the news organizations a second time so soon. Not after the ratings Fox News got out of those tea parties!
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY): Then we've got a deal? You'll remember who brought this to you?
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Of course, kid. The check's in the mail.
Re:This war is not over yet! (Score:4, Interesting)
AT&T is metering Beaumont now? OMFG! Why do I have to live in the one place in the entire motherfucking country that has metered 'bandwidth' on every ISP available? And why has no one else on Slashdot pointed out that there is a city in the United States where TWO major corporate ISPs are capping their internet services? Why isn't Beaumont the internet's net neutrality battleground instead of these other cities?
It was bad enough when Time Warner started doing it, but now AT&T has done it, and quietly for sure. I simply had no idea, and it was not announced in any way. I thought AT&T's trial was in Reno only. This is a fucking outrage, and I think I will spend my day off tomorrow contacting my representatives in federal, state, and local government. Seriously, this is BAD. I was shopping for DSL as recently as LAST WEEK to try to get away from paying Time Warner anything, even though I am (quite luckily) still grandfathered in to their unmetered plan. I thought I had no options because DSL isn't even available where I live, but now I quite literally have NO FUCKING OPTIONS, they have all been stripped away. It's only a matter of time before they start billing me the metered rate, so I have to act quickly. Does anyone else here live in Beaumont? We need to protest!
Here's [lightreading.com] another article I found on the Beaumont caps.
Re:Good riddance (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes tiered pricing is in place from a number of vendors, even cable vendors. The issue here is when your sum total amount of downloaded bits goes over a fixed limit you can't download AT ALL without incurring fees regardless of what speed plan you've signed up for.
I'm too lazy to do the math, but given predicted monthly caps could it be determined what the *effective* download speed over the month could be? my guess it would be pretty friggin slow.
Kinda like giving you a set amount of gas with your choice of cars: Yugo, Mustang, Ferrari. You can go different speeds but the faster you go the less time you have available.
Re:Don't pick on Time Warner! (Score:3, Interesting)
Comcast sucks, but Verizon is worse. :(
What's wrong with Verizon? The only thing that sucks about Verizon is that you are tied to DSL (unless you are lucky enough to live in FiOS land) and it may not be as fast as cable if you aren't close to the CO. Beyond that, they don't cap, they don't play games and they even go to bat for their customers when the mafiaa comes calling.
Verizon pisses me off on many levels but I haven't seen much to complain about with their internet service.
Re:Good riddance (Score:3, Interesting)
If it's spelled out in the contract they can limit it however they wish. DirecTV's satellite connection already basically does this. You get 200MB per day on their basic plan at full speed (and unlimited from 3am to 6am). If you exceed your 200MB limit, then you get scaled back to essentially dial-up speeds for the rest of the day until you get your 200MB back for the next day. It's written into the contracts, so legally it's fine. It's a little too limited for my tastes, but if it was truly down to being either that or dial-up, I think I'd take the limited satellite connection. That's what sucks about lack of competition though. A consumer is basically stuck taking whatever is available because . . . it's all that's available.