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SPAM: Time-Warner slaps $10 surcharge on iTunes movies? 4

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes "Time-Warner wants to charge a per-gigabyte fee. A leaked memo reveals they're now watching how many gigabytes customers use in a "consumption-based" pricing experiment in Texas. "As few as 5 percent of our customers use 50 percent of the network," Time-Warner complains, mulling plans to cap usage at 5-gigabytes, with more expensive pricing plans granting 10-, 20-, and 40-gigabyte quotas. Steven Levy suggests Time-Warner's real aim is to hobble iTunes, raising the cost of a movie download by $10 (or $30 for a high-definition movie). Eyeing Time-Warner's experiment, Comcast cable also says they're evaluating a pay-per-gigabyte model."
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Time-Warner slaps $10 surcharge on iTunes movies? More

Time-Warner slaps $10 surcharge on iTunes movies?

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  • ...but shouldn't it be more like $10/mo/mbit ($1000/mo for 100 mbit, low-end wholesale price I saw quoted somewhere a while ago) = $10/(mbit * 3600*24*30 / 8) = $10/(GB * 2592) = $.004/GB, plus a reasonably large (25x) markup to maybe $0.10/GB?

    Also, I would like to note that the price in the title is from Bell Canada ($7.50/GB). I don't see anything about what TimeWarner and Comcast are thinking about charging (so it's probably even more ridiculous).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by burne (686114)
      4/10ths of a cent is a bit cheap. You're probably comparing prices from a xDSL or cable-company who's selling low to balance their traffic. To get those prices you need to do *outgoing* traffic, and the company you're buying from is doing *incoming* traffic in spades. No use for a cable-company.

      Even then: keep the $0.10/Gbyte as an indication of prices one might pay,

      • No, I was specifically thinking of these people [cogentco.com], who last I saw were making a big deal about selling access at $1K/mo/100Mbit (or IIRC 3x that if you wanted to resell the bandwidth). Looking them up again I don't see any mention of prices now, maybe they decided that rate wasn't profitable...

  • I like charging per bandwidth usage. It's just like how we're billed for electricity. Metered usage encourages consumers to conserve bandwidth, and it also encourages ISPs to continually improve their networks while lowering prices.

    I just hope that "the invisible hand of the market" keeps prices affordable.

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