CrunchGear

I hope Time Warner falls on their face so that other providers don’t get this idea.

The real issue here is the greed of the internet/utility providers.

Take for example the $3 Million Dollar Comcast bill:

http://pixible.com/2008/06/3-million-dollar-comcast-bill-accused-of-rape/

You say “Here, just take my bank account while you’re at it.”

You sneaky guy. You figured out their plan. You assign your bank account to them, and they decide how much of an allowance they’re going to give you to do other things in your life, like buy food — from a TimeCast partner who greatly overcharges for their crappy product, of course.

You’re a consumer. Bend over and take it like a man.

I agree with you in principle, but it is awful hard to justify the problem with caps when your data usage examples are all stolen movies.

Well, considering NetFlix, Amazon, etc. are now offering online delivery of movies as well, this seem to be a round about way to cut out the competition.

BTW, which newsgroup?

In Australia, for $79/mo cable, we get a 20GB cap per month.

If we go over it, it drops us down to 12kb/s.

We’re in a far worse state than you, so stop ya bitchin’! :P

I totally understand why consumer broadband is tiering, because historically pricing has been based on the fact that 99% of home internet users use little more then a TRICKLE of their existing bandwidth.

This is no longer the case, thanks to broadband and the popularity of video services like YouTube and file-sharing sites, Bittorrent, etc.

Across all users, flat rate unlimited has worked only for that reason - the average 90% of users pay more than they use, the minority 10% of heavy downloaders pay less than they use. (dont forget, most ISP’s major expense is customer support - and then there is subsidized install and equipment)

In other words, if you have been a heavy bittorrent user for years, you have been getting a GREAT deal on bandwidth!

However, for websites, they are charged by Mbps, because they are expected to actually use their bandwidth, and bandwidth costs money upstream - it also saturates and forces ISPs to invest in infrastructure to bring in more capacity.

For medium-sized websites, its not uncommon at all to pay $10-$20 or more for 40GB of transfer (they arent billed for GB, but for Mbps, but its a reasonable calculation).

So, yeah, tiering is inevitable, but TW’s pricing plan is way out of whack. $1/GB over cap is completely ridiculous and does not relate in any way to real-world backend expense.

I completely agree with Drew. Hard to feel sorry for someone who uses their bandwidth up by downloading illegal versions of movies, games, albums, etc. I would even argue that this whole cap thing is because of people who use the internet for this type of application - doing illegal stuff.
I would think that TWC and legal providers such as Apple (AppleTV), Amamzon, Netflix, XBL, etc. would have some sort of agreement in place.

The entire reason they’re doing this cap is because of people like you. The RIAA and companies like that I’m sure are behind this because they want to preserve cable television, mp3s, videos, etc.

Its because of people like you that this in place. Don’t openly admit to being the cause.

You cannot compare commercial b/w to consumer b/w. OMG caps on net use. Who do you think has paid for the INTERNET? THE USERS, we pay our monthly access subscriptions, the companies invest and build, same as the cell phone companies. Now its there turn to gouge us.

If this happens i am donesky with the internet. I will start my own.

Without the users there would be no net. The increased b/w for all has come from “OUR” usage.

I would also like to add that TWC cable is always on? What about the packets of data that get sent my modem from the ISP, should i charge them to send me the data and visa versa?

1GB per days is pathetic. I have Netflix, what happens when they stream 1080p???????

“The metered Internet has been tried and tested and rejected by the consumers overwhelmingly since the days of AOL,” information-technology consultant George Ou told the Federal Communications Commission at a hearing on ISP practices in April.