Time Warner Cable Stiffles The Internet
06.03.08 - 08:49pm
Al Gore invented the Internet, we all know that. We also know that the Internet is a series of tubes and we can’t continue to clog these tubes. Time Warner has decided to start testing a system that financially punishes those users that heavily utilize the Internet in a move to manage traffic increases. Typically American’s purchase decent broadband connections with unlimited bandwidth caps within normal usage. Certain service providers have un-documented bandwidth caps but these typically range near a terabyte of data per month. Time Warner has set it’s base package with a cap of 5 gigabytes per month. Just to put this in perspective, a single-layer DVD is 4.7 gigabytes and a single-layer Blu-Ray is 25GB.
Most Internet users don’t heavily utilize their Internet connections. Typically they’ll simply use the Internet to browse a few web-sites, send out email chain letters to their co-workers/family, and maybe watch some streaming video. These individuals are not being targeted by Time Warner, rather it’s the individuals that are heavily tied into the Internet. Stated as the “top 5% of users”, these users heavily utilize their Internet connections for legal and illegal activities. For the most part these users are heavy gamers, HD streaming video viewers, and photography uploaders. I easily fall within this group and Time Warner’s actions scare me. America doesn’t have much going for it in regards to technology. The Internet is the only notable field I can recall that’s seeing an enormous boom and I’d hate to see what Internet access caps would do to this field. With Time Warner’s new plans it’s possible to purchase a 40GB plan however even 40GB is only a drop in the bucket when some users suck up 500GB if not more. There is a provision to purchase 1 gigabyte over the cap at a rate of $1. I for example easily consume 200GB to 300GB on a normal month and I’ve hit 1 terabyte a few times which would make for a very expensive Internet bill. These rates are very low compared to European prices but at the same time it seems silly being charged for having such a low bandwidth cap. I could understand a quality of service reduction after hitting the cap, but a financial punishment is wrong.
I desperately hope that this action bites Time Warner in the rear. If Time Warner customers just accept these new limitations and move on I fear other companies will adopt similar plans. I sure don’t fancy having to pay excessive quantities just to upload silly Flickr videos or post my hardware reviews. What are your opinions on this issue, is this an acceptable billing system or should Time Warner revert back?
My ISP has long since had bandwidth caps; 10GB for 256kbps, 70GB for 5mbps. Lucky for me, they don’t enforce them. ^_^
Yikes, after the caps are you supposed to pay for the additional data or does it throttle your services?
i must have busted my caps a few times. I think they’re quite lax on enforcement considering the logistics and costs f going after few users who are widely dispersed.
Here in New Zealand, CAPS are very common-place. In fact, I’d never even heard of an unlimited/capless plan, except for those willing to pay for almost corporate level plans. However, it reflects our infrastructure (read on).
My current plan, which sits in the middle/high end, is a 10Mb down/2Mb up with 20GB monthly limit, after which you pay a penalty charge for each extra gig you go over.
Usage is typical. My partner surfs the web (recreation and study); face book and utube etc. I download patches; drivers; research technology reviews and forums (like this); purchase stuff online (mostly gadgets) and game on xbox live.
We typcially come in somewhere between 2-8 gig under the cap.
I accept it, because it has always been there. I do know (for a fact) that New Zealand (and Australia) share exactly “one” international cable attaching us to the rest of the world (The Southern Cross Cable) -it is shaped in a figure 8, so that if it breaks, traffic can still flow in the other direction. I know that some time ago, the cable did infact break, but I was still a dial up user back in those days, so hardly noticed it.
Anyway, the reason I mention this is that I can infact appreciate the need for our precious hi-speed bandwidth usage to be managed. It would suck (from my perspective) if the international line was clogged to over capacity due to heavy users consuming 10 or even a 1000 times the capacity that users like myself are using, with zero extra cost to them -causing the sort of nightmare that keeps me awake at night in a heavy sweat: Gaming Lag.
Then again, perhaps the governments of all interested countries could stump up with an extra few billion to build another line (which I think was what the last one cost). In the ideal world, there would be no cap required, but for us, this is what it would probably take before that would ever happen.