Neowin.net

This is cheating at its highest! They just refuse to upgrade their own stone age era infrastructure to deal with today's bandwidth demands, instead choosing to rip off people like this...

Any word on if/when/where this is going live?

I am so glad i have cablevision. No caps(they just recently stopped capping the uplaod for high users) . Cablevision also bad mouthed time warner for those rates and stated that they have no plans right now to start them.

Wowzers, that's a lot!

Welcome America to how most other countries operate - maybe you'll see a speed up in the internet because people are sucking up all the bandwidth.

wow..... a bit pricey?

I read this is already instated in Beaumont, Texas, and that starting this summer it will be implemented in San Antonio and Austin (unfortunately, where I reside)

I'm screwed. I live in Bell South territory, and they're looking to start capping as well. Makes it hard for me to hurt TWC with my wallet when I'm just running to a diff set of caps at slower speeds.

Funny that they say it's to help upgrade their network, yet the areas they seem to be upgrading the fastest are areas with FIOS. Hmmm, they don't plan on capping those areas now do they?

<face palm>

Almost all the major ISPs are toying with these kind of caps, not good for streaming media. I'll give up HULU and streaming Netflix before I give up online gaming and general Internet usage, and I'm not paying some exceissive premium.

Welcome to Australian and New Zealand style broadband

Usage-based internet service. It's coming, folks; and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

do we pay for bandwith for cabletv no so why should we have to pay for bandwith for internet

I'm ****ed. I already have a hard time using Flickr (I have a pro account) and Youtube because my upload bandwith is 512k. Now RR wants to impose a cap. We need a Web 2.0 centered internet service provider. I fear the worst.

I don't have twc, but I'm not liking this trend.

Unless the rest of the industry follows suit, Bye bye go about 75-80% of their customers

Wow, I was about to switch to TWC for internet, if this happens I'll never buy from them again.

As said in the article, I'm sure this will make more people think about using ad blocking. Where does that leave TWC ? Will they loose a lot of ad revenue too ? I think so.

Well I'm definitely cutting Time Warner's service for next year. Screw that.

I'm hoping Verizon installs FIOS soon but i doubt they will in my small town.

This is unfair, because I have TWC service (which suck anyways), but I also have digital phone service. I can see my bill now, as I have unlimited minutes with that phone service. I see a possible law suit or discussion amongst the government about this. Get enough people to complain, and this service may have to change its ideas, because the company may just drive away business.

Oh boo hoo! You want to use that much bandwidth then you can pay for it.

Dang, I was going to call TWC today to switch to them. I would of done it last week, but I was busy.

So much for getting their "Internet" services or any service from them.

here in Portugal is the other way, speeds and download limits keep on rising.

Check it out..
http://www.timewarnercable.com/corporate/a...ements/cbb.html

If Verizon puts a cap on their FiOS. Well, I'm screwed

Turbo - 10MB/1MB for $75? That's ridiculous. I pay $45 for 10MB/1MB with TWC right now, turbo is 15MB/1MB...so users who have turbo now will possibly see a downgrade in service but be paying more. Add to that a 100GB cap and honestly, what's the point?

I've posted this video before and I'll post it again. Times are changing whether you like it or not.

You either have net neutrality and pay for the bandwidth you use individually or you have the content owners paying the providers for the traffic they use. Ultimately though, the unlimited model is unsustainable in today's era of net (sadly).

I bet this is all related to their plan to end Net Neutrality.
Because they're all evil like that.

I'll swear to my heart, bring it on and I'll disconnect all my TWC services, every single one. YOU wonna bet, I"ll put my wallet on a table!!!

There was this one time Coke tried to change their formula too.

Yea that didn't turn out well either.

This is exactly what was predicted just a little over 10 years ago when Australia and New Zealand were capped, then it came to Canada and now it is USA. The thing is that they have successfully fleeced consumers and know very well they get away with it - they have proof, statistics, historical data, even researchers paid to prove that by making it a metered service it does not a) limit access b) make it expensive, rather it does the opposite. Of course we all know this is just TWC milking it, governments need to tear up their franchise licences that are 100 years long and auto renewable and also the non compete clauses so the consumers get one thing in return, if this is nothing short of extortion I don't know what is. In KC, one side of the river is Comcast, the other side is TWC. Neither will fight each other, its an agreement to stay out of each others neighborhood. Companies like SWB were successful in forcing state and local law in limiting dry line dsl - consumers have very little in options.

Also note that as the world wide web has gotten older and bigger, so too has content - if TWC and others can't get a piece of the pie from companies like MS, Apple, Google, Yahoo and the rest then they will hurt the consumer reminding them who holds their chain.

I really think grass roots cause needs to be taken as the time is right to ABOLISH/OUTLAW/BAN franchise licenses - they were a good idea decades ago but not anymore, they are abused and are pretty obvious enablers of cartels to keep their foot hold and competition out - carve a territory into two pieces, you service one area I'll service the other, but we both will get license from the local gov to keep others out. Isn;t that a perfect trinity?

" * A limited package for "light users" at 1GB/month, 768KB down / 128KB up, with overage charges of $2/GB/month.
* Road Runner Lite, Basic, Standard, and Turbo packages at 10GB / 20GB / 40GB / and 60GB caps, respectively, and overage charges at $1/GB/month.
* 100GB Turbo package at $75/month with overage fees of $1/GB, which, when coupled with that magic threshold of $75 in charges, becomes the "unlimited" plan."

that's a joke... and the worst part is "1 dollar every 1GB you go over the limit" ... that could get extremely expensive!

in general nothing should ever be less than 100GB cap for a reasonable (as in, 50 bucks or so per month MAX) price... because to much under 100GB and your seriously limited on what you can 'get' ... personally if they do have limits i think they should just cap your internet lines speed to a slow speed if you go over the cap instead of screwing the customer with 1 dollar per GB they go over... as all that will do is pi*s alot of people off!

because with those limits in there plan i would rather have 40KB/s internet like i do now for 20 bucks a month because at least it's not capped in GB per month i can download so technically i could do roughly 100GB if i downloaded 24/7 on my 40KB/s (i.e. 384k) line.

heck, at least Comcast download cap is 'fair' as they allow up to 250GB a month (which still allows for quite a bit of downloading which is still more than enough for a heavy user. only the really heavy users would blow past that every single month) with NO over the limit fee's!... but i heard if you go over there limit more than 1 time per year they can close your account. (im on the neighbors Comcast line as i use there wireless to do most of my downloading since it's ALOT faster than my main internet line... and i monitor how much i download on my router since it's running DD-WRT firmware)

Last edited by ThaCrip on 14 Apr 2009 - 16:52

This is absolutely ridiculous. I really do hope people sue or stop using Time Warner if feasible because these companies need to evolve (to web 2.0) or die out... This is a ****ing quantum leap in the wrong direction

While I understand that caps are inevitable, I also think they should reconsider their pricing tiers given the current state of the economy. People just don't have the option to choose between rent or car payments and internet access, so they will lose customers.

ThaCrip - You bring up a good point with "sharing access" with your neighbor. I wonder how more prevalent bandwidth theft will become once these caps are put in place.

I like to cite my sources, here are the two links that talk about .AU usage cap from way back when:

6th November 2002 03:26
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/11/06/is...ring_a_warning/
20 December 2001 12:38 PM
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communication...20262508,00.htm

And I am sure they are following in its pattern, - they cant survive, it doesnt hurt the consumers, costs etc. all lies. There is an article from 97 on BBC that talks about the dangers of this and the necessity of unlimited net access. The thing is that I won't be too shocked when TWC et all turn it up a notch and monitor each site visited and categorize it.

Whear I am at we have comcast and they put a 250Gb cap on me but when i called they told me for another like $15 a (around $60 total) month we could have no cap not sure how true it is since they are known for giving out the wrong info all the time but if this is true then TWC figures are way to high i mean i live 60mins from a TWC area
Caps are killing the internet no more net flix or other high bandwidth sites so you will be forced to use the IP services (like on demand)
Not to mention web development is gona get crippled by this

FAIL!

I want FiOS in my area, but stupid at&t is going to slow as hell about it rolling it in to Los Angeles.

Just saw this when I did a Google search for BrightHouse to see if they were also capping downloads. Gotta wonder if it's not somehow related:

http://www.broadbandreports.net/shownews/B...deo-Store-99150

Talk about a rip off.

Those caps are ****ing ridiculous, at least comcast is reasonable with its 250 gb cap.

I thought we were getting OnLive this holiday season

so much for that............

Perhaps the caps would be alright if they gave the same (highest) speed bandwidth to everybody. Instead of paying for speed, pay for the amount you download. That way you can always get the files you need right away, but if you don't download much at all, you don't have to pay as much. It's basically the same outcome, just in a different way. However, this bull**** going on now has to stop. It's outrageous that companies are putting such low caps on downloads. I could see these caps years ago when the network capacity maybe couldn't handle it, but it's 2009 now and speeds should be higher anyway, and without caps. Look at Scandinavia and Japan and Korea. They all have speeds many multiples higher than we do. I thought there was supposed to be "net neutrality." These companies shouldn't be allowed to regulate what you download and how much you download. A year ago there were high speeds without caps, and there wasn't any limit on what you could download. So why now?

Anyone know how this might affect roadrunner users on BrightHouse Networks? Time Warner is not the cable company here in the Orlando, Florida area. I believe Brighthouse bought up all their customer base here and is using the roadrunner infrastructure. I hope that this means they are exempt.

I think they should just get rid of everyone using Bittorrent and then cap everyone at 150GB. 40GB is ridiculous and that is the bracket I will fall into. There are a lot of people complaining about caps but I don't mind caps, I just am against ones that are ridiculously low. The only competition TWC has here is ATT (which I think has a cap of 150GB) but I had DSL many years ago and I got terrible service.

I do not have them but if i did i would drop them the second my contract was up. This is outrageous. If it catches on in the industry we are all ****ed. If it is an epic fail, then hopefully companies will think twice or of another way of handling the bandwidth situation.

This is why OnLive has no chance at all - by the time it's out (if ever) we'll all be paying mega bucks for our bandwidth and we won't want to pay additional subscriptions on top of that.

When TWC implements those limits in my area I'll be dropping it like it's hot and switching to DSL even though it'll be slower. They'll also be losing me as a TV subscriber as I'll also be switching to Dish. So by doing what they're doing they'll be losing a customer who had been subscribing to all their top-of-the line services for many years.

25GB a month here, even watching the odd Iplayer stuff I barely use half that cap a month. Seriously I dunno why but you guys must do a lot of downloading, fortunatly Zen have a broadband app that monitor it from there end on my PC it's great right now I have only used 7.2GB this month and I do loads of online gaming and browse interwebs every day. I guess if you use netflix/buy MP3's it uses a lot. But the only reason I can see unlimited for is I'm sorry to say either piracy or that people don't want to worry to much. At least Zen here give me an excellent ping on online games and actualy have a customer service that have the tools and people with brains to problem solve (only had to use twice but they are great).

I'm out. If anything they will lose me as a customer in spite of this decision. I'm not always out for the best deal. The absurdity of going from unlimited to limited just won't fly with me. There are enough alternatives in my area.

I give TWC $170/month. They will lose all this because of greed. With enough support we will show them that they cannot take advantage of us, even if they do have a monopoly.

bucko: you're talking about yourself, some of us have families and each has their own usages. I won't stereotype that the daughter uses it for x things and the son uses it for 'y' stuff, but as you can see, having a family of 4-5 you are already forced to get the most expensive package or end up with overages. Unlike anything else the web usage will increase exponentially, more things will be web enabled. USA already is behind the curve on accessibility and broadband, this exacerbates the issue.

TWC is basically enforcing users to use their dvr and cable to buy movies or go to the store, this effectively kills competition they have or forces these companies to share their revenue. Whichever way you look at it, the consumer will pay for what is simply greed.

Seriously... the 100GB cap is not so much of an issue for most average users. You are talking that would be over 3GB per day. That is a movie and some serious surfing everyday of the month. Drop the movie and that is all 4 members of a 4 person family grabbing 200 songs (@3MB) each per day and watching some streaming shows and surfing the web for a few hours each...

The price is outrageous though. I think it will spell their death or at least severely cripple them. With the oncoming of 4G, the mainstreaming of 3G and not to mention however many local providers, Fios, DSL... they are just asking for it. The consumers usually make companies like this pay for actions like this by finding alternative means if they are available.

The elephant in the room is the systematic screwing of small town users. For TWC or any other company to make someone in BFE pay $100 per month for subpar speed w/ download caps where 50 miles south in a more urban area where there is competition they charge $40 for the exact same service. That spells major lawsuit or class action to me...

Phone companies will start to die off in droves as more and more users switch over to combination land line/mobile plans and more and more drop their land lines altogether. Once over the air broadband speeds are significant enough to switch over to, droves will drop that other land line in favor of broadband that follows you. Even if it is slower many will still be more roundly pleased with their access following them as compared to being tied to a building.

I'm in Charlotte so I don't know when this would affect me if it goes forward but this could never work especially in the areas around my college on and off campus because oncampus residential internet is done by roadrunner and alot of the offcampus (like mine) places also use roadrunner and how it works at least in my particular apartment and lots of others is that although my internet is included with my rent I share it with my 3 roommates so there is only 1 modem. It wouldn't take that long to go over any imposed caps

This is ridiculous.

Time warner cable just upped my download speed to 20Mbps, but the upload stayed the same at 0.5Mbps. It used to be 7Mbps... I love the speed, but with these new caps it may not be worth it. My only other option is DSL, which isn't nearly as fast. I can't get FIOS or U-verse.

What a load of sloblock!
I pay about $25 in Japan for a fibre-optic link, and the closest I ever got to a cap was a notification that I was not supposed to UPLOAD more than 30GB a DAY.

FTA "As we launch DOCSIS 3.0 in the trial markets, we plan to offer a 50/5 MB speed tier for $99 per month."

At what CAP?!

No one is going to care if TWC provides a superfast Internet connection if...WE CAN'T USE IT FOR JACK-SQUAT!!!

Last edited by excalpius on 15 Apr 2009 - 01:21

FTA "You can send us your comments at realideas@twcable.com."

That's going to be redirected straight to the circular file, I guarantee it...

forget about downloading game updates for MMOs, downloading games from Steam, etc.

People who are saying "just move to another ISP"... if a enough ISPs implement capping, all the high data users will move to other ISPs which don't cap data. Then, these ISPs will have all the high data users, resulting in their network becoming crap. Average users leave the ISP as the speeds become crap, making the percentage of high users even higher. This will result in the ISP being forced to implement capping, or it collapsing...

This is exactly what has happened to ISPs in Australia that offered "unlimited" services.

And what does FTC have to say about this really?

They're gonna let such a thing happen? That's just BS. If ATT and Verizon follow this trend, we're all f-ed.

We've had this crap for years in Australia....

Telstra started using caps then one by one all the other major ISP's saw how much of a big profit they we're making and followed suit.

Currently I'm on one of the better plans on cable internet here 20gig peak (lunchtime till midnight) and because I also have my phone with the provider i get bonus data or 40gig (off peak - midnight till lunch) $64AUD ($45US) a month

There's a massive monolpoly held over here tho by Telstra thanks to Mr Howard selling the public telcom company off......now they have the majority of the market and charge what they like.

I still download loads but you have to plan them and take it easy or you get capped to 64kb/s which just isn't fun IMO

That is just absolutely rediculous.

The unfortuante part is I know there are weirdos out there that will gladly pay it and not think twice about it.

I wonder if they use Bell Sympatico's definition of "unlimited"...they cap you at 60GB/month, but (according to a page burried deep on thier site) you can get unlimited for an extra $25...only, it's not really unlimited--it's still capped, but they don't document what that limit truly is (it's 200GB--it took me a good half-hour to get this out of one of their service reps)...by his own admission, there is no truly unlimited package, despite what all their marketing material claims.

Make of that what you will...

They are implementing this around my area in Central New York.

They try to hype it up in their commercials like it's something great, by referring to it as "Pay for only what you use"

Still it would blow my 1.5 mb/s - 180 kb/s satellite service with a 256 kb/s - 28 Kb/s upload out of the water, especially since satellite has Fap, which if you exceed the daily threshold of 200 - 500 Mb per month depending on your plan they reduce your speed to sub dial up speeds which makes simply browsing the web nearly impossible..

Also between 12PM noon and 12AM midnight, the internet is capped at 200 - 300 kb/s or 15 - 50 Kb/s..