Time Warner Net Cap With 100GB "Super Tier"
Time Warner Cable is planning to roll out new internet service trials that would limit monthly usage to 40 GB, a restriction that has many customers livid.
Time Warner Cable is planning to roll out new internet service trials that would limit monthly usage to 40 GB, a restriction that has many customers livid.
Time Warner Cable, which owns the Road Runner internet service, will this month begin monitoring the activity of its customers in select cities in Texas, North Carolina and New York in preparation of a rollout of new monthly plans with bandwidths limit starting at 5 GB for the entry level $29.95 fee all the way to 40 GB for $54.90.
The proposed plans have customers lighting torches and reaching for pitch forks, but TWC’s COO Landel Hobbs is now responding to the crowd in an open letter.
“Some accounts have even characterized our plans as punitive. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Hobbs wrote. “With regard to consumption-based billing, we have determined that as broadband usage and penetration grow, there are increasing differences in the amount of bandwidth our customers consume.”
Current Time Warner Cable internet service charges customers the same rate whether one uses it just for email or full blown movie watching. Hobbs says that this is unfair and not the way most users want to pay for goods that they consume.
Hobbs posed, “When you go to lunch with a friend, do you split the bill in half if he gets the steak and you have a salad?”
For that reason, Time Warner Cable plans to different pricing tiers with bandwidth caps at 5, 10, 20 and 40 GB, and overflow charged at $1 per GB. The company plans to roll out a monitoring tool so that customers may track their usage.
Due to the customer backlash, Hobbs revealed that the company is now developing a “super tier” (with appropriately super pricing).
“We have heard customer feedback, and understand that a 40 GB tier seems low to heavy Internet users,” Hobbs said. “We are developing a ‘super - tier’ now that allows for up to 100 GB of broadband usage per month in all of our test markets. We haven't confirmed pricing details as of this moment, but you have my word as Chief Operating Officer of Time Warner Cable that we will make this tier available to our customers.”
While a 100 GB cap sounds much more reasonable and usable than 40 GB, those who have the option of Comcast will see that company’s 250 GB cap even more reasonable and usable.
Hobbs does say that the Time Warner Cable plans aren’t set in stone and that there could be changes made to accommodate different types of usage. “I am convening a series of meetings this week to develop plans that will allow customers to choose among tiers that provide tradeoffs between speed and consumption,” he revealed. “If one family prefers to have lower download speeds but a higher data tier, or vice-versa, we want them to be able to make that choice.”
Hobbs adds that he believes that such plans are not only fair to the consumer, but will encourage more use of broadband overall. We’re not quite sure how setting limits on a service can encourage use, but Time Warner Cable is eager to hear what you have to think at realideas@twcable.com.
Bad analogy. A more appropriate analogy would be for an "all you can eat buffet". If I am fixed at $40 per month for my internet, I am stuck at that price regardless of whether I order the salad (say 5 GB of usage) or the steak (100 GB of usage). Same goes for a buffet. I pay the same price regarless of how much I eat. The only difference is now TW wants to not only fix the price but also limit the number of return trips to the buffet line.
Did TWC get complaints from the light users (who probably belong on DSL) that they felt it was unfair they are being charged so much for their low usage while others can use all they want (which is also the light users privilege at the time)?
The way TWC should act, IF they have the best interest of their users in mind, is to create metered tiers and leave their current scheme in place.
What I'm talking about here is keeping an unlimited $45/mo plan with the same speeds. Then you add in a 40GB/mo plan for $25/mo, with the same speeds to draw customers away from DSL (more customers = more revenue no matter how you look at it). And finally offer a "Super-Tier" with double the speeds for $65/mo.
If there is ANYTHING at all we should be learning from this and the Comcast cap is that we need to destroy the ARTIFICIAL monopolies given to the cable companies by our government. It's absurd that we can't have competition. And they have shown time and time again that they do not care about their customers interests and instead are simply greedy corporations with the honesty to rival a shady car dealer or a credit card scammer.
Cheers,
-ParticleMan
Bad analogy. A more appropriate analogy would be for an "all you can eat buffet". If I am fixed at $40 per month for my internet, I am stuck at that price regardless of whether I order the salad (say 5 GB of usage) or the steak (100 GB of usage). Same goes for a buffet. I pay the same price regarless of how much I eat. The only difference is now TW wants to not only fix the price but also limit the number of return trips to the buffet line.
Did TWC get complaints from the light users (who probably belong on DSL) that they felt it was unfair they are being charged so much for their low usage while others can use all they want (which is also the light users privilege at the time)?
The way TWC should act, IF they have the best interest of their users in mind, is to create metered tiers and leave their current scheme in place.
What I'm talking about here is keeping an unlimited $45/mo plan with the same speeds. Then you add in a 40GB/mo plan for $25/mo, with the same speeds to draw customers away from DSL (more customers = more revenue no matter how you look at it). And finally offer a "Super-Tier" with double the speeds for $65/mo.
If there is ANYTHING at all we should be learning from this and the Comcast cap is that we need to destroy the ARTIFICIAL monopolies given to the cable companies by our government. It's absurd that we can't have competition. And they have shown time and time again that they do not care about their customers interests and instead are simply greedy corporations with the honesty to rival a shady car dealer or a credit card scammer.
If Time Warner implements consumption-based billing, I will be forced to cancel service and urge everyone I come in contact with to do the same.
My options for an ISP are limited, which Time Warner is aware of. I will switch to AT&T, and if they implement a similar system, I’ll forego Internet access altogether rather than be restricted by consumption of bandwidth.
I urge you to think about the long-term profit loss you’ll incur with this system. I believe you’re going to lose a lot more customers than you are anticipating.
im sending them an email thats for sure.
Oh by the way at least two dozen of my friends and co-workers in the Austin area have switched to Fios as well. I wonder how many scenarios like this have played out across the nation.
TV (HD, DVR) + Phone + 2nd tier Internet = $140 a month. $140 *24 (ish) = $3,360 * 24 months = $80,640. Just walked out of your revenue charts for the next two years.
Voting with your wallets is a great thing. Anyone I know who has Time Warner will be heavily persuaded to drop them.
On a broader scale, for the last 14 years I have been wondering how communications companies would make money (and make money they must, or we will not have communications). Originally, we paid the phone company for phone calls. Talk more, pay more. Connect to the Internet more, pay more. Then an interesting thing happened: VOIP (and its predecessors). Instead of data communication requiring that you pay the voice carrier for call time or a leased line, you could use data communication to not pay the voice carrier. It was an interesting dilemma for the phone companies. The clients were using a service that ran over their lines to eliminate paying for the use of their lines!
The owner of the network has made an investment that allows us to use data services. Why should we not pay them back for that investment, based on our usage? It's a fair model. It's the equivalent of a toll road. Some roads are tolled, some are paid with from general tax revenue. A trucker prefers the latter, someone who rides a bike to work would prefer the former.
I would be delighted if you-all would help me think about this in the context of a simple fact: networks are a large investment that must be paid for and return a profit. As more bandwidth is utilized, more network capacity has to be built. Unless you think that the Internet should be built and maintained by the government as a public service, that is. Or are there other alternatives?
Had they spent money upgrading their lines and speeding up service overall they wouldn't have to be handing out bandwidth caps. The bandwidth caps themselves are just another excuse for Time Warner to be a lazy company and do absolutely nothing in terms of upgrades. More people want more speed so instead of giving them that speed they are introducing bandwidth caps so they can continue to add more customers without significant infrastructure upgrades.
Time Warner is just a shitty company.
My girlfriend and I just moved into an Apartment with a 1 year lease, so we opted for Time Warners "TV Phone Internet" package, which was 29.95 for each, for 1 year.
If they institute anything like this nearby, I'll be more than happy to take advantage of Verizon's 100 dollar package with all three services.
I have the option of Time Warner, Verizon Fios (just recently), Optimum and the very minimum.
Try and fuck me and you lose my business, it's quite simple.