Ads

Best offers

Ads
All about Miscellaneous
 Latest Miscellaneous articles
Exclusive Interview: Nvidia's Ian Buck Talks GPGPU

Exclusive Interview: Nvidia's Ian Buck Talks GPGPU
With Snow Leopard and Windows 7 both offering GPGPU capabilities, we wanted to talk to Nvidia's Ian Buck. Not only is he one of the fathers of Brook, the programming language ultimately adopted by AMD/ATI, but the head of Nvidia's CUDA group as well. Read More

  • Beamforming: The Best WiFi You’ve Never Seen
    Forget 802.11n Draft 2.0. The future of video-capable WiFi depends on a signal-boosting technique called beamforming. We put the pioneers in this frontier through some real-world testing to find out which technology is going to change the wireless world. Read More
All Miscellaneous articles

Newsletters


  • Ask your question about IT issues
  • Post

Partners

The Games selection

action : Yoyo the Star Yoyo is a young girl who recently graduated and dreams to become a movie star (don't we all). You'll have to guide her on the path to stardom,...
kids : Bob Throw bubbles so as to make the ones that appear in the game disappear. For this, use the Right / Left arrow keys to duck or move about, and the...
Ads

Sponsored links

Time Warner COO Talks Revised Capped Plans

Next news
7:51 PM - April 10, 2009 by Marcus Yam

Time Warner Cable COO has posted a public letter announcing revisions to the proposed bandwidth capped internet plans.

The proposed trial internet plans from Time Warner Cable has customers livid at the restrictions that they would impose, along with the associated price hikes for those who make full use of internet services.

Time Warner Cable COO Landel Hobbs wrote in an open letter, “We’ve heard the passionate feedback and we’ve taken action to address our customers’ concerns.”

“The feedback we’ve received from our customers has been very helpful,” Hobbs wrote. “We’ve made changes to the terms in our current and upcoming trial markets as follows:

“To accommodate lighter Internet users and those who need a lower priced option, we are introducing a 1 GB per month tier offering speeds of 768 KB/128 KB for $15 per month. Overage charges will be $2 per GB per month. Our usage data show that about 30% of our customers use less than 1 GB per month.

“We are increasing the bandwidth tier sizes included in all existing packages in the trial markets to 10, 20, 40 and 60 GB for Road Runner Lite, Basic, Standard and Turbo packages, respectively. Package prices will remain the same. Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.

“We will introduce a 100 GB Road Runner Turbo package for $75 per month (offering speeds of 10 Mb/1 Mb). Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.

“Overage charges will be capped at $75 per month. That means that for $150 per month customers could have virtually unlimited usage at Turbo speeds.

“Once we implement this trial, we will not immediately start billing customers for overage. Rather, we will first provide two months of usage data. Then we will provide a one-month grace period in which overages will be noted on customers’ bills, but they will not be charged. So, customers will have an opportunity to assess their usage and right-size their service packages before usage charges are applied.

“Trials will begin in Rochester, N.Y., and Greensboro, N.C., in August. We will apply what we learn from these two markets when we launch trials in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, in October, but we will guarantee at least the same level of usage capacity in these trials.

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

So how about it, Time Warner Cable customers? Is this enough to convince you to douse the torches and put away the pitchforks?

Source : Tom's Hardware US

Talkback
Add your comment
duckmanx88 04/11/2009 2:09 AM
Hide
-11+

absolutely worse idea ever. i hope the customers that have another option for an IP will switch. they did not listen to customers at all. are we going to go back to aol days where we pay for how long we use the internet to?

tayb 04/11/2009 2:17 AM
Hide
-16+

AT&T and Verizon offer unlimited bandwidth and Comcast caps it at 250GB. If you were to pretend that AT&T and Verizon cared how much bandwidth you used and had a cap at $250 the price per GB from AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon would still be less than a third of what Time Warner plans to charge per GB used.

The COO can sugar coat it all he wants and pretend there is some actual reason beyond reaping in profits but the math doesn't lie. Anyone who is placed under a Time Warner cap is being unmistakably and undeniably ripped off. Operating costs went down in 2008 11% while revenue went up 11%. There is no justification. None.

ParadoxMind 04/11/2009 2:18 AM
Hide
-7+

Total BS!

magnus962 04/11/2009 2:19 AM
Hide
-5+

I dont think they are understanding where the concern really is. I dont care if they have a superultramega tier that accommodates all my needs. I care they that want to add the tier system altogether. As the internet grows and computers become faster and faster, the gap between how much data a person uses on a day to day basis will continue to increase. These types of ISP services are another step to assign costs for people who make full use of their service. Cell phones are very identical and it is very easy to go over your plan with your phone unless you pay for the highest possible plan, and even that can have penalties. The more they include these tier systems the more likely we are going to see restrictions and harsher punishments, just for the transfer of the same amount of data I am sending now.

Im not saying that I dont understand why they are making the changes, I am simply disagreeing with the system altogether. I want to pay a price that is reasonable ($50 or less) and be able to use the internet as much as i want. Paying a price like that will already affect the speed at which i can download, but now paying that same amount will also affect the maximum amount I can use before the penalties start rolling in.

ParadoxMind 04/11/2009 2:19 AM
Hide
-8+

Total F'n BS! I will switch over to the fastest DSL i can if they pull this crap. I live outside of Greensboro,NC and i will be gone if they even try this crap!

saturn77 04/11/2009 2:23 AM
Hide
-4+

The only other option in my area is Verizon. I hate Verizon sooooooo much. I can't belive another company could get worse. AS SOON as these prices are implemented, I will be calling Verizon up.

vettedude 04/11/2009 2:32 AM
Hide
-1+

Hello U-Verse! And FIOS is coming around me soon too!

fancarolina 04/11/2009 2:33 AM
Hide
-0+

Well I get to be one of the pissed off customers who gets to enjoy the trial program. How the f&(* did they choose Greensboro, NC? I know the Triad RR network covers 3 cities but I would have thought they'd pick a big market.

tayb 04/11/2009 2:33 AM
Hide
-2+

saturn77 :
The only other option in my area is Verizon. I hate Verizon sooooooo much. I can't belive another company could get worse. AS SOON as these prices are implemented, I will be calling Verizon up.



You should call Verizon right now. Verizon Fios is far better than the best Time Warner has to offer.

Compare their packaged deals.

Time Warner $119 gets you 7MB internet, basic digital cable, and home phone.

Verizon for $140 gets you 20MB internet, digital cable with 45 premium channels (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, etc), and home phone.

Time Warner doesn't even offer an internet service that fast and upgrading your television service to match Verizon's will run you an extra $25 a month minimum. It is a ripoff already then they have the balls to try and cap your usage???

Anonymous 04/11/2009 2:39 AM
Hide
-0+

Keep sending the hate mail I sent plenty already.

Anonymous 04/11/2009 2:40 AM
Hide
-4+

They are going to take the speed I pay $45/mo for now and raise it to $75/mo and then cap me at 100GB. This is terrible and there should be something to protect the consumer from this type of thing. I've had this service for probably 6 years and now they are going to completely change everything. I hope Time Warner pays a hefty price for this BS.

saturn77 04/11/2009 2:42 AM
Hide
-0+

FIOS is not in my area. If it were, I probably would have it. TW charges way to much for cable TV, now they want to do the same for internet.

There needs to be at least 3 options in any given market that offere similar speeds/quality/content. This screws people with 2 options like myself. Now I will be forced to go with DSL from Verizon who will WITHOUT A DOUBT start charging more ASAP. That's just how Verizon works.

tayb 04/11/2009 2:51 AM
Hide
-1+

saturn77 :
FIOS is not in my area. If it were, I probably would have it. TW charges way to much for cable TV, now they want to do the same for internet. There needs to be at least 3 options in any given market that offere similar speeds/quality/content. This screws people with 2 options like myself. Now I will be forced to go with DSL from Verizon who will WITHOUT A DOUBT start charging more ASAP. That's just how Verizon works.



Ouch. Yeah. Verizon DSL is pretty slow. They do have some pretty nice packaged deals with the DSL, DirecTV, and home phone for $99 but you won't get faster than 3MB speeds.

panhead20 04/11/2009 2:54 AM
Hide
-2+

I have been a TW customer for over 10 years and I will be switching to Verizon as soon as TW starts this new billing system. Bye TW. You attempt to kill streaming video competition will kill your business.

jhansonxi 04/11/2009 3:12 AM
Hide
-4+

I have fond childhood memories of Road Runner. It saddens me to see him associated with this company. Willie E. must be a consultant.

magicandy 04/11/2009 3:19 AM
Hide
-2+

tayb :
The COO can sugar coat it all he wants and pretend there is some actual reason beyond reaping in profits but the math doesn't lie. Anyone who is placed under a Time Warner cap is being unmistakably and undeniably ripped off. Operating costs went down in 2008 11% while revenue went up 11%. There is no justification. None.



Exactly, and the fact that most of the affected areas are markets where people only have TWC to choose from clearly shows this is only about money. They are afraid to expand it to markets with other broadband providers because they know people will just switch providers. They found an easy way to make extra income to push them further into the black and the method happens to be quite unethical.

tipmen 04/11/2009 3:22 AM
Hide
-0+

Dig your hole deep TWC, DSL sounds pretty good just about now if theses caps come true im done with them.

Anonymous 04/11/2009 3:31 AM
Hide
-1+

I will soon terminate my internert service with time warner. This is total BS. This is just another way for them to make more money and screw us, the consumers.

shadow_1 04/11/2009 3:37 AM
Hide
-0+

Im in the same boat as other people who are about to get ripped off. I'
ve been a customer ever since they have been in existance in our area. Now I have my phone/tv/internet and spend over $175/month. I will be like the others and TWC can go smoke there coke pipe and I will get on the AT&T bandwagon. I really feel sorry for the people who have no choice in this matter. I guess since verizon got in the game and they (TWC) see the how they shove priceing down thier customers who have no choice, so they want to get in the game too. Also the for those who wish the goverment is going to help, dont' hold your breath. The FCC and other agencies which over see this will do nothing but lip service to you cause this mean more taxes for them. The more useage they can charge for mean the goverment has more reason to charge you more(TAXES for thier earmarks). And most of them want to have a job after a few year working for these goverment agencies so they will not bite the hand the justifies thier existance.

I hope AT&T observes this and take avantage of this and expand in this market were TWC is about to screw up and take thier market share to teach them a lesson. What really funny is that many dont know is that TWC uses AT&T's major routing hubs for thier internet traffic. AT&T with profit either way. So in the end the consumer is screwed either way. LOL

troye 04/11/2009 3:38 AM
Hide
-1+

tayb :
Operating costs went down in 2008 11% while revenue went up 11%. There is no justification. None.




Hi Tayb, I don't doubt your numbers, but could you reveal your source of information for the 11%? I just want to know that its credible information and that these numbers are accurate. Thanks for posting.

mamw93 04/11/2009 4:15 AM
Show
rigaudio 04/11/2009 4:16 AM
Hide
-1+

Up here in Montreal, I get a 100 GB cap for $55/month. Canadian.

fausto 04/11/2009 4:20 AM
Hide
-1+

absofreaking stupid. the big corporations are just looking for another way to gouge the consumer. internet access stopped getting cheaper years ago and they've pocketed the profits. greedy bastards

cliffro 04/11/2009 4:36 AM
Hide
-1+

@ Troye
Source was probably DSLReports, as I saw the info there initially.
The post on dslreports mentioned TWC's 10k which can be found here: http://preview.tinyurl.com/cnjs25
Revenues section pic: http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1571/revenues.png
Cost of Revenues pic: http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/8915/costrevenues.png

I am not an accountant, and I am horrible with math so I skimmed over it, noted a few interesting items.

Quote : In addition, TWC faces competition from a range of other competitors, including, increasingly, companies that deliver content to consumers over the Internet, often without charging a fee for access to the content. This trend could negatively impact customer demand for TWC’s video services, especially premium and On-Demand services, and could encourage content owners to seek higher license fees from TWC in order to subsidize their free distribution of content. TWC also faces competition in high speed data from second- and third-generation wireless broadband services provided by mobile carriers such as Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile and broadband over power lines. Competition in voice services is increasing as more homes in the United States are replacing their traditional telephone service with wireless service.


Draw your own conclusions.



Anonymous 04/11/2009 5:49 AM
Hide
-0+

They're fucking charging on tiers when the best thing to do is to only charge for speed. I hope that company crumbles for doing this in the present day economy.

supertrek32 04/11/2009 5:59 AM
Hide
-1+

This is still just sugar-coating a rediculously low amount of bandwidth and adding in yet another lower tier to make it sound better, but no matter how you look at it, it didn't change much of anything for those who actually care. As I've said before: I have nothing against adding new, lower tiers that features bandwidth caps, but the current major plans should still retain unlimited bandwidth.

sanityvoid 04/11/2009 6:20 AM
Hide
-1+

My guess is that the lower tier was a questionaire given to ppl who call in to TW. Geeks don't call into TW for help, grandma's and grandpa's do.

I wonder how 30% of their survey only uses 1 GB? Nice marketing.

cadder 04/11/2009 6:24 AM
Hide
-1+

If our usage is capped or our rates are raised, we'll look for alternatives.

rand_79 04/11/2009 6:38 AM
Hide
-0+

this is total bullshit.. I guess I'll be getting out the dish and some form of dsl soon. sigh.

mavroxur 04/11/2009 6:56 AM
Hide
-1+

As much as I hate to say it, TW knows they can get away with it (and they will) because a large portion of their market has no real competetion and they know that. Sure, they'll lose a few customers to competetors, but what they lose, they'll rape from their remaining customer base. I dropped TW internet a long time ago because of the absurd prices for what you get.



Getting less and paying more, welcome to corporate America


enjoy your stay*



* = stays are limited to 30 minutes, with overstays billed at $1 per minute thereafter. Terms subject to change at any time.


midnightgun 04/11/2009 7:26 AM
Hide
-0+

Nova Scotia Canada - 5mbit/250kb or so speeds, about 46 a month + tax. Extra 10 bucks for 15mbit/750ish kb. Torrent download capped at 1mbit/sec down, unlimited up. No bandwidth cap limit.


Comments are closed on this page.

Sponsored links

Related articles

  • Bandwidth For The Masses! VIA P4X333 with DDR333 and AGP 8x

    Finally, the deed is done. With Intel turning away from RDRAM, DDR333 will be the prevailing memory standard for the Pentium 4 - today, VIA releases the P4X333 chipset to remove common bottlenecks and boost performance. The ingredients here: a new memory interface, USB 2.0 and, for the first time, AGP 8x. Is this chipset going to be the premier choice for the Pentium 4?

  • No More Cable Clutter: Antec Neopower 480

    Traditional power supplies are overflowing with plugs, connectors and cables. In everyday use, however, only a small portion of them is actually used. Now, Antec has come out with a model that lets users decide which cables they need, which should make for better organization inside the PC case.

  • New Blu-ray member Warner Bros. would support iHD layer, oppose...

    For Warner Home Video to become included as a board member of the Blu-ray Disc Association, along with its continuing membership in the HD DVD Promotions Group, certain demands by Warner had to be met, and were. One is a tighter stance on managed copy, which may jeopardize HP's future membership in that body.