Time Warner Cable to trial consumption-based internet billing
by Darren Murph 
posted Jan 18th 2008 at 2:14PM
If you thought Comcast's alleged data throttling caused a ruckus, get a load of this. Reportedly, Time Warner Cable (partly owned by Time Warner, parent company of AOL, which owns Engadget) is gearing up to trial "consumption-based billing with subscribers in Beaumont, Texas later this year," which it hopes will "reduce congestion of its network by a minority of consumers who pay the same monthly fee as light users." According to a company spokesman, just five-percent of TWC customers suck up "more than half" of the bandwidth, but such a billing scheme could have some very nasty consequences. It's no secret that fetching television from the 'net is becoming entirely more mainstream, and with Apple pushing out "HD" rentals through its Apple TV, streaming video becoming more viable and Netflix freeing up its Watch Instantly feature, even consumers not considered lords of P2P could be hit with unexpected fees. 'Course, no prices have been divulged just yet, but seriously, does this not reek of paying for mobile time by the minute during the early 90s? Talk about taking two steps back.[Via The New York Times, image courtesy of JupiterImages]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
pie8ter @ Feb 10th 2008 10:25PM
I have no problem with this plan!
For my water and natural gas services, I only pay for what I use. Why should I pay for the water usage for someone who has a pool and two jacuzzis?
tranzparentl @ Jan 18th 2008 2:22PM
I really hope i can get FiOS before TW implements this in my area. Over the past month I have lost all respect for that company.
bizdady @ Jan 18th 2008 2:25PM
Dare them to try this in a big market city! Dare them!!
steedums @ Jan 18th 2008 2:28PM
It's comcastic!
Doc @ Jan 18th 2008 2:28PM
I wonder if they are doing this because they don't want to upgrade their network? The only tier system for internet usage should be fast, faster, and my favorite the fastest. You should only pay, like it is now for SPEED not comsumtion. And I play online games a lot when I have time is this going to fuck my bill too? Is it 1995 again?
Jody @ Jan 18th 2008 2:35PM
Sounds like this is there way to "compete" with apple TV or Netflix. PPV on-demand from TW or PPV from Apple TV plus TW charging you for downloading the flic. Expect to see ant-trut type litigation in TW's near future
Xyzzy @ Jan 18th 2008 2:53PM
If they're going to do this, don't they have to give users a way to monitor their usage...?
Jay @ Jan 18th 2008 2:57PM
Wow, flashback to the days of CompuServe, 300 baud and pay by the minute!
RPGJock @ Jan 18th 2008 3:07PM
And this is why the whole "its going to be download age, who going to want physical media anymore" argument is flawed.....
Evan @ Jan 18th 2008 3:45PM
Crossing my fingers even harder that Verizon FiOS or ATT U-Verse makes it to my part of Columbus, OH. Time Warner is crap. It costs way too much for the crap I already get.
Joe Maki @ Jan 18th 2008 3:48PM
It's a temporary solution. All ISPs will need to consider this as downloading becomes an essential part of our media experience. The bandwidth is not infinite :)
steveo @ Jan 18th 2008 4:02PM
What's the problem with this? If the ISPs are fair (the major stumbling block, obviously), this will help most people, even us techie types who frequent engadget. Why should I have to help cover people are participating in massive amounts of P2P traffic? Let them pay for their service! I only wish MORE companies would go with this model! Seriously! How awesome would it be if we could just pay for the cable channels we want and not have to buy the 10 home shopping, the 15 kids channels that people without kids (like me) never watch, etc?
IF (and only if) the price of my internet goes down, and thus I stop subsidizing others who use way more bandwith than I, I would consider this a win. Everyone who is not in that 5% mentioned in the article should agree, too.
If Comcast keeps our rates flat and charges the 5% more, however, that sucks. Comcast's revenue should stay the same from the day before to the day after the transition, just with the heavier users paying more and the rest of us paying less. The ISP shouldn't be socialistic where we all pay for others' mis- and overuse.
Eddie @ Jan 18th 2008 4:09PM
Because when you're billing for services, you start with the most common sense unit, then move to unlimited as the adoption numbers grow. That is the very concept behind "freebies" in business. You don't buy ketchup or napkins or get cents off for not wanting lettuce or tomato or ketchup at McDonald's because they spread the costs over a slightly inflated price to cover what everyone uses. It doesn't cost them any more to provide another byte of the internet, only to build more capacity for more of it. Stupid idea and I hope the people don't take this from TWC (and please don't edit my comment as a result of this blog being owned by Time Warner).
steveo @ Jan 18th 2008 4:48PM
@ Eddie
Some people talk on their cell phones over 3 hours a day. Some people make just a few minutes of phone calls a week. If your plan was in effect for cell phones, then we would all be subsidizing the talkaholics by paying perhaps an additional $20 a month so that we could all have the same pricing structure. No thanks!
As for the condiments, the reasons are many, but the most important are:
1) it improves the efficiency astronomically if all the burgers are made the same. If you start slowing down the line by asking which people want to pay for, it would require many more employees on register to keep the transaction time reasonable.
2) it would really piss off people if a company quibbled over charging for extra ketchup. Note the difference in adding bacon or avocados, however. The added cost for these ingredients is worth making some people angry and the slow down on the line. The same could be applied for internet useage.
Nice profile pic, btw :-) 17-0* Hoepfully it will be 17-1 after this weekend!
Evan @ Jan 18th 2008 5:30PM
This isn't an attempt to save you money.
This is an attempt to charge those heavy users more, and keep your bills the same. If they are lucky, they will slow down the heavy users enough to have room for even more subscribers, to pay the same amount you do.
This is all about TW, this isn't a service to customers. Just another example of unlimited plans being limited.
Eddie @ Jan 18th 2008 4:04PM
Oops. It's a shame, what happened to Time Warner's cable internet subscription numbers.
pezman726 @ Jan 18th 2008 4:09PM
I'd be completely Effed!!! Considering I've DL'd somewhere over 2TB off of usenet (which I pay monthly fees for anyway) in the past year.
HDTVFanAtic @ Jan 18th 2008 4:14PM
This has been talked about for year - in fact some cable ISPs were known to disconnect high usage users in the past.
I suspect it is more about Satellite (Directv/Dish) VOD, Apple, and Netflix cutting into their cable/ppv customer base than anything else.
Just as you pay all the internet providers (including cable and fios) for speed, there is some logic in different tiers depending on the amount of time you keep the pipeline full.
Bottom line, i pay 2x what a standard residential customer pays for RoadRunner, have a business account at my home with static IPs, faster speeds than the standard residential accounts (15 down / 3 up) and never get hassled with a dedicated business tech support and priority 24/7 repair through their business service (not the typical CSR Reps) if the service goes out.
I think thats fair and can live with it.
I perfectly willing to pay for the add
anon @ Jan 18th 2008 4:18PM
Hmmm, lets see here. Warner just went behind Blu-ray exclusively, and one of the "reasons" they gave was that "The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers." We all know this means they didn't want any kind of download service to beat out the physical media any time soon, right? So, how do they turn people off from downloading movies from the revamped AppleTV service or streaming them from Netflix, or getting them from "less-legal" means? Pay-per-usage on the way they would get those movies. That's my thinking anyway.
Evan @ Jan 18th 2008 5:31PM
Now thats a conspiracy theory!
anon @ Jan 18th 2008 5:41PM
Yes it is. Just some wild idea that came into my head. I don't really belive it, but I'm sure some do.
JDS @ Jan 18th 2008 5:04PM
What a perfect way to get the residential consumer back on dial-up.
Does TWC think they are selling gas?
This would be the RBOCs [Regional Bell Operating Company: Verizon, AT&T / SBC, Qwest etc...the local phone companies] gain as most of the TWC customers would be moving back to dial up or DSL once they see how LITTLE $49.99 will get them.
Bad move....maybe it looks good on paper to some worm in accounting but in the real world this will translate into a loss of customers for TWC.
But what should we expect from the brains behind the TWC AOL merger......
Kyle @ Jan 18th 2008 5:36PM
yeah I live there and glad have stuck with sbc global when almost changed
now my friends will have to cut back on usage
Its like dialup was.
Adam @ Jan 18th 2008 6:47PM
I've had RR in Austin for 10+ years. I already notified them that if they roll that crap out here, I'm switching.
That Guy In Beaumont @ Jan 20th 2008 11:10AM
Actually I live near Beaumont and I watched this on KFDM and they said "Its only for New customers, so if you had roadrunner before this you wont get charged "