I live in NC. Upon looking into Cable providers in the area and discovering only Time Warner, I immediately sought out a national provider that might simply source to Time Warner. Guess who does? EarthLink. Yes, I'm connected to TW's network, but as an EarthLink subscriber, I'm contracted with them, not TW.
If TW decides to go through with it, they're up for a serious fight. I know for sure they'll lose plenty of high-usage customers. Just in case Earthlink customers like myself are forced to accept any such usage limits TW imposes, maybe I should see check the availability and rates of U-Verse just to be safe.
In all fairness, the first thing I want to see with the cap proposal is the price plan. If for ~$50 a month all you get is their "best" 10Mb/512k line combined with a 40GB limit, they just made people's decision easy - No thank you!
Limits are crap, plain and simple. With ISPs using webmail more and more, people will be charged for the bandwidth used to access their ISP's site and read each email. Every bit and byte of data going over the line is being tracked, including ads on webpages, port scans, etc. For people to actually be charged for traffic when their PC might actually be under attack without their knowledge is absurd. Further, TW's entire network is in need of an overhaul. It's time to actually step-up in DOCSIS technology, TW... to get the 1.0 modems the hell out of circulation and FULLY update ALL your technology to DOCSIS 2.0 sometime this decade already... Damn! 3.0 is upon us, and they haven't even fully implemented 2.0! Maybe they think this is the way to fund it... I dunno. But, if indeed they do believe this is how to fund such upgrades, then maybe they should just go the hell ahead and implement it so all their customers can leave them rotting in the sun.
I just found an interesting article:
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Politicians-Oppose-Time-Warner-Cable-Meters-101790
To summarize, a NY State Representative stated he would actually propose a bill to the NY State Senate to prohibit metering in the state. Another official called TW's plan "neither realistic nor reasonable."
I really miss the 20Mb/2Mb deal I had with RCN when I lived near Philadelphia. I miss the service, too.