Time Warner Unveils 40 GB Bandwidth Cap

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Well, with money as tight as it is. I am not going to even begin to worry about a high internet bill. So if they start this in my area, I'll be so gone. Like my grandmother says. "When you get greedy, you get needy." So it'll be good bye for me. I've had TW for 4-5 years now. But I am not so loyal as to just give them money because they want it. I want it too, and I work for it.
 

roofus

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It wasnt but a short time ago broadband providers used the ruse of fast speed, unlimited downloads to build their customer base. Advertising how great their service could serve up streamed content, play games etc and now they want to prohibit it.
I can only hope all participants in this elusive tactic go bankrupt before our eyes this year.
 

hemelskonijn

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Here in the Netherlands caps have been lifted since the late 90's and for DSL 24/1.5 max (advertised as 20/1) you dont have to pay more than 30 euro including line and voip solution.
On the cable its even better for the internet its just 49 euro for a 30/10Mb connection (will be raised to 60/20 soon).
I really hope for you americans that your providers will grow up and remove caps.
 

my_name_is_earl

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Cooperation is as big as the government. The people is starting to be taken advantage of. Hollywood teaming up with the FBI, Obama give enormous amount of money to irresponsible company, other company suddenly go bankrupt so they don't have to pay taxes and might get a piece of the pie. It is just me or this year is getting worst... for the people/tax payers. $timulus my @$$!
 

bmullan

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TWC's arguments are bogus. Their investment in 10G and higher backbones is one time capital investment. Yes, there is OPEX but they'd have that no matter what the speed of the backbone.

Britt's statement are even contradictory as their Texas trials pointed out most people don't even come close to the CAP limits (now)... but they might as video over the internet is used more.

They simply want to
1) milk their customers for revenue (TWC's got a large debt burden)
2) remove competition for TWC's own Movies on Demand & Digital TV offerings and lock people into what they offer.

What's next.. QoS changes to wreck VoIP offerings from anyone but TWC??

 

bmullan

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And look at Korea where today you get 100Mbps and no cap?

And they are planning a national upgrade to 1Gbps.

How do they make money and offer 5x the speeds we see here in the states?

Most of Europe is 3-4 times faster than the U.S. and 1/2 the cost.
 
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I wonder if companies like Hulu or NetFlix will now sue TimeWarner for taking away their business.

I work for Verizon but unfortunately can't get it at home because this is a BellSouth area which is worse than TimeWarner.
 

ginbong46

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[citation][nom]randomizer[/nom]This is looking more and more like Australia (although the service is probably better). Caps are a malignant cancer that have spread around the world.[/citation]
Yep, USA is getting almost as bad as Australian ISP's. At least it's not 15c per MB overcharge like mine and $129.95 AUD for 60,000MB..
 
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I am a TWC/Roadrunner customer. If this cap hits in my area with such a small limit, I'll take my business for both TV and Internet elsewhere.
 

Gedoe_

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One big trouble in america is the big distances so lesser costumers / cable line.

On the other hand, the marginal costs for supplying that extra GB of download are zero.. so BLEH sorry usa but obviously not enough competition.
 

stromm

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What ticks me off about these bandwidth caps are that we really don't have full control over our usage. Think of the massive amounts of broadcast data which hits the ISP side of your cable modem. Even when I have nothing connected, my modem shows a few hundred megabytes per day received.

Also, if Time Warner doesn't credit us for their sites, they're double-dipping. Not to mention all the crap adverts for their products the get paid for when they are hosted on non-TW sites and that usage counts against us.

I've had Road Runner since mid-95. It's gone from $29.95/mth for 10mb/3mb to my current $75/mth for 15mb/768kb. Now they want me to pay more if I go over a measley 40GB/mth!?!?!?!?!

So let me get this straight... Give us more bandwidth, then tell us we can only use it for part of the month unless we give them more money.

F That. If they implement this cap where I live, I'm dropping my $200.00/mth time warner (rr, cable, 4 DVRs, etc) and switching over to Insight's service.
 

ira176

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"We need a viable model to be able to support the infrastructure of the broadband business"
This is just another way of saying, we have the bandwidth necessary to support your download needs, however we couldn't have foreseen how wildly popular download services and streaming could have been, and now we see how profitable for us (Time Warner) this could be so we are re-structuring our service plans.
 

sp0ck1701

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(More fuel to the fire) So, wife and I just had a thought...

We don't use TW's SMTP or POP/IMAP for e-mail, but assuming we did, as is provided as part of the service agreement, like the "average user" would/should according to TWC...

Is e-mail traffic between TWC SERVERS and you on the TWC NETWORK counted in there? I assume it is because they even cite e-mail as an example in their pricing guidelines... but that's traffic WITHIN their network and doesn't cost them anything in "external" fees...

Yet another hole in their lame excuse...
 

papazulu

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!!!!!!!! What! This is ridiculous. This is going to be catastrophic to the gaming community. What the frick is the point in paying for 2Megabyte/second download speeds if it is only going to be sullied by a ridiculous 40GB cap?
 

saidge

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What about an idea of throttling. I currently pay for a 10 gigabit connection. If they actually *need* to reduce consumption then what about having a limited 'turbo' 10 gigabit bandwidth, and an unlimited 'standard' ~400 kilobit bandwidth connection.

This isn't a standard utility that requires that the company providing the service must generate a physical product to sell. Energy must be generated, gas must be refined, water must be collected, we understand this, we respect this. They are physically measurable commodities.

Transferring information over a network, however, is a fixed cost. It doesn't cost any more to transfer 5 gigabytes than it does to transfer 50 gigabytes. What costs is the size of the bandwidth pipe - because while how much data you transfer in an hour doesn't cost any more or less - the speed at which you can transfer it does because it depends on the bandwidth of the network nodes you're connected to, the capacity of the lines you're connected through, and how many other people are streaming information on the network at the same time you are.

That's why we pay for our bandwidth and not for how much we download. So if this isn't just some stunt to extort money from consumers and they're really dealing with bandwidth shortages, then they need to reduce their bandwidth offerings, offer a greater range of bandwidth options and pricing, or let the consumer buy high bandwidth with fixed limits with a low-bandwidth fallback when you run out.

It just makes sense on both ends.

Just my $0.02

-Saidge
 

Alien_959

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I just can't believe that this is happening in U.S. I live in Europe- Macedonia, and I tough that our provider T-home was a rip-off but for a 26$ we have 150GB at 8Mbits, is bargain compared to this.

Hope your ISP have more sense for their customers.
 

aracheb

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[citation][nom]EnFoRceR22[/nom]Not to be insulting but this is one reason i never considered IT people real techs. I pay for my fios to do what i want on the net. Im not abusing anything since i am not stealing it or getting it for free. I pay to get on the net to do what i want. Enough said. I torrent my tv shows instead of streaming them big deal same bandwidth used. People use phones, gaming, Movie renting, ALOT of other things that use massive ammounts of bandwidth. If you pay for it you are not abusing it. Everytone here that is mad and wants to switch i totaly understand. Switching might not make them go back but in this econemy either they could or risk verizon buying them out and turning thier 1990's infestructure into something made for today like verizon did. Honestly i dont see verizon doing this at all they saw this coming and did something about it now they are in the posision to rake in the cash as thier "Compatition" trys to save whats left of thier dialup network. I said this in another thread but this has nothing to do with pirating downloading or anything else other then thier either Unwillingness to upgrade thier network or thier inability to do it now. And with alot of the people who pay for thier service about to leave i dont see this changing thier business model at all. They can blame anyone they want but if they truely want to blame whos at fault they will need to invest in some mirrors.[citation][nom]skine[/nom]I think you got a little turned around there. First, 1 byte = 8 bits. Then: GiB "Gibibyte" = 1024*1024*1024 bytes = 1024*1024*1024*8 bitsGB "Gigabyte" can either be 1024*1024*1024 bytes or 1000*1000*1000 bytes. Gibit "Gibibit" = 1024*1024*1024 bitsGbit "Gigabit" = 1000*1000*1000 bits, or sometimes Gibit. GB and gb are the correct abreviations for Byte and bite. In anycase 40 is stupid.[/citation]


well said, as an IT guy. But i would better built an antenna and will try to receive Internet from space, before accepting this bullshit, Verizon fios is a few month from my neighborhood, i explained in the neighbors meeting, and to all my friends, and we have around 300 people that will switch as soon as this take places.
 

Glorian

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I used to love timewarner, the speed was awesome and the service was great. But since i moved to another part of town of San Antonio, i have had to resort to other internet providers and glad, yeah my connection is slow but at least i can download unmitigated amounts. I wonder the average GB usage for a mmo is over a month, cause that might hurt those who play 24/7
 

gwellin

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I can only us Sprint wireless broadband where I'm at. When I signed my contract 2 1/2 years ago there was unlimited useage. Now they cap their usage at 5GB per month. 5GB!!!! Howerver since I haven't signed onto a new contract we are still unlimited. I do get a call from them every week with "sweet new deal that you just cant pass up, just sign a new contract."... HAHAHAHA.
 

E7130

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They know people will break the cap, that is why they are using it, to justify charging people more. That isn't even the size of a Blu-ray movie.
 
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Everyone posting here apparently has it made I have had cable internet for 4 years now. There is only one company available in our town of 647 people. I have a 4 GIGABYTE LIMIT!!! So a 40 would be awesome. Y'all sound spoiled and like people who pirate a bit too much.
 

aalkema

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My friends have Rogers with a 60gb cap. Last month they exceeded their limit by 450%. It's a darn good thing that Rogers stops charging at a max of 25gb over the limit, or the bill would have been over $500 for one month :p
 

deathblooms2k1

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[citation][nom]SlickyFats[/nom]Everyone posting here apparently has it made I have had cable internet for 4 years now. There is only one company available in our town of 647 people. I have a 4 GIGABYTE LIMIT!!! So a 40 would be awesome. Y'all sound spoiled and like people who pirate a bit too much.[/citation]

Slicky, I don't pirate at all. I pay for netflix and watch instant play through my xbox live service. In addition I play games online. My girlfriend downloads I-tunes and we both surf the web frequently. It's not uncommon for friends to send us youtube links. I'm certain we easily breach 40 GB / Month.

You call us spoiled. I think that's is an ignorant statement. It's not our fault you decided to live out in the middle of no where in a town with a measly population of 650. It's no surprise your options are limited it's simply not profitable to build infrastructure for a town of just 650 people. On the bright side I'm sure it's much more quiet and peaceful where you are. So be happy about that. In the meantime I would be careful, browsing toms is gonna kill your 4GB limit pretty quick.
 
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