Why Cable ISP Capping is the New DRM, and Suck

[eddieroolz]

[citation][nom]southoz[/nom]Welcome to what the majority of the rest of the world has always had. I think Mr. Nguyen needed to get his own quota up as saying a bandwidth cap is the new DRM is just ridiculous. People will not change what the download they will just have to develop less frivolous habits and utilize scheduled downloading to make the most of off peak bandwidth. Just bend over and prepare yourselves for an up link quota and a national filter so the ISP's can make more money from the consumer at no additional expense and your Government can dictate what you have access to. I want the 5 minutes of my life back it took to read this dribble.[/citation]

Hey, how about YOU try living with a 1GB/month cap for half a year. Then come back and report your findings.

Actually, don't even come back. Get out of Tom's, because no one wants you.

I'm glad I'm with Shaw in Canada. I at least get 100GB/month for 15Mbps. I feel bad for all of you who are suffering under Time Warner; try to switch as much as you can.

 

[biscuits_are_yummy]

Thanks for the petition link, Tuan. I signed it and mailed the link to everyone on my contacts list. We need to stop this!

 

[kiang]

In Belgium downloading caps are widely accepted among the common users. They don't realize they are being screwed over, because the two major ISPs (combined they have about a 97% market share) are also the two largest telcos and TV-providers (one is a cable company: Telenet, and the other has the whole DSL-network: Belgacom).

The "light" contracts offer 1 GB at 30€/month, with a 3€/500MB rate if you go over it. The medium contracts offer 30-35 GB at 30€/month, with extra volume at 5€/5GB. The "high-end offers 60GB for 60€/month.
You'd have to be an idiot to not see this sucks donkeyballs...

Luckily there are still a few small ISPs offering better deals, but since they have to rent the network of the two major ISPs, they aren't that much better: I have a 60GB/month contract for about 35€/month. Extra volume costs 5€ for 10GB.

Luckily the speeds here in Belgium are pretty good: in major cities you can get 25Mb/s contracts, and everywhere else you can get 6Mb/s (and it does run at 6Mb/s virtually all the time, so nothing to bitch about here )

 

[randomizer]

[citation][nom]kiang[/nom]The "light" contracts offer 1 GB at 30€/month, with a 3€/500MB rate if you go over it.[/citation]
In Australia they charge $150/GB overusage charges on the "light" plans. Try to get your head around how they managed to make that legal

 

[AngryClown]

I use Cogeco in Ontario Canada. I'm paying for their "premium" package: 10 GB/month for about $70.00. My first month, they actually disconnected my modem, and warned me that torrents are "not supported" before I hit my cap. It's not in the EULA. I actually read those. I throttled my download speed to 50/Kb, and I am torrenting my brains out. When they eventually cut me off, I'll be war-driving, and saving $70/month.

 

[randomizer]

[citation][nom]AngryClown[/nom]My first month, they actually disconnected my modem, and warned me that torrents are "not supported" before I hit my cap.[/citation]
BitTorrent is just a protocol. Encrypt your data dude, that's as dumb as saying "we don't support TCP."

 

[thejerk]

[citation][nom]tiredwolf[/nom]The governemnt should not step in, the government has been stepping in and managing businesses a little too much lately, you are talking about giving them more power. Anything that the government runs gets screwed up. On the other hand, it's the consumer that needs to regulate this. For the most part people do have another option and if it really comes down to it, use dial up for a while. If my cable company starts to do this then I WILL switch to a company that doesn't, if they all do this, I will switch to dial up.[/citation]

I think you're misinformed... almost every time the US government has DE-regulated an industry, it gets "screwed up."

The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 dropped fare prices almost 10%, but put Eastern, Midway, Braniff, Pan Am, Continental, America West Airlines, TWA, and about 100 other smaller airlines out of business.

When banks were deregulated in the 1980's, it only took six years for the S&Ls to get into big trouble, killing off 49% of S&Ls in just a few years due to bad lending.

The break-up of AT&T in 1984 caused telephone rates to rise faster than inflation. Access charges were instituted across the board, and basically, everyone pays more.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 brought, in to law, that telecommunications bandwidth belongs to The People, and not the tel-co companies... well, it's about time that we, The People, say something about bandwidth caps. Sign the petition, people, please.

 

[wmdwmd123]

this is ridiculous everyone sign that petition

 

[Master Exon]

This is nearly identical to a tax on services such as Netflix and xboxlive. Those types of services will consider suing for anti-competitive practices.

[citation][nom]customisbetter[/nom]Seriously guys. You cannot put this under the "NEWS" section of the page. Its not right.[/citation]
No one but you cares.

 

[demyansk]

I believe the system the way it is now is just perfect. I still pay $50.00 plus a month for TWC cable services regarding my TV usage. I pay the same amount whether I watch all the channels, one channel, or go on vacation for a month and don't watch any channels. You can't have it both ways. TWC might see this backfire on them and once the local municipalities start reviewing their contracts with TWC the ball will start rolling. According to the articles in the NY Times on this issue, it costs TWC 3 cents to download a Gigabyte and they want to charge customers $1.00 I also wonder where the gaming companies are right now with their business model of downloading entire games, demos, patches, mods etc? How about the EA games, Steam this will place them out of business. I don't like a lot of gov't interference but to raise prices for the same service at a 300-400 percent increase is criminal. This (TWC) is their most profitable business component already!!!

 

[demyansk]

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/time-warner-cable-profits-on-broadband-are-great-and-will-grow-because-of-caps/

My comment on those overseas who are paying those crazy high prices, I think YOU SHOULN"T be paying those crazy prices. Its another indication of no competition. The internet I would hope is looked at as a way to increase commerce and to keep people online. The way TWC is going about it is crazy. This will alienate many viewers and I would agree on a cap if TWC came out with numbers about how much it costs to "run" a system into a house. TWC doesn't want you to know the cost b/c its 3 cents per gigabyte and they haven't done a thing to improve service. TWC makes a ton of profits on this and that's fine, leave it alone. I would pay more but not the numbers they are talking about. They raise my cable tv prices yearly, no improvement, but more infomercials. I will cancel TWC once this goes into effect and what a way to treat a customer since 1994.

Competition, or the lack of it, goes a long way to explaining why the fees are higher in the United States. There is less competition in the United States than in many other countries. Broadband already has the highest profit margins of any product cable companies offer. Like any profit-maximizing business would do, they set prices in relation to other providers and market demand rather than based on costs.

 

[gorehound]

Capping my internet and causing me to pay what is looking like an almost 3 times as much bill is nothing but pure greed.When and if it happens here in Portland, Maine I will definately drop TW but I will also sue them and I got a lawyer looking into doing a class action suit.

I also can see that TW would like to make sure we won't be watching any free video but we will get their krappy dirty signal cable.Which by the way I have dumped never to return to it.

 

[radiowars]

Caps suck. The only possible way to obey it is to constantly monitor it. I wouldn't mind a cap if it was reasonable. I have Comcast and 250gb is not a whole lot. I would be much happier if it were ~300 or 350gb. Then I wouldn't have to worry.

 

[p05esto]

Fight the evil corporations like Time Warner. The press needs to POUND ISP caping and bring to light the reasons it's a terrible idea. SCREAM at the top of your lungs TOMS that bandwidth caps are a bad idea and companies that support it like Time Warner will be made examples of. Fight the fight, never surrender. If TOMs ever had a reason to exist this is one of them, help us tell these ISPs what it will mean to cap the enthusiast crowd. Because where we go, the general public will go. Period. You want to know the tech future? Watch what we say right here in these comments.

 

[jhgoodwin]

Time Warner will probably run into a few problems not the least of which is all the complaining from users who expect to be affected.

First, internet traffic from malware computers may give average joe users a surprise overage bill. Second, peer-to-peer applications which aren't obviously chatty may surprise users also (think Skype).

I think in order for this to really work with less repercussions TWC needs to offer an unlimited for something less than business class cable internet. (Forbid they start metering that too.) Also, TWC needs to offer bandwidth monitoring software, and training. This software needs to tie into their cable modem/routers so *all* traffic can be properly monitored and accounted for. If you just throw a number at people I think they'll end up suing for itemized bills in enough detail that the source can be identified more clearly.

In their defense, I do believe power uses need to pay extra for using the systems as much as they do, but I don't think they can just start charging an additional $75/mo overage to people without getting a huge backlash in the power user group (a minority which influences average joes nationally).

I do think the 1GB plan is a good idea conceptually, but they might want to reduce the price even more (maybe $10/mo). They might also want to provide software which helps users stay within that amount, but still allow for common large bandwidth background usage (think windows updates, etc)

I'm not sure if 1GB will end up being enough for much else except visiting your bank, checking weather, and email. The way that could still work is if they implemented a proxy which compresses data like for dial-up users.

In the end, it may end up being easier to packet-shape users who exceed their quota without shutting them off, or charging extra - that is unless the users want to pay not to be packet shaped ever.

 

[DcMan1]

What are you complaining about, Here in Canada it's roughly $50.00
for 20 gigs, and that's with trafic shaping and filtering, and speed caps during rush hours.
Also peer to peer capped at 30kb/s.

 

[JTP709]

I'll be going back to DSL and the phone companies before I ever pay for a tiered system. The phone companies are hurtin pretty bad, so if cable companies decide to screw us all I'm sure the phone companies will do all they can to stay competitive. Or I'll just marry a rich, hot, medical doctor and just pay my $150 a month

 

[rob_against_abuse]

I say Class Action Lawsuit! Think about it, I have been using this anachronism for months now and it is just as pertinent. If I were to go to the local electronics store and purchase a 1GB Ipod Nano and get it home to find out I can only load half a gig of music on it I would think it is defective. If I called tech support and they told me they limit the amount of music I can put on it to reduce music theft and it is stated in the fine print on their website. If I want to be able to put a full gig of music on it I would have to go and purchase the 2GB Model. Which one of us would still be bent over? This is the same exact thing except now the cable companies are not having to hide it as much anymore because the threat of a class action is quickly passing and customers are beginning to accept it as the norm. This cable scam doesn't have to affect everyone, ask Intel when they had the math glitch a few years back in one of their processors.

 

[trucmuche4]

I'm really disappointed about the lack of thought that was (not!) put into writing this article. Just to make sure everyone knows, this is opinion, not journalism, and I wonder from where Mr. J. Nguyen took the right to speak with that kind of authority.

First of all, no I don't know what HDCP is, I don't know how it kills the enjoyment of watching a movie (I didn't feel like there was a sudden drop in my movie enjoyment lately) and I don't see how you can just throw out there that we all know it to be true. "Hey! Oh! Everyone! Mr Nguyen has spoken! The one being on earth that always speak the truth and doesn't to justify anything!" Your article may be opinion; you indeed have the right to say whatever you want, but without justification and argument your opinion remains just that : whatever!

You make lots of affirmation that don't really make sense to me. When you say that ISP lied when they vowed to net neutrality and are now imposing d/l caps I don't see your point. Caps have existed before, and from my experience canadian ISP tried to enforce them at some point but stopped when they realize that their customers would just switch to another company. I believe the reason caps are reappearing now is because the internet is now a lot more "furnished" than it used to be: there's a lot more stuff to d/l that appeals to a much broader audience. That growing population of customers that now routinely d/l 100-200 times more (easily) that they were 5 years ago (because average Joe who used to just check his e-mail, chat on MSN and play a few games now watches clip on youtube, hours of TV on hulu and buys all his music from the web) must, or will, put a strain on the infrastructure and that trend, which has been recognized by ISP, is now being dealt with. Imposing a cap on d/l limits doesn't restrict you in any shape or form about what you want to consume, just about the quantity. That's very much like the cellphone plan I pay for.

I don't see how you can say that having to pay for the amount and speed of bandwidth you use is unfair. It's not a scam. It's not indecent. It's just common sense.

 

[trucmuche4]

I'm really disappointed about the lack of thought that was (not!) put into writing this article. Just to make sure everyone knows, this is opinion, not journalism, and I wonder from where Mr. J. Nguyen took the right to speak with that kind of authority.

First of all, no I don't know what HDCP is, I don't know how it kills the enjoyment of watching a movie (I didn't feel like there was a sudden drop in my movie enjoyment lately) and I don't see how you can just throw out there that we all know it to be true. "Hey! Oh! Everyone! Mr Nguyen has spoken! The one being on earth that always speak the truth and doesn't to justify anything!" Your article may be opinion; you indeed have the right to say whatever you want, but without justification and argument your opinion remains just that : whatever!

You make lots of affirmation that don't really make sense to me. When you say that ISP lied when they vowed to net neutrality and are now imposing d/l caps I don't see your point. Caps have existed before, and from my experience canadian ISP tried to enforce them at some point but stopped when they realize that their customers would just switch to another company. I believe the reason caps are reappearing now is because the internet is now a lot more "furnished" than it used to be: there's a lot more stuff to d/l that appeals to a much broader audience. That growing population of customers that now routinely d/l 100-200 times more (easily) that they were 5 years ago (because average Joe who used to just check his e-mail, chat on MSN and play a few games now watches clip on youtube, hours of TV on hulu and buys all his music from the web) must, or will, put a strain on the infrastructure and that trend, which has been recognized by ISP, is now being dealt with. Imposing a cap on d/l limits doesn't restrict you in any shape or form about what you want to consume, just about the quantity. That's very much like the cellphone plan I pay for.

I don't see how you can say that having to pay for the amount and speed of bandwidth you use is unfair. It's not a scam. It's not indecent. It's just common sense.

 

[Azimuth01]

this backwards step sucks, but temporary. Supply and demand will always win out. Someone made a point earlier about AOL loosing out to local ISPs who offered unlimited time...well...It's only a matter of time before someone steps up and gives the consumers what they want. This could be through new technologies (Upgraded EVDO?), some kind of deregulation of the fiber and cable infostructure, or a hard working startup willing to run their own infostructure...

My point is Time warner will leave a vacuum, and when it comes to money vacuums usually doesn't stay empty for long. If enough people want it, someone will offer it. I just hope that Time Warner goes under in the process.

 

[Codesmith]

The FCC need to just step in and enforce a mandatory labeling scheme for internet access that has to be prominent displayed in the form of a standardized easy to read chart.

That way people can tell at a glance that what they are being offered has a 5 GB monthly cap and up to $75/month in additional fees.

Following that advertising requirement, I quickly foresee competitors immediately touting their services as uncapped, and un-throttled.

 

[Guest]

In Paris, France, I pay 30 Euros ($40) for a 20MB/1MB unlimited connection with Free phone to France and 100 international destination, and 100 TV channels.
I guess there is more competition in France than in the US ...

 

[maxpain12]

Looks like corporate greed is going to kill yet another industrial segment and "Gulp" may be the Internet as well.

 

[greliu]

I don't belong to TWC services, but If I did, I would change my service right away. This is crazy! Oh, and by the way, trucmuche4, you're dead worng. There is something wrong with what TWC is trying to do.