Report: Time Warner to Test Pay-Per-Download Monthly Pricing
In a move that's sure to rile many of its' customers, Time Warner says it plans to test a new pricing structure for high-speed Internet usage that charges subscribers based on the amount of content they download. The report comes by way of a story by the Associated Press and some snooping from the Web site BroadbandReports.com.
Time Warner currently charges customers a flat monthly rate for Internet access. According to reports Time Warner will test a new pricing model that creates a multi-tiered pricing plan based on broadband usage. Time Warner would put caps on usage and charge more should you use too much bandwidth based on your monthly plan. For example, if you view too many streamed online videos, buy too many songs from iTunes, or are a heavy user of P2P services than you might get hit with a Time Warner "overage charge."
According to the AP report only 5 percent of Time Warner users are responsible for gobbling up 50 percent of its bandwidth traffic. So 5 percent of Time Warner customers are likely going to be very upset by the plan should it become more than a test.
Currently Time Warner is publicly stating a trial of the pricing plan will begin in Beaumont, Texas. The trial will only affect new Time Warner customers and no change will be made to the billing of existing customers.
Clearly from Time Warner's perspective, if you are downloading more content then you are using up more bandwidth and should be charged more.
But I'm inclined to feel more sympathetic toward the customer's perspective. ISP customers have grown accustomed to subscribing to high-speed Internet access services at a flat monthly rate. I can definitely foresee a backlash from Time Warner customers for a harmful change to the status quo, and frankly, I can't blame them.
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report says: 5% of its users takes 50% of the broadband usage
and to 95% customers uses the other 50% fairly.....and you sympathize to the customers?????????? you mean the 5% who gobble up the 50% broadband usage??????? another torrent user!!!!!!!!the web is for everybody to share fairly.........
If 95% are satisfied with simply using e-mail and browsing the Web, that's their problem. ISPs shouldn't advertise their product touting "blazing speeds" and "unlimited access" then why complain when 5% actually use it for those things? I knew that the controversy over this would eventually lead to tiered pricing because that was their plan all along even before the days of bit torrent. The cable-modem standards from CableLabs (DOCSIS) were designing metered (tiered) abilities before most people ever heard of P2P and streaming media. If you think they didn't have this in mind all along, you are sadly mistaken. Oh, and mariocatral -- do you work for a cable company? You take their side every time.
I sympathize with the customer as well. Only people who don't really use the internet other then email would like this idea. Also, @ mariocatral, if you think you have to be a torrent user to get hit with the overage you are mistaken. Bandwidth used is bandwidth used. You check your emails too much or maybe downloaded a e-book for school and your going to get hit with the overage as well. Your family sends you a e-card with a video clip and there you go. What about online gaming? Wow thats going to have a huge impact.
I understand Time Warner's concern and their idea to make more money from the trend. Also this is exactly about making more money not AS much as the bandwidth. Why? because the extra fee does fatten their pockets however does not magically increase the possible bandwidth available to the public.
All I can say is I think this is going in the opposite direction of society as we get more into a seamless online world.
I sympathize with the customer as well. Only people who don't really use the internet other then email would like this idea. Also, @ mariocatral, if you think you have to be a torrent user to get hit with the overage you are mistaken. Bandwidth used is bandwidth used. You check your emails too much or maybe downloaded a e-book for school and your going to get hit with the overage as well. Your family sends you a e-card with a video clip and there you go. What about online gaming? Wow thats going to have a huge impact.
I understand Time Warner's concern and their idea to make more money from the trend. Also this is exactly about making more money not AS much as the bandwidth. Why? because the extra fee does fatten their pockets however does not magically increase the possible bandwidth available to the public.
All I can say is I think this is going in the opposite direction of society as we get more into a seamless online world.
I smell funny math. Sure the 95/5 rule may be true, but the reality is that the 5% aren't the same 5% every month.
Over the course of say 12 months that 5% may look more like 20 or 30% of the total customers. This is a bigger customer impact than Time Warner would have you believe.
What do those numbers look like over 6 months? What do those numbers look like out of the percentage of people who actually use their broadband access? Percentage of people who use their access more than 3 times per week?
Before you get all judgmental on the 5%, realize that 5% may be of the wrong pie.
I for one think this is ridiculous, as well as most of the answers here. The bottom line is that if this is such a big issue with the TW then find a better solution. Maybe do what Fios is and bring fiber to the home and charge accordingly. I do not trust or believe they have a capable method of metering this. As it was stated above, show me how you are going to know what the 5% are? I for one do not have a problem with my TW service, but the minute it affects ANY of my online experience, I will drop them like a hot potato. I do not care if in my area DSL is "just" 7 mb down, or that Fios is 4 months away.
I pay my bill on time. If I choose to dl a movie or play an online game this evening and not do it again until next month, or if I want to do it every night, I pay the agreed price for the agreed service, period. I believe they have done so already based on the speed I have been getting . Please do not bore me with all the ?well you know time, distance, hops, WAN, TTL, packet size, compression, type of protocol? things that I?m very aware are contributors to network speed. I just know I don?t always get the same speed as I used to. This is wrong, period!
What about VOIP? I'm a Time Warner customer that uses Vonage as well as Skype (occasionally). I also download a lot of movies and some music, so I would definitely fall into that 5%. TWC also sells it's own VOIP service, so will that be exempted, and how?
I'll bet that they are already traffic shaping and limiting bandwidth on heavy users, based on how my download times seem to magically increase when I'm in a heavy download period. If they really want to charge based on bandwidth, they should at least provide the customer with the "advertised" speed or better.
Even though my useage would not fall in this category, if this policy becomes Time Warner's practice, then I WILL find another ISP provider.
Their current monthly charges are high enough and sometimes their network reliabilty is POOR. They don't reduce their charges when they fail to provide their product. And in regards to their advertised speed, in NC Ohio, it doesn't live up to their promise.
I agree, this is ridiculous. Internet usage monitoring was abandoned in the 90s when we shifted from hourly charges to unlimited dial-up. TW advertises unlimited usage and the experience you get: online gaming, video/music streaming, CNN news, NASCAR, Radio ( http://www.buytimewarner.com/internet.aspx ). And now they want to limit that experience, that's not a good business tactic. I use Vonage, Xbox live, watch news videos, youtube, soccer games streamed from other countries. TW wants to add extra charge for bandwidth usage so that you will be forced to switch to their digital phone and their services, including their partners' services, (which probably will be excluded in the bandwidth cap.)
They advertise speeds upto 100x dial-up, then maybe we should pay upto $42/month and if we don't get that speed then we should pay less. And the user would decide what the speed was and how much to pay not TW.
Several years ago the lack of online services that require fast internet connection was a problem for Internet Service Providers as users did not have incentives for switching to broadband. Now its seems like they don't have this problem any more. Video streaming and VOIP are becoming more and more popular. But Time Warner instead of adding bandwidth to their network decided to take easier way and put caps on the user. If they do cancel unlimited internet access I will simply switch do different provider. And I'm sure other people will do the same. I hate the idea of keeping track of my usage in order to avoid overage charges. I already have this kind of headache form my cellphone company.
Wonderful Another way to hit are pocket books! I would just cancel cable all together from any company that would even consider extra charges, I like paying a flat fees so i know its allways the same, I wanna use it becuase I PAY FOR IT! ??? do they give you money back if you bearly use the cable service I DONT THINK SO! I wouldnt pay a dime for some CEOS BS way to nickle and dime us! WHY THERE AT IT THEY SHOULD OPEN UP A CREDIT CARD COMPANY WITH 22% INTRAST RATE!
Wonderful Another way to hit are pocket books! I would just cancel cable all together from any company that would even consider extra charges, I like paying a flat fees so i know its allways the same, I wanna use it becuase I PAY FOR IT! ??? do they give you money back if you bearly use the cable service I DONT THINK SO! I wouldnt pay a dime for some CEOS BS way to nickle and dime us! WHY THERE AT IT THEY SHOULD OPEN UP A CREDIT CARD COMPANY WITH 22% INTRAST RATE!
Wonderful Another way to hit are pocket books! I would just cancel cable all together from any company that would even consider extra charges, I like paying a flat fees so i know its allways the same, I wanna use it becuase I PAY FOR IT! ??? do they give you money back if you bearly use the cable service I DONT THINK SO! I wouldnt pay a dime for some CEOS BS way to nickle and dime us! WHY THERE AT IT THEY SHOULD OPEN UP A CREDIT CARD COMPANY WITH 22% INTRAST RATE!
Wonderful Another way to hit are pocket books! I would just cancel cable all together from any company that would even consider extra charges, I like paying a flat fees so i know its allways the same, I wanna use it becuase I PAY FOR IT! ??? do they give you money back if you bearly use the cable service I DONT THINK SO! I wouldnt pay a dime for some CEOS BS way to nickle and dime us! WHY THERE AT IT THEY SHOULD OPEN UP A CREDIT CARD COMPANY WITH 22% INTRAST RATE!
Wonderful Another way to hit are pocket books! I would just cancel cable all together from any company that would even consider extra charges, I like paying a flat fees so i know its allways the same, I wanna use it becuase I PAY FOR IT! ??? do they give you money back if you bearly use the cable service I DONT THINK SO! I wouldnt pay a dime for some CEOS BS way to nickle and dime us! WHY THERE AT IT THEY SHOULD OPEN UP A CREDIT CARD COMPANY WITH 22% INTRAST RATE!
Wonderful Another way to hit are pocket books! I would just cancel cable all together from any company that would even consider extra charges, I like paying a flat fees so i know its allways the same, I wanna use it becuase I PAY FOR IT! ??? do they give you money back if you bearly use the cable service I DONT THINK SO! I wouldnt pay a dime for some CEOS BS way to nickle and dime us! WHY THERE AT IT THEY SHOULD OPEN UP A CREDIT CARD COMPANY WITH 22% INTRAST RATE!
Wonderful Another way to hit are pocket books! I would just cancel cable all together from any company that would even consider extra charges, I like paying a flat fees so i know its allways the same, I wanna use it becuase I PAY FOR IT! ??? do they give you money back if you bearly use the cable service I DONT THINK SO! I wouldnt pay a dime for some CEOS BS way to nickle and dime us! WHY THERE AT IT THEY SHOULD OPEN UP A CREDIT CARD COMPANY WITH 22% INTRAST RATE!
Wonderful Another way to hit are pocket books! I would just cancel cable all together from any company that would even consider extra charges, I like paying a flat fees so i know its allways the same, I wanna use it becuase I PAY FOR IT! ??? do they give you money back if you bearly use the cable service I DONT THINK SO! I wouldnt pay a dime for some CEOS BS way to nickle and dime us! WHY THERE AT IT THEY SHOULD OPEN UP A CREDIT CARD COMPANY WITH 22% INTRAST RATE!