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Time Warner to charge extra $1 per GB

Posted on 05.06.2008 at 18:22 in Tech News by Martin

An announcement from Time Warner Cable has stated that they are planning to charge consumers $1 for each gigabyte of content over their allotment. This testing on metered Internet access will start in Beaumont, Texas. Time Warner Cable is a cable operator in the U.S. dealing with the development and launches of innovative video, data and voice services. The company also delivers advanced products and services such as video-on-demand, high-definition television, digital video recorders, enhanced TV features, high-speed data, and Digital Phone. The move has immediately drawn criticisms as it is seen as an abuse of regional monopoly. However, Time Warner Cable has maintained that this type of charging would actually help a majority of users since this would discourage the problem of 5 percent of customers using half of the capacity on local cable lines.

In an interview to AP Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president of advanced technology, said, “We think it’s the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure.” Reuters meanwhile reported that Time Warner Cable has new designs to provide multiple levels of service that would start at $29.95 per month for speeds of 768 Kbps, with a limit on downloads of 5 GB. This limit would amount to more than 340,000 e-mails, 170 hours of online games or downloading more than 1,300 songs. At the high end, customers could pay $54.90 a month for download speeds of 15 Mbps and a limit of 40 GB, which amounts to 124 hours of standard-definition videos or downloading over 11,000 songs.

Source: TMCnet

* Comments(119)

Comments (119)

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  1. havven
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:27

    This downloading ..stuff could get expensive…

  2. Thumbs
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:27

    $54.9 is expensive even with 40GB (dl-only or d/u?)
    I pay 25€ for the same speed but only 20GB (d/u) but I’ve also happy hours (8h).

  3. ScytheNoire
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:28

    And in a month, people who don’t even do file-sharing, will get their bill, call Time Warner Cable, scream and yell, and then call to change their ISP.

  4. S, 500 instant PHOTO booths, video EFFECTS, etc!
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:37

    buggers.

  5. TOTO
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:38

    It sucks living in Texas

  6. dragus
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:38

    this suck hope they go bankrupt from doing this hell atleast comcast gives there user 250 gigs 40 not enough

  7. lucky guy
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:38

    I pay 20€/month for 8/1 Mbps VDSL2 with unlimited traffic.
    And I hope this year I will get 10/10 Mbps for 14€/month also with unlimited traffic via FTTH.

    I’m from Slovenia and we have a butt-load of competition (2 big and +10 small ones, offering from dialup to 1/1Gbps FTTH) :)

  8. MAK
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:39

    i live in the UK have 8 mbps broadband unlimited for £10. last month my download usage came to 230GB Using 3 rapidshare accounts. so a 40 gb download limit for $54 is a rip off. the only they are doing this is because they not wanna upgrade the the USA broadband network.

  9. NoGood
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:43

    @6 comcast limits your traffic to 250gig? im on comcast im 100% sure i download more then 250gig in a month and ive never seen no charges.

  10. DISKDOC
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:44

    This sounds just fantastic.
    So cable companies are going to start to charge and meter their ISP services. Becauses its the 5 percent of us that use up half their bandwidth.

    I have a great counter proposal…how about, for those people that watch Cable TV and use up the rest of the bandwidth they go ahead and meter and charge them extra also.

    I go online and I don’t watch TV at all….isn’t this exactly the same as those people that watch TV and don’t go online at all?

    So if you are rewarding them for NOT abusing the internet services how about rewarding me for NOT abusing their cable TV services.

    Lets make it all 20 bucks a month, and then you can charge me 1 buck for every GB of data I download in a month over my quota, and go ahead and charge all your customers 1 dollar for every hour of TV they watch over THEIR quota. If I can get charges for going over some arbitrary limit of internet downloading, where is the cable TV side for downloading ON-DEMAND, or PPV events, or just watching friends all day long? Show me that side of it please!

  11. steven
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:46

    @8 Max who are you with?

  12. McBain
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:46

    So what happen if just all people at once cut the service with th ISp just for one month

  13. plectrum
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:54

    I can get better service in Bulgaria, for less money as well.

  14. common sense
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:57

    Dont get your knickers in a knot people, this is ONLY for the new accounts after the official date. All people who already have accounts with TW will not see any change in their billing according to the TW Corporate Offices Public Relations/Customer Service.

    So if you already have an account with them, then you are safe; if you are just getting an account with them…then you are the ones that are in trouble as this will apply to you

  15. mupet0000
    June 5th, 2008 | 18:58

    This is terrible, the internet should NOT be capped, i hate these controlling companys i really do.

  16. Skorpion
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:00

    With Comcast, I get the 9mbps connection. I pay $54~ a month for it.

    I don’t think I’ve been metered yet.

    This better not become a trend.

    Greedy bastards.

  17. common sense
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:01

    Dont get too upset people. This only applies to the new accounts with TWC and not the accounts that are already there. This information came directly from TWC Corporate offices/Customer services.

    So if you already have an account with them, you are safe. If you dont have an account yet or are just starting one, then this applies to you.

  18. tfk
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:10

    LOL and suckerzzz again to USA…

    here in Germany we had that model like what, 5 years ago, and they found out it sucked. Now, EVERYBODY has a flatrate (phone & Internet) with no limits and bandwidth up to 16000Mbits (yes, that means ~2mins for a Rapidshare 100MB File.
    And in Slovenia etc. its even cheaper I think.

    America going backwards… nothing unusual, with all those “Intelligent Design” guys who dont believe in Science you’ll soon be back to living in the trees, with cable modems.

    Sry, that one had to come out.

  19. gaxx
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:13

    In b4 Australians saying incorrect information about Telstra/Bigpond

    Also, 80AUD for 150 gb’s here in AU.

    Spam protection: Sum of 10 + 1 ? 15 ?

  20. lopa
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:14

    lol 40GB

  21. Nef
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:15

    100/5 MBs flatrate. No limits.
    Includes telephone flatrate (landline, not for foreign t-numvers of course…).

    *drumroll* 40 €.

    Greetings from germany.

    Time Warner must be out of their minds…

  22. FaRdEr
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:16

    That is ridiculous but reasonable. This would be cool if big company’s start fighting each other because now i will pay Time Warner 1.50$ for a Disney movie that I downloaded/stole.(Weird)

  23. ★★★RLSLogKing★★★
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:23

    @21 Cool. You can use the extra money you save to pay Germany’s high gas prices.

  24. Transcendent
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:24

    It wouldn’t surprise me if this became a trend. I mean imagine if you paid a fixed fee for electricity.

  25. Wonderkid
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:26

    Man, if you think that’s bad you should try South Africa. I’m paying the equivalent of about $65/month for 10GB cap plus a compulsary line rental of about $50/month for a 2MB connection, so in effect about $110/month for 10GB!

  26. Nef
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:27

    @ 23

    Got no car. :D

  27. o0
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:28

    roflmfao

    wtf man!

    that a big step back in teh development of the internet
    i mean first there was payment per hour or gigabyte
    then there came flatrates where the internet could develop freely
    and now more and more compannies are planning to throw us back to stoneage with ridiculous limits

    1$ per gb wtf
    they are simply to geedy
    lol and 40gb? thats my daily traffic sometimes…
    if the flatrate model would be soo bad most of them would be bancrupt a long time ago
    instead they even lowered flatrate prices to win over even more customers…

    what a bunch of mofos

  28. Alfred Prufrock
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:32

    Pay-as-you-go internet is not exactly new, most of us have “fair usage” policies even if we have unlimited accounts. However, if websites get their revenue from pop-up ads playing band heavy videos (like a site not a million miles from this one… oh, it is this one), then presumably they will find it harder to retain viewers wary of accidentally overloading their usage with useless ads. In fact right now just how much of your broadband is being used by unsolicited ads? This model, if it works, may start tipping website revenue into ISPs instead. Perhaps we should be given statics, with a choice to play rather than the automatic videos that constantly interrupt…

  29. spinchilla
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:33

    If you live in the USA you will know that Time Warner Cable has a monopoly on most places here, this is totally unreasonable and always has been, just another one in the books for Time Warner Cable.

  30. pissed off
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:38

    can someone show me where this info came from so i can read the article being that i live in texas, use twc, just renewed my services for 2 more years. I am ok if previous customers are not affected but if not i am canceling services TODAY!!!

  31. A.Bundy
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:40

    one word to rule them all, one word to kill them all. FIOS.

  32. MAK
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:43

    @11 virgin media been with them for 2 years got a half price discount after i renewed my contract.

  33. ★★★RLSLogKing★★★
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:44

    @26

    I try to use public transport when i can. But not owning a vehicle is VERY inconvenient. What happens if you need to move all you stuff out of your mom’s house?

  34. mirror
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:48

    unlimited 16/2 in US 160 per month

    musfiber.net

  35. mirror
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:48

    http://musfiber.net/internet_residential.html

  36. mundox
    June 5th, 2008 | 19:58

    I pay $47 for 2mbit/512k 15gb cap… and the isp throttles all p2p traffic, it sucks mayor ass. The worst part is that here there are only 2 ISPs (yeah, 3rd world countries pwn).

  37. Carlos
    June 5th, 2008 | 20:13

    That sucks for the new customers! All these greedy isp providers are starting to act like the big oil executives.

  38. Hangedman
    June 5th, 2008 | 20:19

    Wow, here in quebec, i pay around 50$ for 20g download 10g uploads. Which sucks..

    If i download to much, they charge me $50!!! extra!

    So please people don’t cry, you get amazing fees where you live.

  39. xyztynz
    June 5th, 2008 | 20:22

    Do any of you remember the “old” days of internet pricing? This is just a step back towards that direction, which people will not put up with unless prices drop significantly. Quite a bit of ballyhoo going on in some Congressional circles concerning this and Net Neutrality. For those in the U.S. make sure you petition your local Congresspeople to support Net Neutrality and for them to pressure the big telcos to start massively rolling out FIOS deployment.

  40. ELCouz
    June 5th, 2008 | 20:31

    LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
    That’s not new…

    VIDEOTRON here in Quebec is charging US $7.95 PER EXTRA GB (20GB DOWN/10GB UP) !!! THAT’S WHAT I CALL A RIP-OFF!!!

    I would prefer Timewarner 200 more than Videotron

  41. MelC
    June 5th, 2008 | 20:50

    ★★★RLSLogKing★★★ has obviously never been to germany – the public transport system is amazing. busses, trams, trains and an underground all working (almost) perfectly. a car certainly isn’t needed in a well developed country.

  42. David
    June 5th, 2008 | 20:52

    I doubt this will catch on.

    There only testing it now. If it does FIOS will pick up all the customers and make a killing off of it.

    The end.

  43. Duis
    June 5th, 2008 | 20:52

    I get charged $1.50 per gig; but with a 95 gig limit, I’ve only gone over on one of my bills.

  44. chris
    June 5th, 2008 | 20:57

    100mb/sec both ways, 70$ in sweden

  45. Sakuji
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:01

    What a bunch of idiots! Is TWC going to start charging the customers who watch more than 5 gigs of cable television extra also? What difference does it make if you watch TV and movies on your PC or your TV?

    It must be hard being a TWC exec and having customers use the services TWC provides and the customers pay for. It would be so much easier if people simply bought their service, and never turned on their PC’s.

  46. dan9
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:07

    what if you use VOIP and are on the telephone all the time??

  47. Neuromancer
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:19

    Hope these a-holes at Time Warner go out of business.

    @41 They must have some wonderful crack as well. Public transportation isn’t exactly a German exclusive. Check out Japan’s public transport system. It clowns US, UK, and Germany.

    “a car certainly isn’t needed in a well developed country.”
    How lucky you must be to live in such a futuristic utopia while the rest of us have to make do with our horse and carriages. Terrifying.

  48. clayton
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:19

    My plan:

    Down: 4mbit/s Up: 512 kbit/s
    Traffic: Unlimited Price: USD$ 68
    Country: Chile ISP: vtr.net

  49. NexGen
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:20

    If they do this GOODBYE time warner hello Verizon FIOS

  50. Chris Clarke
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:22

    Here in Toronto, Rogers recently introduced the exact same thing! They’re going to start charging an extra $1/gig, and it applies to existing customers too!

    If you can, cancel your service with companies like Rogers, Time Warner, etc. and threaten to go with another provider who doesn’t limit your bandwidth. If possible, take it a step further and cancel other services they offer, like TV and phone. The bottom line is they’re losing money pulling these stunts (whatever happened to UNLIMITED?) and they need to be held accountable.

  51. Google
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:24

    I just hope there’ll be roll-over bytes. :[

  52. cheeky
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:29

    Here in Canada I get 6Mbit/800Kbs with 200Gb cap for $29.99

    @46. It would take 17.5 hours per day to even use 1 GB on VOIP at the highest quality setting.

  53. smurfbarf
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:29

    170 hours of online games or downloading….

    So if there are 2 people playing, or 1 guy 2 box’ing, that’s only 85 hours… which over 30 days is less than 3 hours a day.

    One husband and wife couple who play Warcraft together at night, and use their XBox 360 to legally download a few HD movies have just completely blown the cap. Their seemingly high numbers don’t look so high once you consider that people don’t do just one thing. Isn’t part of the beauty of highspeed that 2+ people can use it at one time. Start downloading from iTunes while you play Call of Duty, and see how quickly you hit these limits.

    We’re quickly approaching a day where mass volumes are downloaded legally by the average Joe, instead of just bootlegs. Providers from Xbox to Netflix are bringing the mainstream of large downloads – night after night. The limit is only 1.33 gigs a day, with a HD rental being 4Gigs. At over $1.00 a gig, it’s almost cheaper to make the two round trips to Blockbusters – with the price of gas today.

    This is not going to save the majority to curb the “5%” that abuse the system. It smells more like a test that they know will bomb, but it will provide data that can be twisted out of shape to suit their long term needs. What’s the point of Joe having a 500mbs line, if he can only turn it on for 10 mins a month? If the substructure can’t handle the volume, quit raising the speed limit. Stop bragging that you rent out Ferrari’s, but your potholes keep people under 40mph anyway.

  54. FX
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:32

    better make sure your wifi isn’t opened! or hacked… I can see how this will get ugly fast.

  55. tfk
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:32

    Agree to MelC…
    Public transportation is really good over here, at least if you life next to a town 300.000+. (Thats mine, don’t know about smaller ones, but here you can go almost anywhere in no time).
    And there’s something most Americans seem not to know, its called “bycicle” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle.
    (A GERMAN invention, btw, and up to now “the most efficient self-powered means of transportation.”)
    If you really need to move some heavy stuff, I’m sure you’ll find s.o. to help you out.

    So yes, it’s practical to have a car, but you don’t really need one… and i’ll rather pay that extra cents on gasoline than that extra dollar for those GBs… You have to consider that most of it goes straight back into our countries tax funds, and so back to us again.

  56. BaW
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:41

    Ya tell me about it they are going to drop alot of customers because they have already done this to me. I download 136gb of stuff in one month got a phone called said i owed like $132 because i went over my bandwidth limit. BTW i was dl linux distros real sad. As soon as they told me i told them i would like my service disconnected and you guys can go **** yourself. <3 fIOS for life

  57. 3R4ZOR
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:48

    My plan:

    Down: 18mbit/s Up: 512 kbit/s
    Traffic: Unlimited Price: € 35
    Country: Portugal
    ISP: zon.pt

  58. Mr Monocle the Chimp
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:52

    You post this like it’s something new. This is how Telus has been operating it’s broadband for a few years now. It only give it’s users a 60gig limit too.
    Had Shaw for years and while I supposedly have a 100gig a month limit, I’ve gone much past it many times and have never been charged.

  59. okcwv
    June 5th, 2008 | 21:55

    Someone needs to call al gore and tell him (his) internet is causing global warming and he needs to fix it

  60. number632
    June 5th, 2008 | 22:00

    WOW. this makes about as much sense as paying $1.00 per glass of water from the tap

  61. Sparkz
    June 5th, 2008 | 22:02

    I thought I would be the first to write this, but many beat me to it. Just like everyone said….

    no worries. FIOS will lay all these greedy ass isp’s to rest. if it’s not available to you yet, it will be soon.

    Verizon just bought Alltel, their doing big things. FIOS will rule the US. Once they do…they’ll probably start charging by the GB too. lol. except by then it will will most likely be by the TB.

  62. cza
    June 5th, 2008 | 22:07

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibHoazeXfh4

  63. sucktobeme
    June 5th, 2008 | 22:09

    So its gonna cost me 4 dollars to download a DVD movie maybe 8 to 12 dollars to download a BLUE RAY.How come I never got any money back when I go on vacation for a month and Im not using my internet

  64. TheEnd187
    June 5th, 2008 | 22:10

    @34

    160 for 16mb/2mb line? thats hella expensive compared to Verizon FiOS, which only charger 52.99 for 15mb/2mb. no thanks ill stick to my isp. plus I also get unlimited usage per month.

  65. mickey d
    June 5th, 2008 | 22:19

    My plan:

    Down: 24Mbit/s Up: 1 Mbit/s
    Traffic: Unlimited Price: € 35
    Country: Sweden
    ISP: comhem

  66. name (required) email ( will not be shown ) (required) Spam protection: Sum of 1 + 9 ?
    June 5th, 2008 | 22:24

    hell, i think this just was happening here.

  67. nameless
    June 5th, 2008 | 22:26

    16000/1200 + phone flat and without any llmits!
    no kick, caps

    all for 39EUR :P

    of course: GERMANY!

  68. FuriousRage
    June 5th, 2008 | 22:26

    i pay 39.3€ per month for my 100/100 unlimited Mbit!

    we swedes lol @ you ;>

  69. nameless
    June 5th, 2008 | 22:31

    sweden ownz all… :P

  70. mr plop
    June 5th, 2008 | 22:55

    http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/bc/isp-1-6/telstra-bigpond-adsl2.htm

    AUD$150/Gb over limit. We have had usage based plans forever here in Oz. Sucks. I think having up limits will have some effect on seeding, with limits here i cant afford to keep my torrent seeded for long.

  71. answer
    June 5th, 2008 | 23:04

    comcast limit is around 450GB. i stay under that b/c i went way over before and they said they do a audit every month to see who is “abusing their bandwidth”. the guy said u went over 450GB so i figure that is the barrier.

    u figure u pay for unlimited internet so it should be unlimited. wtf. if i got a unlimited cell phone plan they wouldnt say ur abusing ur unlimited minutes. ridiculous.

  72. Stork66
    June 5th, 2008 | 23:18

    It” stick with my unlimited dl/ul with 8Mbps in Ohio

  73. none
    June 5th, 2008 | 23:27

    no matter how you look at ti this is a bad Idea I know it will flop. lots of people have given perfectly valid reasons so I wont reiterate but I would like to say the price scheme they are talking about is absolutely ridicules one HD movie is over 6gbs by itself. lol

  74. Harryno5
    June 5th, 2008 | 23:33

    Wow, good to know Time Warner are not exactly very smart are they? This policy will actually hurt their other businesses, online movies and songs download purchases is supposed to be the next big thing, with the likes of Xbox Live offering HD movies and TV programs to buy and rent on the xbox 360, and correct me if i’m wrong but isn’t Time warner one of those companies that benifit from this?

    So if they cap the d/l limits it’s going to hurt the income from that section, in a time when more people are downloading movies instead of buying the DVD or something, and considering a HD movie is around 6-7GB your going to use up your allocated limits pretty quickly, or more likely you’ll just shop around for a uncapped providor.

  75. lawngnome
    June 5th, 2008 | 23:41

    Time Warner has a monopoly on broadband where I’m at. The closest alternative is DSL. :( If I get $100 bills for internet alone in the future, I’d start looking to jack other ppl’s wireless.

  76. bojangles
    June 5th, 2008 | 23:55

    I’m an above average bandwidth user, but I’m not some kind of torrent file sharing power user, and yet I still probably hit 30-50GB in a month of downloads, maybe more. Maybe 1GB a day on average. This shet will NOT fly Time Warner. This is a short-term rip off of their customers, in 3 or 4 years as bandwidth useage increases, this pathetic little plan from Time Warner will be seen as a joke.

  77. Jon
    June 6th, 2008 | 00:02

    Note to self: Never get Time Warner service, ever.

  78. blunden
    June 6th, 2008 | 00:05

    Any decent ISP would just remove the limits. Too bad US ISP:s seems to suck in general. Hopefully it will improve for you guys soo. :)

  79. someguy
    June 6th, 2008 | 00:06

    “100/5 MBs flatrate. No limits.
    Includes telephone flatrate (landline, not for foreign t-numvers of course…).

    *drumroll* 40 €.

    Greetings from germany.”

    nice one :> i got a crappy 16MB/1MB + all kinds of crappy flats for 39€ (ger too) what’s your isp :) (and city ^^)?

  80. danon
    June 6th, 2008 | 00:13

    then close the inet and done with it

    think that gonna be hd video watch possibility

    that will take more then 5giga for a movie

    ppls will stop use internet
    they will use public internet to send email or whatever

    but using as main multi-media no!

    that’s stupid!

  81. «Vampirescu»
    June 6th, 2008 | 00:14

    I get cabel through shaw, i download at about 2600kb/s and up at about 1000kb/s but i pay $100/month for that, wish i was in europe where it was faster and cheaper, oh ya and screw warner brothers.

  82. someguy
    June 6th, 2008 | 00:15

    btw hf downloading uncompressed hd movies and eventually pay more than if you had bought it :P

  83. stan
    June 6th, 2008 | 01:49

    net neutrality. they be shutting the interweb down by 2012 seriously

  84. AlphA
    June 6th, 2008 | 02:20

    Makes my 24mb connection with 60GB download sound damn good for Australian $99 per month.

  85. dosguy
    June 6th, 2008 | 02:22

    So does the bandwidth usage apply only to downloads, or do they count uploads too? How ’bout streaming video? That would really suck. For me, the only reason to have broadband in the first place is to be able to download and upload large files and occasionally watch Youtube and other video sites for a fixed monthly fee. I’m sure I often go over 250 or so GByte/mo, and if they ever start billing me per GByte over a certain limit, then most definitely I’ll pull the plug and find a more affordable hobby.

  86. AlphA
    June 6th, 2008 | 02:38

    RE: #84: Stan, why do you waste time typing crap like that? Do you think anyone will listen to you?

    The amount of crap getting posted these days is getting worse.

    These forums are getting junked out with this crap. Shame..

  87. Deano
    June 6th, 2008 | 02:42

    this sure is going to effect the online movie distribution of rentals and purchases as well as streaming live television seems really stupid of them. Really sucks becasue I used to have comcast and becasue of the region shift i got shafted and was sent to timewarner/roadrunner.

  88. no_rlz
    June 6th, 2008 | 02:55

    Here in Brazil, I pay US$37/month 1/1 mbit unlimited. Kinda expensive, but what I can do… =/

  89. friendlyInfo
    June 6th, 2008 | 03:04

    Please forgive my rude language, but f@!* f@!* f@!*. These greedy US companies get me all worked up. Don’t let their PR department fool you. They are testing the waters in one location currently to see if they can get away with it. I know, I did some work for a communications company once, and they made it very clear that their end users was the not a priority. Their priority was to fill all their hardware to capacity any way they can. And once filled, they will continue to fill it over capacity as much as they think is possible. Once they realize they can get away with it, because of monopolistic reasons, it will spread to ALL consumers. Don’t be a fool. Customers should begin fighting back now before it is too late. Best idea I can come up with is get everyone you know to send them letters. Hopefully they will get so many, that maybe, if we are lucky they may reconsider their future plans. Writing letters to your government representatives might be a good thing too. We should push for government regulation of all communication services, similar to utilities, water, etc. This country was founded with many ideals. One of those being that no company should be allowed to have geographic monopolies. And if they do, they are to be regulated.

    On a side note. Think of it this way. In the past we had to fight for freedom of the press when printing became common. The internet needs something similar. True the internet is a different beast, but so was printing presses back then. It should be considered the same kind of fight.

  90. skeptical
    June 6th, 2008 | 03:16

    i pay 60USD in the philippines just to get a “decent” 1mbps cable which really amounts to less than 40gb because of the “decency”…. so i would gladly pay most of the amount said in the comments and on this article….OR TIME WARNER COULD JUST GO TO THE PHILIPPINES AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF NEEDY PEOPLE LIKE US :)

  91. David
    June 6th, 2008 | 03:17

    It’s time to change of ISP.

  92. Didi
    June 6th, 2008 | 03:36

    U guys want to laugh
    here in Tahiti, we have:
    $56 128kbs/128kbs 2GB (light version)
    $100 182kbs/128kbs 8GB (standard vers)
    $123 256kbs/128kbs 12GB (max vers)
    $185 512kbs/512kbs (xtrem vers)

    This is the real deal yeah! :(

  93. yeah
    June 6th, 2008 | 03:37

    In NC, what else is there besides time warner cable and bellsouth dsl? no FIOS as far as I know

  94. really?
    June 6th, 2008 | 04:08

    You know, I download something big every day and I don’t see how a 40 GB limit is all that confining. What the hell are you 150 GB/mo people doing? Grabbing every episode of every godforsaken reality show and ISOs of every crap Hollywood movie for your “collection?” Every derivative FPS that comes down the pike so that you can say you have it? Do you guys ever take the time to watch or play any of this stuff or are you too busy burning DVDs to do so?

    Metered internet might be sucky and regressive but if it can create a sense of discernment in people, it’s not all bad.

  95. Willis
    June 6th, 2008 | 04:22

    here in Canada Rogers Cable ISP as of June implemented a $1.50 charge per gig and set a cap of 95gb a month. Any thing over that and you pay per gig. up and down traffic is counted. We pay about $60/month CDN which with the exchange rate now is about $60 US. The service used to be unlimited. So now that they are charging extra for those who use more (file sharers they mean) are the ISP’s themselves not profiting from (illegal) file sharing on the net? hmmmm?

  96. Belloney
    June 6th, 2008 | 04:22

    Rogers cable, keeps saying I have used 70% of 160gb cap….as of june they will start charging for over use….sounds like Teds in bed with the MPAA…as are other North American companies. Kill Vista, use LINUX!

  97. JustBiznass!
    June 6th, 2008 | 04:26

    Yeah, they already said its being rolled out to test it. If it works then every customer will be charged this way.

    I too find it funny that the US ISP’s won’t even acknowledge there’s a problem with their networks, or that it has to expand. They just keep insisting it’s just a problem with the top %5 of downloaders. There will always be a top %5, so their argument is kind of moot. It simply comes down to the US needs more competition in each market. And I don’t mean either a choice of DSL or cable, I mean being able to choose from 3-5 different companies.

  98. Mike
    June 6th, 2008 | 04:53

    This is kind of double edge sword for those Cable/ISP services because they all advertised about streaming audio/video, deliver movies directly to your living room. At the meantime, they also implement the bandwidth usage cap – so who gonna want those wonderful services.

    I am currently using Rogers (Toronto) Express internet service (5Mbit/s) for around $52 CAN / month starting in June with a cap of 60GB per month. They charge $1.00 per Gb over the limit.

    For correction: for now they only charge maximum of $25 CAN extra for any thing over the limit. So still all bandwidth you can use for another extra $25 is not too bad. If you get over the limit then might as well dl/ul all you can for the month.

  99. open
    June 6th, 2008 | 05:29

    haha back to the stone age people

  100. Chewie
    June 6th, 2008 | 06:03

    New Zealand has one of the worst broadband systems of the OECD countries, I pay $NZD70 (about $US55)for 3mbps down, 128kbps up with a cap of 10gb. If we go over this, the speed is slowed down to 56kbps down and up. On other similar plans in New Zealand, if we go over, we pay 2c/MB, this equates to $NZD20 ($US15) a gb.

    Hopefully if we get a new government in the elections this year they’ll keep their promise to speed a billion or so dollars on improving the internet here; we need it.

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