Stop Time Warner Cable Usage Caps

[ne0ngreen4]

To anyone who has Time Warner and uses their PS3 for online gaming, or uses their netflix/pandora enabled blu ray player for streaming beware. Here in Rochester, NY and several other markets in the US Time Warner is moving forward with insituting usage caps on internet. Here in Rochester they are introducing a tiered system 5, 10, 20, 40, 60, and 100GB plans ranging from 29.99 to $75 a month. Every GB used over the plan you are on will cost you $1. They are also offering an unlimited plan for $150+ a month. Rochester is a test market but it could be the start of a trend. Join the cause fight this

www.stopthecap.com

[andyman1970]

That's cable for you and I guess that means Bright House will follow suite since they are an affiliate of TW. LOL...That Ted Turner sure knows how to get blood from a turnip.

[proxpilot]

yeah it just so happens that the two out of the three places they are doing this is Rochester where my buddy lives and the Greensboro NC area where i live and were on Xbox live all the time, and i stream netflix to my xbox also.

[hoju3508]

I'm surprised Netflix hasn't made a big stink about this.

[Psychonaut]

Good. I was worried my $200/month cable bill wasn't enough.

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by ne0ngreen4

To anyone who has Time Warner and uses their PS3 for online gaming, or uses their netflix/pandora enabled blu ray player for streaming beware. Here in Rochester, NY and several other markets in the US Time Warner is moving forward with insituting usage caps on internet. Here in Rochester they are introducing a tiered system 5, 10, 20, 40, 60, and 100GB plans ranging from 29.99 to $75 a month. Every GB used over the plan you are on will cost you $1. They are also offering an unlimited plan for $150+ a month. Rochester is a test market but it could be the start of a trend. Join the cause fight this

www.stopthecap.com

If you need more than 100GB for 'online gaming' then you either a} need to get out of the house more and see this thing I like to call 'sunshine' or b} need to quit B.S.ing people and call it like it really is, that it's used for something other than online gaming.

Hell, if you use more than 60 in online gaming something's wrong.

Logan

[Clark Kent]

I just do not see how these caps will be stopped in markets where no broadband competition exists.

[brettallica]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

I just do not see how these caps will be stopped in markets where no broadband competition exists.

+1

Kinda scary if you think about it.

[toef]

Originally Posted by brettallica

+1

Kinda scary if you think about it.

I agree that it's a bit scary, but I admit to knowing nothing about how internet server infrastructure sort of stuff works.

We all pay taxes for our highways, but should the government change that? OTR truckers should start paying more, since they use the highways more, and make their living off the highways.

The fact is we all benefit from the highway (or the information superhighway) whether we use it for 5 minutes a day or 5 hours a day. I may only use the internet 5 minutes a day, but maybe the stuff I go to only exists because of a guy who uses the internet a lot, and may not use it anymore, because he can't afford to.

To go back to the analogy, I guess it's like saying I only use the highway a few times per week, but I depend on the heavy-users (the truckers) who use it to deliver food to my local supermarket, to supply me with food.

So I may not use it much, but I still benefit from the people who do use it much more than me... and they might not use it as much if they suddenly can't afford to.

Ok, so that's a crazy example, but oh well/

Although on the other hand, maybe if using the internet now has a price, and essentially you can think of it as paying to visit each website you visit, that might eliminate some of the crappier sites out there from being made, because nobody wants to sacrifice their preciously limited bandwidth on those sites.

So maybe Twitter will disappear. And if we're really lucky, MySpace/Facebook can go away too. That way everyone can save their bandwidth for watching David After Dentist over and over.

[Jeff Kleist]

Time Warner has the worst infrastructure of any of the ISPs. Basically they're doing what Cingular/AT&T did with the iPhone. Using high fees (or in that case, a ton of Apple heads locked into $70/month+ phone plans) to finance the modernization of their backbone.

You need to complain to the local municipality, and get your local reps, assuming TW hasn't bought them already, to forbid them to do this, or invite in competition

[Stephie_is_a_dork]

I love Cox.

[jw]

Comcast has a cap I believe, 250gb a month, after that I believe they just axe you

put into perspective:

250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of data, much more than a typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis. Currently, the median monthly data usage by our residential customers is approximately 2 - 3 GB. To put 250 GB of monthly usage in perspective, a customer would have to do any one of the following:

* Send 50 million emails (at 0.05 KB/email)
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song)
* Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)
* Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo)

http://www.comcast.net/terms/network/amendment/

and yes 250gb is alot of bandwidth

[xtop]

if the average consumer uses so little, why care that i use 250?

[jw]

compared to TimeWarner, I am not gonna complain.

[brettallica]

Originally Posted by toefer

I agree that it's a bit scary, but I admit to knowing nothing about how internet server infrastructure sort of stuff works.

We all pay taxes for our highways, but should the government change that? OTR truckers should start paying more, since they use the highways more, and make their living off the highways.

The fact is we all benefit from the highway (or the information superhighway) whether we use it for 5 minutes a day or 5 hours a day. I may only use the internet 5 minutes a day, but maybe the stuff I go to only exists because of a guy who uses the internet a lot, and may not use it anymore, because he can't afford to.

To go back to the analogy, I guess it's like saying I only use the highway a few times per week, but I depend on the heavy-users (the truckers) who use it to deliver food to my local supermarket, to supply me with food.

So I may not use it much, but I still benefit from the people who do use it much more than me... and they might not use it as much if they suddenly can't afford to.

Ok, so that's a crazy example, but oh well/

Although on the other hand, maybe if using the internet now has a price, and essentially you can think of it as paying to visit each website you visit, that might eliminate some of the crappier sites out there from being made, because nobody wants to sacrifice their preciously limited bandwidth on those sites.

So maybe Twitter will disappear. And if we're really lucky, MySpace/Facebook can go away too. That way everyone can save their bandwidth for watching David After Dentist over and over.

I can totally get behind your analogy. It makes perfect sense to me.

I will say, though, that putting caps on internet usage -- especially in the areas where there is no competition -- is monopolizing and communistic. It sucks because you just have to follow the rules of what X company sets forth. Don't like it? Unfair prices or policies? Too bad. Deal with us or have nothing. That's what rules like that say to me.

In my area, we have probably five or so different internet providers (off the top of my head), and it's probably a few more just a few miles down the road from me. It's a very competitive market here for internet (and cable for that matter).

[blujacket]

Originally Posted by Stephie_is_a_dork

I love Cox.

[toef]

Originally Posted by brettallica

In my area, we have probably five or so different internet providers (off the top of my head), and it's probably a few more just a few miles down the road from me. It's a very competitive market here for internet (and cable for that matter).

Yeah, I think I can always fall back on switching to Verizon DSL if Time Warner tries to expand the capping to my area.

FiOS has recently been added to my area, but my neighborhood isn't covered yet, but hopefully will be soon.

I'm currently visiting relatives, and they have FiOS for internet and cable... and I really want it.

[Septimus Prime]

Originally Posted by Stephie_is_a_dork

I love Cox.

That's what she said. No, really, she did say it. Please believe.

On topic, if TW tries to bring this BS to my area, I'm going to cancel. TW's "HD" service is the worst I've ever seen, and its Roadrunner throughput is not as high as advertised (I have 10/6 Mbps Roadrunner, but I only average something like 6/3.5 Mbps throughput). In fact, as soon as something better comes to my area, TW is going to get the boot.

[Uniquely]

Originally Posted by toefer

To go back to the analogy, I guess it's like saying I only use the highway a few times per week, but I depend on the heavy-users (the truckers) who use it to deliver food to my local supermarket, to supply me with food.

So I may not use it much, but I still benefit from the people who do use it much more than me... and they might not use it as much if they suddenly can't afford to.

That would be an excellent analogy if the VAST MAJORITY of people who exceed 60-100GB a month weren't pirates. Seriously.... you'd have to watch youtube and other streaming services for several hours a day to use that kind of bandwidth legitimately.

[Anthony P]

I just do not see how these caps will be stopped in markets where no broadband competition exists.

what does that have anything to do with it. Since people like car/ traffic analogies, it is that most people have a nice small car, but some want to have a fleet of home moving (you know the ones that need several lanes because they have a home on the back) trucks. That small 2 lane road is enough for the normal user but because these people use the high way and cause way too much traffic, the road way needs to go from a 2 lane to an extra wide 4 lane to fix the issues and so that the ones stuck behind that slow truck are not stuck going 10 km/h . The companies (telcos) don't have the money to do it, and would rather the trouble maker uses someone else’s highway. Competition won't make it go away, they just exacerbate the issues. J6P that uses less then 5GB/month or 10GB/month it is not an issue. But for the pirate that has a P2P server at home, and wants more then 100GB, it is better for the telco to lose him and go be a burden to the competitor.’