I see this failing. I mean comeon! It will be expensive for power users.





Time Warner to test Internet billing based on usage

By Yinka AdegokeThu Jan 17, 10:07 AM ET


Time Warner Cable Inc said on Wednesday it is planning a trial to bill high-speed Internet subscribers based on their amount of usage rather than a flat fee, the standard industry practice.
The second largest U.S. cable operator said it will test consumption-based billing with subscribers in Beaumont, Texas later this year as a part of a strategy to help reduce congestion of its network by a minority of consumers who pay the same monthly fee as light users.
The company believes the billing system will impact only heavy users, who account for around 5 percent of all customers but typically use more than half of the total network bandwidth, according to a company spokesman.
Slowing network congestion due to downloading of large media files such as video is a growing problem for Time Warner Cable. The company said the problem will worsen as video downloading becomes more popular.
But the move could prove controversial. Unlike with utility bills such as the phone or electricity, which have traditionally been based on usage, U.S. high-speed Internet subscribers have come to expect a fixed monthly charge. An Internet bill typically only varies based on the speed of the consumer's Internet access.
Time Warner Cable, which has 7.4 million residential Internet subscribers, is hoping the move will not confuse consumers if introduced nationwide and is planning a trial period.
"Largely, people won't notice the difference," said the Time Warner Cable spokesman. "We don't want customers to feel they're getting less for more." News of Time Warner Cable's plans was originally leaked on an online industry forum BroadbandReports.com.
Other cable operators may follow Time Warner Cable's lead and phone companies such as Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T Inc are likely to be watching the New York-based cable operator's plans.
As U.S. consumers have become more used to streaming and downloading digital media over the Web, their Internet service providers have started to come under pressure to be able to keep up with growing demand in a cost-effective manner.
Comcast Corp, the largest cable operator with around 13 million Internet subscribers, has been accused by consumer groups of blocking Web traffic moving across its networks, prompting a notice of inquiry by the Federal Communications Commission earlier this week.
Comcast denies it blocks any Internet traffic saying it uses bandwidth management technology to help improve the customer experience but which may slow down some file transfers.

 

So I spend an excessive amount of time on the internets...but I don't ever download anything. I guess I stream a lot of music videos, though.

I don't know that this would affect me, then.

And 5% users = 50% bandwidth? Damn.

 

I can't imagine this going over well.

 

I was going to cry outrageously until I saw the part about 5% using 50%.

Screw the 5%, charge them up the yin-yang.

Doesn't really affect me either way, since I don't use cable internet.

 

I probably fall close to that 5%, but at the same time I pay an extra 40 bucks a month already for more bandwidth so I can get my bs done faster. The ISPs dont like that 5%, because they don't want to invest the money in upgrading their networks to handle everyone doing it.

The funny thing is, you don't have to fall into that 5% to be affected by it. The cable ISPs(and DSL will say the same thing) will tell you that 12MBps downstream is for browsing websites faster, not downloading larger thngs.

The unaffected people are going the be the ones(and yes, there's a lot of them, you just never hear about them because they aren't all "hardcore" enough to use forums and what not), who are using hardly any bandwidth. Anybody using more, is going to be charged more.

It's the same crap that ISPs in countries other than the US pull with their broadband services, such as capping users at 5-10GB a month(which can go real fast), and then charging out the ass for usage over that.

If my ISP tried this crap, I'd call them on day 1, cancel, and find a new provider.

 

This is crap. Thankfully I have comcast.

 

Im comcast and I got a 6mb connection. I don't believe I ever max it out. I think they charge ridiculous rates as it is. I hope some innovation comes to play very soon, so it will be a lil cheaper for us. But, I don't believe thats ever gonna happen.

However, I usually download files at 646kb, someone tried telling me that 646kb translates to 6mb so I am using ALL my service, but somehow that doesn't make sense. Cause in my belief, I think that translates to a LIL' over "1/2 of 1mb" in my opinion. Maybe Im wrong but...whatever. I still believe in my mind 600kb means over half a meg.

But I do understand that the site you are trying to download stuff from, or visit, has a cap sometimes, or a crap server, and that will determine a slower download.

 

Looks like I'll be looking for a new internet provider.

 

my friend, you were told way wrong. the thing with internet speed is that they advertise you at Xmb download, but you dont actually get that. And if you do, your close to a relay station or have a dedicated line. All sorts of things can affect speed too. If you live in an area that has a bunch of peol ethat use the same service, you will take a hit on speed. I go thru Wide Open West and im the only subscriber in my area. I get usually between 4mb and 7mb per sec. The only thing that hinders my connection after my router is my PC. Its a old one that runs crappy in the first place. And here is something that will cause some people to get all bent out of shape, what about the indirect usage? thos that use the auto update features in most software. Sometimes updates and hit 30+MB. And we all know how many patched Microsoft releases. And lets talk about VoiP services. Thats phone based internet. Iwork for net2phone. Our device requires 80k per second for a conversation. if you make one call a day and talk for 1 hour. Thats almost 30Gb per month! and thats just talking one hour.

 

You're mixing up bits and bytes.

You have a 6megabit per second connection, you're probably downloading at 646kiloBytes per second. 646KBps is a little over 5mbps. Remember, there are 8 bits in a byte.

 

Does this "billing by usage" even improve the service, at all?

 

Absolutely not, if the people using the bandwidth are still willing to pay for it, your service will remain exactly the same. It's not like your ISP is going to show up at your doorstep and run fiber straight to the back of your pc just because some people are paying more.

The best example of this was the 10mbps I had years ago with tci@home, at&t took over and improved everyone's service by charging them an extra $10 a month and then capping bandwidth at 1.5mbps down 128kbps up. Comcast took over and eventually bumped it to 3mbps and 256kbps up, but still charged even more. Now I pay for their extra service that has I think 8mbps down and 768kbps up, so $50 more per month years later on the same network(network is the same, just switched hands), I'm still getting worse service.

 

7 million people use AOL?

 

 

Yeah, sure, I'll pay the byte just as soon as I go back to paying by the text message! Dubbaya Tee Eff mate?!

 

i used to work for a cable isp and for a while we used to cap people who used a certain amount of bandwidth per month. i forget how much it was, maybe 30 gigs a month or something. the service wouldn't be cut off and they wouldn't be charged more, but their speeds would drop down to our lowest offered budget price speeds, like 256 kbps as opposed to 5 Mbps which was the most we offered at the time. people who seeded a lot of torrent were the ones who complained the most. i remember sometimes people would be 2 or 3 days into the month and already be capped and they were pretty angry. after about a year they dropped it once the network was upgraded enough to be able to handle everything. one thing that i know from working there though, is that just a few users can really KILL everything. it's not like they're doing anything legal anyway, so none of the admins felt bad about it. when someone's uploaded 30 gigs of data in a week and only downloaded something like 2 you know they're doing something shady.

 

Uhhh, no. That's the same sentiment that gets the RIAA fired up before a new round of lawsuits.

I know I've personally had to take video home from work, work on it at home, and then upload it back, along with other cd images.

Not everyone who moves large files is pirating software or movies.

 

seeing that now mp3s, movies, and games can be bought off the internet, direct-download style.

movies are around 4-8gb...games now are 3-6gb...and entire albums are 700mbs...

this'll just ruin it...people will start to buy less...

 

it's a minority of people who use a lot of bandwidth. it's the majority of that minority who are doing something illegal. every person who called and complained to me was complaining about either kazaa or torrents. it's just the way it was. it was a few years ago obviously and things have changed, but i'm willing to bet it's the same issue. i remember we could also check which ports passed the most traffic and if it was just regular http or ftp then they weren't limited. i can't remember totally anyway, it was a few years ago. i'm not saying that everyone who uses a lot of bandwidth is doing something illegal at all, but most of the time that's the problem.

 

And you still have the wrong idea about how things work.

Not all torrents are for copyrighted or otherwise illegal to download material.