Bend Over Boys. No Vaseline for you.. Time Warner to Charge Extra for Over-Quota Bandwidth

[ripthesystem]

http://www.nwfusion.com/net.worker/news/2002/0408networker.html

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Time Warner: Bandwidth hogs, pay up!

Cable company decides heavy bandwidth users will pay an additional monthly fee.

By Michael Martin
Network World, 04/08/02

The all-you-can-eat bandwidth buffet that cable modem users enjoy may soon come to an end.

Later this year, Time Warner Cable will begin charging users a fee for downloading more than a monthly limit. The company has yet to release specific pricing changes.

The reason behind the move? Cable modem hogs cost cable companies money. Their networks are based on a shared infrastructure with several homes or businesses sharing a local access pipe. If one home or business is using its connection to transfer large amounts of data, performance for all other homes or businesses that rely on the same access pipe is affected. Ultimately, to ensure better performance for cable modem users on that portion of the network, the cable company has to segment the network by installing new equipment.
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COMMENT---
Let's all repeat together: 'Big monopolistic corporations make another money squeeze. No real competition allowed.'

ripthesystem

 

[BlitzRommel]

<nelson>"Haw haw!"</nelson>

 

[jcmkk]

From what I've heard, this is only gonna effect the people that use their cable service to host websites and that sort. Most people wont fall under the category of "Bandwith Hog."

 

[jeffrey]

Great.... service goes from fast at $39.95/month to slower at $44.95/month and now they want to tack on more restrictions and fees to solve their problem of putting too many people on their nodes. RR is starting to suck.

 

[microAmp]

<< Great.... service goes from fast at $39.95/month to slower at $44.95/month and now they want to tack on more restrictions and fees to solve their problem of putting too many people on their nodes. RR is starting to suck. >>



Yup, posted something like this earlierhere. But seems like all cable companies will be going this route.

 

[CZroe]

Err, leaving a filesharing application open translates into MUCH more bandwidth than a personal web site! And that's a serious, legit use of any broadband connection... Not usually included in the "no servers" category of the agreement. My God... It's like they target the *EXACT* wrong users to make themselves hated...

 

[CZroe]

Oh yeah, and this now means that spyware really will be costing some people money

 

[ripthesystem]

I agree.. most people that use their home internet connection I would venture to say use fairly little bandwidth through it.. Sites that would have content to raise the bandwidth would seriously bog down their own PC's connection and the sites would run... s l o w.

File sharing appz are definately being targeted with this.. same with small companies that don't have the money to pay for the Time Warner Business Packages(ie $hundreds$/month) so they use a standard broadband connection and run stuff smoothly..

Who'd figure that a large 'entertainment' company would target an audience like this? heh
ripthesystem

 

[LH]

Its really simple, they are a buisness and are wanting to make money. Most cable modem co's that charged $35 a month for 1+mb down and 256 up, were LOSING money, a lot of money, because bandwidth is expensive. I agree with it. They are doing it so they can become profitable, broadband won't take off until its profitable. Honestly if you want unlimited bandwidth, the avg price for a company to actually make a profit off of you is $150 a month.

 

[SinNisTeR]

thats ghey. i like my bandwidth, and imma keep it that way. as soon as it switches, ill look for some highspeed ADSL or a T1

 

[JellyBaby]

Just drop TW Cable go to a competitor. Ooops, you can't because the cable companies are monopolies.

 

[BD2003]

I guess I'm the only one thats glad?

I'd rather have the extra bandwidth that the hogs take away from the rest of us.

Shouldnt it be upload rather than download theyre capping though?

As long as its a few GB a month, I wont complain.

 

[Antisocial Virge]

<< I'd rather have the extra bandwidth that the hogs take away from the rest of us >>


How do you figure that? RR is already speed capped so you won't get anything extra because of the bandwidth cap.

 

[Jumpem]

I'm screwed! Conservatively, I'd say I download ~20gigs a month. I just leave Kaaza and a newsgroup ripper on 24/7. THey're limit had better not be anything less than 15gigs a month!

 

[passign]

i think it's bullcrapola

everyone will leave cable for dsl if they can.. the only thing that hogs bandwidth are the uploaders

 

[passign]

no fun filesharing? mass downloads?


only thing left will be webdesign... ugggh

 

[ripthesystem]

well it looks like someone's been exercising their right to ctrl-c/ctrl-v
cause guess what link I got in an email?

there's now a petition up for this topic:
http://www.gopetition.com/info.php?currentregion=0&petid=964

rts

 

[ElFenix]

they're not going to sell you their service at a loss, regardless of if they are a media-cable company or not.

 

[davidrees]

GOOD!

Where do you guys get the idea that bandwidth should be unlimited?

I used to be able to play online games with a decent ping - but as the gnutella clients and clones grew in popularity, pings in general not only went up, but became more erratic.

Personally, I would pay $50/mo for a 128k connection if it was a low latency conection with good routing to the main backbones.

You people who think you should be able to download 20G+ per month for $39 are smoking crack.

 

[irrigating]

<< Where do you guys get the idea that bandwidth should be unlimited? >>



I get that idea since its been part of the service they promised me, when they set up thier booths in CompUSA trying to roll out thier "new" service, and I agreed to let them install a line to my property and signed-up based on this advertising from thier agents.

Well, since they've installed miles of fiber cable( thanks to speculating investors) that no one will ever need for the next few decades, now they need to sqeeze us a little ( they will devise a model that will not be too outrageous at first). Also, now that thier "light bulbs" are turned on, they realize they need to keep the bandwidth usage modest so they can hog it up with thier own new digital content.

The "A" holes (cable monopolies) need to have the twisted pair networks to exercise thier bandwidth potential (and rights) and give us a little old fashioned competition. And the wireless guys can join in the fun too.

 

[Diable]

I don't think any of the cable ISP ever dreamed of the amount bandwidth file sharing apps would uses up. Napster should have cause a light to go off that trading files was going to be big but I don't think it did. Now that Kazza, GNUtella, Direct Connect, WinMX etc. are the rage I don't think they have a choice but to cap heavy bandwidth users or raises rates for all users which will scare off people of are think of getting cable internet service.

@Home's closing should have told people that days of +2mb download speeds for $39 a month are over and this action from RR should tell people that leeching your body weight each month in movies and porn are over.

 

[davidrees]

So the fact that they have a cable to your property - that somehow means that they can never chage te terms of service?

Well, I bet the phone co, the power co and maybe the gas co all have lines on your property - guess what - that still gives you no right to determine their pricing models.

Guess what guys - bandwidth costs money.

Imagine if you opened an all you can eat buffet - you price it out based on the average person - you fidge a bit for the occasional fatso (like me) and you run your business.

Imagine what would happen if the local bulemia (appologies to those with real problems) rights group starts holding all day parties in your restaurant. They eat, (ahem) go to the bathroom, and come back and eat some more - all freaking day long - every freaking day.

Well - you will not stay in business like that - so you do what one all-you-can-eat chinese and sushi restaurant does here in Rosevill CA - you let people order only 3 items at a time (bandwidth cap) and you only let people "eat" for an hour an a half. Guess what? The segment of the population that is normal thinks that is just fine - and they enjoy te restaurant. The bulemia club gets all pissed off since now you are changing the deal.

I use the internet a LOT - I down load drivers, occasional demos and programs up to a few hundred megs and I play online games when the Gods of Ping will that I may. I would be shocked if I used much more than a Gigabyte or two per month.

Well - all you freaks who think its your God given right to collect every episode of Voyager and Red Dwarf or whatever, you should pay more - if that stuff is really that important to you, then you shoud pay $69 per month or even $99 IMO.

Otherwise, mellow out and stop hogging all the freaking bandwidth just so you can be geekier and pr0nier than your geek assed monkey spanking friends.

 

[CZroe]

Diable: That's hillarious! They were predicting and *promoting* much worse bandwidth hogs, like online streaming movie rentals. None of that "download once at a high compression and keep" for their users no sir-ree... If they cap cable at the advertised speeds and then advertise unlimited 24/7 access at those speeds, how can they legally stop you from using your full bandwidth? Beats the hell out of me... If I pay $25 a month for 512kbps (Which I do), I should be able to legally download 163.476GB (Not Gb) in a 31-day month (That's 512 times every second of every day of the month converted to bytes and GBs). I'm not sure if a single 512k residential subscriber has ever come close to that!

 

[CZroe]

Oh yeah, and if you are capped to the advertised speed and using it, how can it be hogging? My cable co has a guarantee that they can support all users without dropping below 512k per user and if they advertise that speed and sell that speed then damnit that's what the consumer deserves. If you paid for it, and they don't give it to you it's stealing.

 

[davidrees]

As someone who used to work for a telecom company, in my experience I have seen that most broad band providers are very careful about what they promise in the way of bandwidth.

Most only promise the stated speed within their network.

The entire model of how an ISP works is based on everyone sharing a certain ammount of band width.

Also - most providers charge more money for business accounts because - wow - business tends to use more bandwidth.

Really, it's like anything else - this is a free country and more or less a market driven economy. The fact that some of you are so concerned about losing bandwidth shows that you use a lot of bandwidth and will probably pay more or change your ways.

I mean - how much is it worth to be able to leach pr0n and MP3s and geek TV shows anytime you want? Its worth a lot more than $39/month IMO.

If its not worth more than that then they will not get the hi-bandwidth customers they think they will and they will have to do something - but it is likely that most of you will just have to pick Pr0n OR Star Trek and specialize in a single area of leaching.