Time Warner To Test Internet Billing Based On Usage

BillR said:
I have no clue who your ISP might be, and frankly it doesn’t matter. Please check out the links below and show me where anyone has “unlimited service”. Point of fact, in every one of these TOS policies if you are my neighbor and your use of your account slows my use and enjoyment of my account, your account may be terminated with no notice.

If you are over 18 you agreed to not only the TOS but you agreed they may change it at will with no notification to you however, YOU remain responsible to read the contract from time to time.

If you are under 18 and agreed to this contract, you broke the law and your parents are totally responsible. Have fun explaining to Mom and Dad why they now have no phone or Cable TV service.


http://www.comcast.net/terms/use.jsp

http://www.cox.com/policy/default.asp

http://www2.verizon.net/policies/tos.asp

http://www2.embarq.com/legal/acceptableuse.html?rid=acceptableuse

http://www.timewarnercableoffers.com/6/terms.php

As for home movies? Pahleeeese, don’t lubricate my shoes and tell me it is raining.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You make what is quite possibly the stupidest arguments I have ever read.

Firstly, it would be the MPAA that stand the most to gain out of this - not the RIAA. How large is the average mp3? How many mp3's does the average person dl in a month? You would probably need to dl 150 mp3s to even match the amount of bandwith used by downloading a single movie - this will do nothing to prevent file sharing of music.

Secondly we are supposed to be moving FORWARD. Everything is moving to the internet, why are we going to implement some regressive policy and send this technologically backward country even further back?

A lot of us watch TV on the internet from CBS/Fox/ABC/NBC etc., watch videos from sites like stage6, visit flash/media intensive websites, use xbox live to download media. I have online video subscription services as well, and what - I'm going to be deterred from using any of it and go back to using the internet as I did in the dial up days?

Just because you happen to be a simpleton, and don't find much use for the internet beyond forum browsing/email, don't expect us all to be as antiquated.

Paying extra just to get a game update? Reformatted your hard drive, need to reinstall Steam and your game library on that? It's going to cost a few bucks just to do that? Why don't we just charge people for every minute they watch TV while we are at it.

It makes no business sense to do this. Time Warner implements this plan - that top 5% of users switch to another ISP that doesn't do that, and won't do that as it now becomes a selling point for their service that they are the only ones to not charge per usage.

If they want to make more money on high end users, just make 50mb+ lines more accessible and charge a ton for it. Increase prices on the mid-rate lines (20mb) to deter downloading on that and let people slug it out on 10mb connection or pay the premium for the 50.
 
I cant believe I forgot the BIGGEST CONTRIBUTOR of Wasted Bandwidth:

E-MAIL!! ... Spam will cost you a FORTUNE!

And when that poor neighbor's kid comes up to your house and accesses your minimal-bandwidth-using wireless network to download everything he needs because either he cant afford it, he thinks of it as a challenge, or you ran over his dog, You wont be able to prove SHIT to your cable company when your bill comes and you flip the shit, dont pay it, and lose your credit rating and cant afford that new House you wanted all your life.
 
For what its worth I just shot Time Warner a e-mail telling them if the ever switch to this they will loose me as a customer. I currently get tv, phone, and internet from them so they will loose more than just a internet customer.
 
The Red said:
snip
Click to expand...

I didn't know it was possible for me to agree with someone as much as I do regarding this post.


Communications companies dont experiment in ANYTHING unless they see a pot of gold at the end of the CFO's wet dream.
Click to expand...
Well yes, you know that there are people out there that have been somehow convinced that what's best for the corporation(s) are what's best for them. They may be average middle class, have absolutely no chance of ascending to a position in society which would allow them to benefit from the beliefs they hold about letting businesses operate at the expense of the common person, but they will damn sure parrot them to anyone that might listen.

Time warner is making money hand over fist. Time warner would be making money hand over fist if all of their subscribers suddenly discovered usenet, bit torrent and 1080p video conferencing simultaneously.

This shit about paying per GB is unreasonable, unacceptable and unresponsible.
 
Only thing I can think of, is wonder how long it will take people to learn to secure there fucking wireless. LOL@their bill.
 
this wont work.

If they wnat to go after grandma just make a limited plan and charge less for it .


Whats going to happen is they are going to advertise $20 connections that are limited to x amount of data while everyone else has $50 unlimited plans and you can guess how many people are going to swith to those with unlimited stuff
 
Looks like they will kill AppleTV and Xbox live's downloads. This is probably their biggest motivation. Its no secret they back Blu and they have their own VOD service to protect. Given the recent technology spats, congress may not allow it.
 
MrGuvernment said:
So billR, your pissed because an ISP told ME i could use my Internet with NO limits, no nothing, go nuts, share those files with friends and family, and now that i am, i am getting punished with "invisible limits" not clearly defined anywhere, being threatened to be cut off because i am using what i thought i had paid for...

Oh, and i am not using Bittorrent or P2P for illegal reasons, lets say i make home movies? or i use msn or something to send many pictures over my 10mb/1mb FIOZ or cable line? OH wait, or download Linux, or amny other free, legit software you can get over P2P networks.......

So , now it is my fault that i was lied to by advertising and a company by actually EXPECTING to get to use what I PAID FOR, i PAID for it so i should be able to use it how I WISH, if not, then make it clear in your contracts that i am capped @ X speed, and you are going to throttle my bandwidth because YOU think i am doing something illegal Oh but not tell me and deny it all!

it is like buying a car and being told, sorry you cant drive that on a highway cause it will add to traffic, you have to stay on side roads cause we cant be bothered to update our roads and through ways, cause god forbid people actually expected to use a highway to go fast.

ISP's don't want to spend the money on their end to hold up their side of the deal about high speed access, streaming content TO YOU from other sites, what about Apple now renting DVD and soon HD content? there are many legit ways to use alot of bandwidth....
Click to expand...

Godlyfrog said:
Microsoft's EULA also says that they can terminate your license at any time and for no reason, but no reasonable person actually expects they will do it. You seem to understand a TOS well enough to also know that they put a lot of that language in there to protect themselves from legal action, not so that they can use it as a "Gotcha!" to terminate customers at will.

The MPAA and RIAA will be loving this, of course, as it should help reduce downloads, but the real problem here is that this is a cultural step backwards. We are using the Internet for more and more things. I can go to a news site and watch a streaming video of a newscast, I download movie trailers. I download software that I paid for online via Steam, for example, which is over 50GB of data if I have to download it again after an OS reload, or more if you buy games online regularly (buying two games a month is easily 10GB).

Online distribution is becoming a good way to do business, all of which is threatened by this concept. Let's face it. The real goal here is to make money, so they can increase their bottom line, so their profits go up, so their stock increases, and the CEO can keep his job for another year. Let's face it, if investors weren't so fickle, jumping ship if the stock doesn't increase by a certain percentage over a certain period of time, company officers wouldn't be pulling these kinds of stunts to try to make money, and would be focusing on providing a good service instead of making the black ink even blacker. I don't like what they're doing, and I'll vote with my dollar if it happens to me, but I understand it.
Click to expand...

The Red said:
Perhaps your argument would be better if the industry didnt increase its profit margins each year by such substantial sums... RIAA loves to complain about .mp3s.. yet the industry sees othing but growth and no loss, Cable companies love to complain and make easy targets of high bandwidth users, yet their profit margins rise on a yearly basis regardless.

Perhaps you'd like to turn a blind eye to the fact that our ISPs are the most expensive yet cant even compete with speeds in Europe, or East Asia on neither a users-per-area nor speed-per-user area. The networks overseas are far more powerful, with Japan the clear leader.

You're pointing the finger at the wrong place if you're looking for GREED in this sector. The cable companies (particularly AT&T) made a pact with the FCC that for a discount and extra funding (your Tax dollars) they would create a nationwide fiberoptic network years ago, it never happened. There is more profit in throttling people and this is exactly what they are trying to do.

Heres the law to live by: Communications companies dont experiment in ANYTHING unless they see a pot of gold at the end of the CFO's wet dream.

Dont be ignorant just because you dont use your own bandwidth to its full potential. This will have MAJOR impact on not only file sharers, but all content providers will see traffic die across the board. THIS COULD KILL THE INTERNET when it forces sites to limit everything so they can generate less bandwidth traffic to attract people.

Areas of MAJOR IMPACT that use high amounts of bandwidth will be, in no particular ranking:

#1 YouTube and all video sharing sites
#2 iTunes
#3 Web Search Engines
#4 News Websites
#5 Internet Advertising Firms
#6 Internet Sales Sites of Every Kind
#7 Gamers of EVERY kind
#8 ESPECIALLY MMO GAMERS
#9 Open Source Development
#10 The enormous multi-state-economy-supporting Porn Industry
#11 Forget Steam, Digital Distribution would IMPOVERISH you, not just your gaming
#12 Online Dating sites
#13 All p2p file sharing, legal or otherwise
#14 News Groups
#15 ANY AND ALL DIGITAL DISTRIBUTIONS (such as buying software off websites that you can download)
#16 Ebay browsing and Searching
#17 browser Cookies
#18 UPDATING and PATCHING any software Online. Windows, Virus definitions, Everything!
#19 Absolutely devastate access to the internet and all its functions for the unprivileged.
#20 Put us FURTHER behind the entire world in Internet development, even though our nation invented it.

Please, THINK before opening your mouth and professing the goodness for profiteering at the expense of everything we've built online since the internet came into being.
Click to expand...

GrimWD said:
You make what is quite possibly the stupidest arguments I have ever read.

Firstly, it would be the MPAA that stand the most to gain out of this - not the RIAA. How large is the average mp3? How many mp3's does the average person dl in a month? You would probably need to dl 150 mp3s to even match the amount of bandwith used by downloading a single movie - this will do nothing to prevent file sharing of music.

Secondly we are supposed to be moving FORWARD. Everything is moving to the internet, why are we going to implement some regressive policy and send this technologically backward country even further back?

A lot of us watch TV on the internet from CBS/Fox/ABC/NBC etc., watch videos from sites like stage6, visit flash/media intensive websites, use xbox live to download media. I have online video subscription services as well, and what - I'm going to be deterred from using any of it and go back to using the internet as I did in the dial up days?

Just because you happen to be a simpleton, and don't find much use for the internet beyond forum browsing/email, don't expect us all to be as antiquated.

Paying extra just to get a game update? Reformatted your hard drive, need to reinstall Steam and your game library on that? It's going to cost a few bucks just to do that? Why don't we just charge people for every minute they watch TV while we are at it.

It makes no business sense to do this. Time Warner implements this plan - that top 5% of users switch to another ISP that doesn't do that, and won't do that as it now becomes a selling point for their service that they are the only ones to not charge per usage.

If they want to make more money on high end users, just make 50mb+ lines more accessible and charge a ton for it. Increase prices on the mid-rate lines (20mb) to deter downloading on that and let people slug it out on 10mb connection or pay the premium for the 50.
Click to expand...


Interesting arguments, but you all missed the big point.

Go re-read your TOS and learn to read between the lines. They have used just about every work possible in an effort not to use the words “Torrent” and “illegal file sharing”. They don’t want to use those words because by defining things in an exact manor implies total enforcement.

Any of you who think any communications company wants or needs to be in the enforcement business is crazy.

I tried the Torrent thing for a few weeks, I admit it. All my machines are running folding at home so they never get shut down so why not grab some goodies especially since I have FIOS. The problem is when you have that much band width (15 megs down and almost 5 megs up) it becomes pretty amazing when you check your total bytes both ways and find out you have used just shy of 60 terabytes in only two weeks. Its not at all like I’m the most moral guy in the world but damn, somehow I don’t feel that’s what my ISP had in mind when I agreed to their terms.

Of course I use a lot of bandwidth same as many of you. I have my own website and backup to that frequently. I watch missed TV shows via the networks, I grab new copies of what ever Linux distro of the week grabs me. I buy software on line etc. I do all this without a thought same as most of you do. Folding at home uses 20 Megs of band width on a typical day, every day. None of that even comes close to bandwidth I accumulated in my brief encounter with Torrents.

I even went so far as to check with my ISP about my usage and of course they won’t give you a number he did mention that overall I only showed up on the “radar” once in one month and that was no biggie. I talked to that guy for quite a while and he confirmed my statement about not wanting to spell out what they do not want to enforce and that’s why everyone’s TOS changes on a constant basis, they really expect you to be smart enough to read it and understand the big picture.

Everything we do in life has rules, the net is no exception.:eek:
 
So everyone here wants Socialized Broadband apparently?

No one here knows what Time Warner will charge or how they will do it. This will also mean that that the people who have unsecured wireless or computers with no virus protection get the motivation to learn about what they buy.

I notice this phenomenon with this forum that MOST members preach personal responsibility and "ignorance is not an excuse" in all of life EXCEPT computers. No one should be given a free meal but dammit, make all the grandparents who only check email pay for my Terabytes of usage every month because I, like music and movies, should not have to pay higher than what I think is enough to make a company profitable. So many CEOs and CFOs on this site.

They are testing the system. We will see results. Let us wait to see how it turns out before everyone jumps to conclusions.
 
HConclusions.jpg
 
OPTERON said:
For what its worth I just shot Time Warner a e-mail telling them if the ever switch to this they will loose me as a customer. I currently get tv, phone, and internet from them so they will loose more than just a internet customer.
Click to expand...

they dont care. If they lose thousands and thousands then they will. However Its sponsors and investors they worry about more. In the end of this whole "retarded testing" those are the major factors that will allow us to continue to use unlimited bandwidth.
 
Vashypooh said:
Only thing I can think of, is wonder how long it will take people to learn to secure there fucking wireless. LOL@their bill.
Click to expand...

there are still a HIGH amount of people who dont even have wireless capability let alone how to set it up. They dont even know the difference between a router and a modem. no joke. Some BB reps dont either.
 
I like how the article indicates we pay the same fees. Personally I pay for the "extreme" package to get my higher speeds.
 
BombermanX said:
You should be paying exactly what market value is for the amount of bandwidth you use. If the companies go ahead with this sort of billing they'll probably put something similar to say $40 a month for 20GB/month so that most users will see it as a positive that the billing has changed. And if you go over that, then you deserve to pay more. If you left your computer, washing machine and dryer on all the time, you would expect to pay a lot more on your electric bill. How is internet different? That's just naive.
Click to expand...


Well, I don't recal my utility companies offering me a $50/month rate for unlimited usage of their electricity or gas either.
 
denizenzero said:
I like how the article indicates we pay the same fees. Personally I pay for the "extreme" package to get my higher speeds.
Click to expand...

exactly, my uncle is paying $50 for the extreme rogers package, he pays $50 to get $50 service, not a $20 service.


in costa rica, my 3mb /512kb line is $99! but i have no limits on anything, no throttiling NOTHING, no port blocking, no packet shapsing, now what will suck is if the free trade agreement goes through, then here comes all the big US players and sure, may get cheaper faster internet, but with all the limits and bullshit will come with it, i would rather stay with the local monopoly company Amnet then let the U.S come down here.
 
I really love to know how much these people that see nothing wrong with this use the net.

makes me wonder how much that newegg banner is going to cost if something like this goes into affect.
 
The problem I see has already ben stated several pages ago. Most people that play online games even if they are not MMO's will use over 10gig of bandwidth a week.

I use Linux as my main OS and I can go through 10gig in a day just setting up my OS if I do an entire bells and whistle install.

People that have mentioned the wireless access points not being secured, what I imagine would happen is that routers will start coming pre-secured and people will be forced to learn how the router operates. When this happens there is nothing stopping the smarter people out there from spoofing the neighbors mac address's. If someone like me was charged more for doing my daily routine and stuff, I already pay $125/mo for the fastest access in my area for 6 meg cable..... through Timewarner, I would say screw the bill and leech off of anyone in my area. Oh, and it's really not all that hard to crack any security measures on current routers. This is why everyone should be using something like smoothwall or Ipcop so you can limit the internal connections and external connections. It still does not solve the mac spoofing from your cable or dsl modems. That's another issue entirely.
 
BillR said:
I even went so far as to check with my ISP about my usage and of course they won’t give you a number he did mention that overall I only showed up on the “radar” once in one month and that was no biggie. I talked to that guy for quite a while and he confirmed my statement about not wanting to spell out what they do not want to enforce and that’s why everyone’s TOS changes on a constant basis, they really expect you to be smart enough to read it and understand the big picture.

Everything we do in life has rules, the net is no exception.:eek:
Click to expand...

I was a bit of an ass in my original reply, but the point I'm trying to get across is that if Time Warner wanted to capitalize on high end users all they had to do was throttle the current packages to deter such high use, and dangle the 50mb+ carrot in front of us for a handsome fee. People will pay the extra if they were getting something more in return.

Charging us more money for the same connection will just lose a lot of customers. Degrading our current connections at the high end to lure us to a new super fast connection and charging us a lot more for 50-100mb line will probably not only convert a lot of that 5%, but probably a lot of other customers too.
 
Well what that means to me is:

My bill will stay the same.

But my neighbors with wireless are going to get some big bills. :eek:


But if it really happens in the long run it will really hurt online advertising,sites like youtube, gaming in general, online purchases with digital downloads :mad:
 
You have to look at the big picture. It really has nothing to do with the 5% of the users.

What I see is that the ISP industry is nipping in the bud the future growth of internet usage. They can handle what bandwidth is being used today but see that they will have to make a major infusion of investment into the infrastructure to handle what is starting to evolve on the internet.

Many companies are in the process of investing large sums of money and starting up heavy download sites such as movies and games. On the other hand you have the ISP’s not wanting and refusing to invest in upgrading their infrastructure. They can not attack the new sites directly and can only use what they have to stop these sites from being successful. Use their customer base. Punish the customer base now and in the near future for using these new and up coming sites and they will melt away because the price the consumer will have to pay for the downloads will be (in the customers eyes) prohibitive.
 
If time warner does this to me I will plug out their service. What they are asking for is less bandwidth for the same money A.K.A. robbery. At least I have the choice of switching to DSL with another the local ISP which has faster speed than what TW offers (340kbps).
 
BillR said:
Interesting arguments, but you all missed the big point.

Go re-read your TOS and learn to read between the lines. They have used just about every work possible in an effort not to use the words “Torrent” and “illegal file sharing”. They don’t want to use those words because by defining things in an exact manor implies total enforcement.
Click to expand...

Defining things in an exact manner allows for loopholes. My TOS is specific in some areas, and unspecific in others. In one place, it says I may not violate copyright without being specific as to how, however, in another area, it specifies that I cannot run a web server, FTP server, game server, file server, or any other kind of server application.

Any of you who think any communications company wants or needs to be in the enforcement business is crazy.
Click to expand...

Enforcement, no, of course not. But you can safely bet that they're willing to charge you for what they consider an infraction of their use policies. When you get down to it, the tactics of enforcement and billing are the same, it's just how you pay for it in the end that's different.

Everything we do in life has rules, the net is no exception.:eek:
Click to expand...

You seem to be implying that we don't understand this, or don't respect this. I am also old enough to have experienced everything you talked about in your first post, but the conditions were different. I am close friends with someone who was a sysop of a local bbs for many years. In most cities, having more than two telephone lines running into your house "qualified" you for business pricing, meaning that your $7.95 line charge was quadrupled to $32.95 solely because you were now classified as a business. If someone were to dial in and stay connected on that telephone line constantly, they were eating up that $33 investment. In those days, staying connected was costly for the bbs, and for Compuserve as well. The fact is, however, that those days are over, and things are different.

Now, an ISP's connection to the Internet is a fixed cost, no matter how many users they have on their internal network, which is why many ISPs oversell their bandwidth. They don't need open lines to make money, they need to balance their cost of connecting to the Internet with the complaints of slowness by their customers. Up until now, the solution has always been to keep trying to sell the product, and just buy an upgrade to the service, but they're starting to reach a saturation point and the amount of new subscribers is starting to slow, meanwhile, traffic is starting to go up. You're very right that an ISP doesn't want to enforce anything; they just want to make money. Whenever a business announces anything, your best bet at discovering motive is to follow the money. Rarely are the actions of a business solely altruistic, motivated by morality, or by a sense of fair play and "rules". In this case, it's the fact of the matter that more bandwidth usage means less for everyone, meaning their investment becomes less valuable. From a customer-friendly standpoint, if they were trying to reduce their overall bandwidth, they would set a limit, then everyone who reaches that limit has the priority level on their transfers dropped to below that of those who have not reached the limit. This is not impossible to do, as most users are tracked by user id or MAC address, but it doesn't address the fact that Internet usage is growing, meaning that they would have to buy more bandwidth eventually, so they're attempting to make it costly for you to contribute to the growth of the Internet.

Very little information has been given so far, but they're talking about packages ranging from 5GB to 40GB a month. I agree that no customer should expect to be able to download at full speed 24/7, but I also believe that even 40GB is too little for what many of us do legally on the Internet. Nothing we say or do will change this, but I for one would be interested in finding out what Time Warner or any ISP truly thinks a legitimate use of their network really is that justifies these kinds of limits.
 
Rembrandt said:
You have to look at the big picture. It really has nothing to do with the 5% of the users.

What I see is that the ISP industry is nipping in the bud the future growth of internet usage. They can handle what bandwidth is being used today but see that they will have to make a major infusion of investment into the infrastructure to handle what is starting to evolve on the internet.

Many companies are in the process of investing large sums of money and starting up heavy download sites such as movies and games. On the other hand you have the ISP’s not wanting and refusing to invest in upgrading their infrastructure. They can not attack the new sites directly and can only use what they have to stop these sites from being successful. Use their customer base. Punish the customer base now and in the near future for using these new and up coming sites and they will melt away because the price the consumer will have to pay for the downloads will be (in the customers eyes) prohibitive.
Click to expand...



The sites wont melt apple, Itunes wont melt away, the sites will get into a class action lawsuit against ISP's and world war 4 will be off! i am sure many of these companies can easy get proof of throttling, hell, we all can, but who do we take it too...


think massive media companies vs massive media companies.. with money to spare...
 
god I hate you time warner is there really a need you guys make enough money as it is. I am currently on the really fast road runner like 12mbps or something. There are three computers and one 360 in my house all of us game so this will suck badly. So I hope this doesn't come to the albany region. This is turning into high speed dial up where you pay per minute. hmm if this happens fios seems like where I will be going.
 
What I find astounding is that I've seen too many people complain about their current speeds vs prices.

If you pay $20/month for 5Mbit DSL, you've got it good.

Living in northern Arizona (though it was roughly the same on the East Coast years back, from what I remember), my wife and I are paying $40/month for supposed "high-speed" cable, at 1.5Mbit dl speeds. I actually cap at 300kbs (320 at the most) when downloading, so what the hell are you people whining about?

TW's prices might not seem fair to some, and any ISP that starts charging customers per-usage, yeah, it's going to be a problem for hardcore gamers, people who work from home etc. So if it goes through, many problems will ensue. I don't see it taking hold across the country, however. Not feasible, and I don't think many people would stand for it.

But it's indeed nothing new, as was mentioned by someone in another post, I believe. Back in the day, I remember a buddy of mine (before I even got into computers) paying per-usage, and spending twenty minutes on the net cost him a fucking bundle directly to his credit card. If connection to the wonderful intraweb is going to end how it started, and people start paying per-usage, well... it would either a) put an end to most people using it beyond fucking email or 2) the method wouldn't last long, because no one would tolerate such shit.

Especially due to the fact that the net is now the #1 form of communication. Apparently, people have forgotten how to use a fucking phone.
 
EliteFantasy said:
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b70/Elitefantasy/HConclusions.jpg[/I MG][/QUOTE]waffles, and so true.

I don't understand the whining until the tiers are announced. If "5%" is an accurate figure, it sounds like only the major torrent pirate kiddies are going to be affected (i.e. the small minority who use 75% of the bandwidth). Too bad, go cry a river elsewhere... or better yet, pay extra for your massive bandwidth usage.
Click to expand...
 
pxc said:
waffles, and so true.

I don't understand the whining until the tiers are announced. If "5%" is an accurate figure, it sounds like only the major torrent pirate kiddies are going to be affected (i.e. the small minority who use 75% of the bandwidth). Too bad, go cry a river elsewhere... or better yet, pay extra for your massive bandwidth usage.
Click to expand...

Or...

Time Warner is trying to use this as an excuse to jack up prices and limit it's customers in an attempt to increase profits without having to make improvements to their infrastructure.

Anyone who thinks this is just to stop that supposed 5% is deluding themselves. This would affect everyone in the long run. There might be a few people who would end up paying less but in the long run the vast majority will end up paying more. Time Warner, like every other ISP out there, knows that over time bandwidth use by customers is going to keep increasing. By trying to change the pricing structure now, they get a foot in the door before bandwidth use explodes again.

Right now, the average household probably doesn't use a whole hell of a lot of bandwidth. With digital distribution of media becoming more prevalent, more average people will increase the amount of bandwidth they use. The part of the scale many of these people fall into right now won't affect them currently. However, as their bandwidth use increases over time, they will find themselves paying more and more.

People with very short sighted thinking such as yours won't oppose something like this "because it doesn't affect them". It may not affect you immediately, but it will affect you later on. Most people use a lot more bandwidth now than they did even 5 years ago and in another 5 years it will increase even more.

The internet is basically still in it's infancy, possibly moving onto toddler stage. Many things will change and grow yet and through all of that bandwidth usage will keep increasing. The only way to deny this is to ignore the past.

 
I have two computers in eq 2 24/7. They use up around 30 GBs a month. Then I use this computer for other games, web page viewing, youtube, etc. I don't know yet what amount that is. Then I need to add up downloads, patches. Even if I don't pirate a damn thing, I am looking at easily 60 GBs a month.

A cheap solution would be to keep the existing cable connection, then get something like yahoo DSL without phone service for 23 a month. Would most likely be cheaper than going over the limit and being charged per GB. At least this is my plan if Comcast every decides to take this route. And, if one goes down, the other still works. Would only increase my current costs by 36%.
 
lets see, yay! lets charge him more for using just 5% more than his neighbor. bastards!
 
pxc said:
waffles, and so true.

I don't understand the whining until the tiers are announced. If "5%" is an accurate figure, it sounds like only the major torrent pirate kiddies are going to be affected (i.e. the small minority who use 75% of the bandwidth). Too bad, go cry a river elsewhere... or better yet, pay extra for your massive bandwidth usage.
Click to expand...

Funny you say that, because ALOT of people ALREADY are paying extra for the biggest package they can get.

get a clue man, there are many uses for high bandwidth then just piracy, i hate such narrow minded stereotypical people "you use alot of bandwidth, you MUST be breaking the law"
 
Fuck, this is the start, although it wont affect me at the moment it will sooner or later as everything that starts in the US eventually finds its way over to the UK, I only hope that before it happens ppl complain loudly and if it does happen then I hope many ppl vote with their wallets and jumpship to another isp, thats the only way these greedy bastards understand, lose them income, then other isp's wont be too quick to jump to the same system.
 
MrGuvernment said:
Funny you say that, because ALOT of people ALREADY are paying extra for the biggest package they can get.

get a clue man, there are many uses for high bandwidth then just piracy, i hate such narrow minded stereotypical people "you use alot of bandwidth, you MUST be breaking the law"
Click to expand...

amen I just ran some software monitor the last 24 hours and I used over 4 gig down already with that only being the normal usage not using torrents or anything. So I can only imagine what my bill would be if I had to pay per gig over....that avg would put me well over 100 gig a month
 
MrGuvernment said:
Funny you say that, because ALOT of people ALREADY are paying extra for the biggest package they can get.

get a clue man, there are many uses for high bandwidth then just piracy, i hate such narrow minded stereotypical people "you use alot of bandwidth, you MUST be breaking the law"
Click to expand...

and to be honest alot of the people that are saying that this is a good thing probually dont have a clue on exactly how banwith they are using on a daily or monthly basis
 
To those of you asking for people to wait and see the results of the "test", you are deluding yourselves. In Texas, I don't know of any place that has more than one cable operator per address. Time Warner and Comcast do not share areas. In fact, in my area, Time Warner took over and Comcast left to take over an area Time Warner previously had.

In essence, the "test" will be "successful" because no one is going to switch to any other cable providers because there are none. Time Warner will trumpet some sort of customer retention % and say that the people loved it. All thanks to shitty state officials and lobbyists.

ObscureTerror said:
Especially due to the fact that the net is now the #1 form of communication. Apparently, people have forgotten how to use a fucking phone.
Click to expand...

I know right? They act like they cant send pictures, videos, links, or files without the internet. Don't they know you can do this with a fucking rotary hone LOLOLOLOL


:rolleyes:

pxc said:
waffles, and so true.

I don't understand the whining until the tiers are announced. If "5%" is an accurate figure, it sounds like only the major torrent pirate kiddies are going to be affected (i.e. the small minority who use 75% of the bandwidth). Too bad, go cry a river elsewhere... or better yet, pay extra for your massive bandwidth usage.
Click to expand...


Yea you're right. This is just a plan to get more money only out of those torrent kiddies. There is no way this is going to affect the other mythical 95% of the internet users!
 
peta328 said:
god I hate you time warner is there really a need you guys make enough money as it is. I am currently on the really fast road runner like 12mbps or something. There are three computers and one 360 in my house all of us game so this will suck badly. So I hope this doesn't come to the albany region. This is turning into high speed dial up where you pay per minute. hmm if this happens fios seems like where I will be going.
Click to expand...

I live like 50mi. from Albany so it would suck for me, being in high school and all.
On RR light for $30 a month because parents don't want to pay a lot, definitely would
suck if it was to cost me a lot because my only other choices out here are dial-up or satellite.
 
Time Warner has always been a very sketchy company, at least around here.

I know that personally, as my internet has grown faster I have used it at a higher throughput rate. You know, multiple pages, downloads in the background, multiple downloads at the same time. For those who are like me, such variable costs can only compile.

For those of you who are saying that only the irrational will fall to the consequences of this type of discriminatory billing, please don't forget the amount of free content that is available. With the quality (A/V) of media and games going up, the sizes only get bigger.

Only monopolies pull this stuff.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top