Piles Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 (edited) I really hate Time Warner. It looks like they are switching from a flat fee to a usage based fee on their cable internet service. They are trying it in a few areas and then will roll it out nationwide. Yet somehow we can't get a la carte cable channels? Ridiculous http://www.democratandchronicle.com/articl...WSFRONTCAROUSEL Time Warner has shed more light on its plan to do away with its flat fee rate for Internet usage in favor of of a metered system later this year. Advertisement Starting this summer, the company will ask customers to review their usage and pick a plan from 5 gigabytes to 100 gigabytes. If customers use more gigs than their plan allows, they'll have to pay overages. Company spokesman Alex Dudley said customers will be given a three-month grace period to review their gigabyte usage before billing begins this fall under the new plan. The company will provide usage data on its customers' bills and on its Web site. Customers can choose from the following five plans: 5 gigabytes for $29.99, 10 gigabytes for $39.99, 20 gigabytes for $49.99, 40 gigabytes for $54.90 or 100 gigabytes for a price yet to be determined. Dudley said all prices are estimates. He said customers will be able to monitor their usage up to the minute online and can change their plans whenever they want. Overages will cost $1 per gigabyte. A majority of Time Warner's customers currently have the standard tier plan, which costs about $49.99. The soon-to-come 20-gigabyte plan will cost about the same and allow customers similar Internet usage. The new payment plan will be more equitable, Dudley said. Now, a small portion of customers use a massive amount of the company's bandwidth — the 25 percent who use the most bandwidth consume 100 times more than the 25 percent who use the least. With the current flat-rate plan, everyone pays for the upgrades to Time Warner's system that the heavy users' habits require. With the new plan in place, those who want to use a lot of bandwidth will have to pay for it. Dudley said increased Internet usage across the board, especially video downloading, has required the company to constantly improve its broadband infrastructure, something that will continue in the future. "Our customers used 50 percent more this year than they did last year, and we expect them to use 50 percent more next year and the year after that," he said. The good news is that most customers won't pay more, Dudley said. The plan is already in place in Beaumont, Texas, and 86 percent of the customers there pay the same as they did with the flat rate. Of those who pay more, the average monthly overages are about $19, he said. Beaumont, San Antonio and Austin, Texas, Greensboro, N.C., and Rochester were selected to be part of the usage-based payment trial because they represent a diverse collection of Time Warner users, Dudley said. The results of the trial will determine if or when the company rolls out the payment restructuring nationwide. Edited April 2, 2009 by Piles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big John Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 (edited) The company will provide usage data on its customers' bills and on its Web site. Customers can choose from the following five plans: 5 gigabytes for $29.99, 10 gigabytes for $39.99, 20 gigabytes for $49.99, 40 gigabytes for $54.90 or 100 gigabytes for a price yet to be determined. Dudley said all prices are estimates. He said customers will be able to monitor their usage up to the minute online and can change their plans whenever they want. Overages will cost $1 per gigabyte. I would question those estimates, as with that rate plan and overages, you should go with the 5 gig plan if you are using less than 35 gigs as the rates for the 10 and 20 gig plans are more than the 5 gig rate plus overage charges for the same level of usage. (Rounded, 10 gig would be $40 vs $30 with 5 gig +overage and 20 gig would be $50 vs $40 with 5gig +overage.) Edited April 2, 2009 by Big John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tazinib1 Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 (edited) There is no reason to have anything over more than a 5 gig plan. Unless your a hard core gamer. You can tweak your RWIN/MTU settings in RegEdit. Edited April 2, 2009 by tazinib1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeeR Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 Why is this in GB and not minutes? ?? Anyway I like the idea since I don't watch a ton of TV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detlef Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 Eff TWC. My service with them at my business was effing horrid. I had digital phone and it kept cutting out. Seriously, ALL THE TIME. It was basically a daily routine to come in, check the phones, and call them on our cell phones to get them to do whatever they had to do to fix it. Which, in fairness, they did, every time. At any rate, at one point I heckled them about giving me some love on the bill. Get this, I had to prove specific loss of sales. Are you kidding me? I'm a freaking restaurant. I have no idea at all how much business I lost when people who tried to call couldn't get through. All I know is that if you're calling a place for take out or a reservation and you can't get through, there's a pretty decent chance you're going to try somewhere else. Needless to say, we moved on and found someone else. However, I do find it ironic that a company that was so hesitant to give credits for service not rendered is going to start charging extra for service rendered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Country Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 Why is this in GB and not minutes? ?? Anyway I like the idea since I don't watch a ton of TV. Because they are talking about the TimeWarner internet service, not cable service. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeeR Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 my bad, I saw OP talking about cable channels. Anyway not wild about what I'm hearing on their 'net service, but I don't exactly hear rave review about any company these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azazello1313 Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 it's probably a smart decision, and it probably benefits most consumers who aren't total bandwidth hogs. for those who ARE bandwidth hogs, I'm sure this will push them off to other providers. which, if you're going to lose customers, those are probably the ones you want to lose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Irish Doggy Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 (edited) I suspect this is in reaction to people canceling cable TV in favor of watching movies and TV shows online. Netflix crowd will probably be displeased. Edited April 2, 2009 by The Irish Doggy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Square Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 I'm not a big fan of this. If I want to backup my HD (was planning on using a site like carbonite.com) I could go through 40GB pretty fast. My HD camcorder burns around 8-10GB for one hour of video. Luckily my daughter is only 11 months old, but if I had to record soccer games or birthday parties, I'm sure I'd be over their limit fairly quickly. And I've had enough hard drives fail on me that I do want to have an online backup service. I do game online as well and download torrents on occassion (usually if the DVR screws up) so I'm unsure how much bandwidth those take up most months. Sounds like we are all paying close to the same costs but getting a lot less. Cox Cable charges $40/month currently for unlimited (when you have cable service as well) so paying that same amount for 10GB per month sounds like carp to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackass Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 I'm not a big fan of this. If I want to backup my HD (was planning on using a site like carbonite.com) I could go through 40GB pretty fast. My HD camcorder burns around 8-10GB for one hour of video. Luckily my daughter is only 11 months old, but if I had to record soccer games or birthday parties, I'm sure I'd be over their limit fairly quickly. And I've had enough hard drives fail on me that I do want to have an online backup service. I do game online as well and download torrents on occassion (usually if the DVR screws up) so I'm unsure how much bandwidth those take up most months. Sounds like we are all paying close to the same costs but getting a lot less. Cox Cable charges $40/month currently for unlimited (when you have cable service as well) so paying that same amount for 10GB per month sounds like carp to me. sounds like you're a bandwidth hog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loyalboyd Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 They will be losing me as a customer if this happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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