BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? In an atrcile about TW metered trial
"Eventually, we will go usage-based," predicted Marwan Fawaz, CTO of Charter Communications Inc., last month at the CableNEXT conference in Santa Clara. "
»www.lightreading.com/document.as···site=cdn | |
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jeffro
join:2007-04-20
Holland, MI | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? They better not. I'll jump ship. I'll go back to DSL. They need to leave it alone. Messing with this will only make people leave. | |
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SyNiSt3r
join:2007-04-26
Morristown, TN
| The real question is can they afford to go metered.
They suck, Everyone knows they suck and who is going to put up with suckie service that has a cap.
I guess time will tell but this crap has to stop.
Raising rates, Capped services. Enough is enough.
Its time for them to stop nickle and diming us to death and start working on the issues they have. | |
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 | Phugg
join:2004-09-30
Riverbank, CA | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? Or just sell out to Comcast , So I can get my free service back. | |
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| | Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? I do not see the FCC allowing any of the major player to buy Charter. Charter may be ate up by a bunch of smaller players( like Avenue Broadband) or split up in general. We do not need any of the major companies to get any larger. The fewer the number of large players the more likely that they will unofficially band together and just decide to do stuff. If the top 5 HSI players all switched to metered service at once, what choice would the consumer have? | |
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| | | tsteele93
join:2006-09-16
Greenville, SC
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? said by Lazlow  :I do not see the FCC allowing any of the major player to buy Charter. Do you base this on the fine job the FCC has done keeping radio stations from being consolidated into only a couple of large companies?  | |
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| | | | Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? teteele
No, I base that on the current head of the FCC having a hard on for cable and that he is pushing limiting Comcast's(?) market share from getting any larger. If any of the major players would buy Charter that would put their market share at about or above the same level as Comcast. | |
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| markopoleo
join:2003-04-02
Bonne Terre, MO
 ·Charter Pipeline
| said by SyNiSt3r :The real question is can they afford to go metered. They suck IMO, I think they suck and who is going to put up with suckie service that has a cap. I guess time will tell but this crap has to stop. Raising rates, Capped services. Enough is enough. Its time for them to stop nickle and diming ME to death and start working on the issues they have. I fixed it for you. Since you don't represent everyone. | |
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| | 
Piedough
@charter.com | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? He represents sane people. Sadly you don't seem to be of that camp. | |
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| | | useless
join:2006-07-16
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? Well, it is worth noting:
100,000 office connections over Cat 5 is completely different that 100,000 cable subscribers over coax.
Sikmaz, equating a coax based system to a Cat 5 based system is a bad idea. The thing common might be some fiber or 10 GigE ports. | |
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koma3504
Advocate
Premium
join:2004-06-22
North Richland Hills, TX
| said by SyNiSt3r : Enough is enough. Its time for them to stop nickle and diming us to death and start working on the issues they have. Yea like this issue
Signature: ICMP PING CyberKit 2.2 Windows
Earliest Such Alert: 01-09-2008 12:40:41
Latest Such Alert: 01-16-2008 06:39:00
Sources Triggering This Attack Signature
Source IP FQDN # Alerts (sig) # Alerts (total) # Dsts (sig) # Dsts (total)
71.10.84.144 71-10-84-144.dhcp.roch.mn.charter.com 34 53 1 1
71.12.17.68 71-12-17-068.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 21 21 1 1
71.12.132.50 71-12-132-50.dhcp.mtgm.al.charter.com 13 16 1 1
71.12.17.229 71-12-17-229.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 11 18 1 1
71.9.11.243 71-9-11-243.dhcp.rvsd.ca.charter.com 11 11 1 1
71.13.225.178 71-13-225-178.dhcp.trcy.mi.charter.com 9 18 1 1
71.12.22.207 71-12-22-207.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 9 9 1 1
71.9.0.198 71-9-0-198.dhcp.ccmn.ca.charter.com 7 7 1 1
71.9.90.188 71-9-90-188.dhcp.rvsd.ca.charter.com 5 5 1 1
71.12.17.205 71-12-17-205.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 5 5 1 1
71.9.88.9 71-9-88-9.static.rvsd.ca.charter.com 5 5 1 1
71.12.17.218 71-12-17-218.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 4 4 1 1
71.12.102.128 71-12-102-128.dhcp.mtgm.al.charter.com 4 4 1 1
71.12.21.86 71-12-21-086.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 3 3 1 1
71.9.38.166 71-9-38-166.dhcp.wsco.ca.charter.com 2 2 1 1
71.10.160.158 71-10-160-158.dhcp.stls.mo.charter.com 2 2 1 1
71.12.16.99 71-12-16-099.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 2 2 1 1
71.8.115.196 71-8-115-196.dhcp.ftwo.tx.charter.com 2 2 1 1
71.12.20.203 71-12-20-203.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 1 2 1 1
71.85.134.105 71-85-134-105.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 1 2 1 1
71.12.17.71 71-12-17-071.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 1 2 1 1
71.12.101.212 71-12-101-212.dhcp.mtgm.al.charter.com 1 1 1 1
71.12.19.89 71-12-19-089.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 1 1 1 1
71.12.19.17 71-12-19-017.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 1 1 1 1
71.11.223.231 71-11-223-231.dhcp.ftwo.tx.charter.com 1 1 1 1
71.14.143.2 71.14.143.2 1 1 1 1
71.12.21.168 71-12-21-168.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 1 1 1 1
71.9.9.110 71-9-9-110.dhcp.rvsd.ca.charter.com 1 1 1 1
71.12.19.220 71-12-19-220.dhcp.spbg.sc.charter.com 1 1 1 1
--
† Koma †
If YOu Don't Think It's Possable!! It's Acually A Reality!!The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Alan Kay!!
Ya Don't Know The signal Till Ya Ride It!!
Voice Break's There's Trouble!!!! | |
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jeffro
join:2007-04-20
Holland, MI | If they sold out to comcast I could get my NBA League Pass and NFL Network. Sounds good. | |
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| penske1
join:2002-10-19
Riverside, CA
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? said by jeffro :If they sold out to comcast I could get my NBA League Pass and NFL Network. Sounds good. Amen! I'm hating life without NBA League Pass! I requested it and they said it wasn't profitable enough for them. Wow. Way to raise the bar and take care of your customers. I hate that Charter is the only option where I am right now. It bugs me to no end that I actually give a company like this my hard earned money. They consistently disappoint me. | |
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useMYbandW
@charter.com
| Electricity, water, cell phones, ect ..all usage based services. Are you really that surprised that MSO's are moving to this ...it was only a matter of time. All ISP's will move to this model eventually. Be it DSL or Cable. It's all about profit margins. | |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? said by useMYbandW :
Electricity, water, cell phones, ect ..all usage based services. Are you really that surprised that MSO's are moving to this ...it was only a matter of time. All ISP's will move to this model eventually. Be it DSL or Cable. It's all about profit margins.
Really when TW first talk about cap I wasn't against it as I saw their point about a few people using up most of the bandwidth. But TW is talking about 5GB - 40GB caps and that's a joke. I'm sure Charter would be all for that. Don't go telling me you're going to offer 16 Mbps then say you're going to have caps and then do something stupid like TW and make it 40 or 50 GB and still charge at least $70. If Charter wants to have a cap and have it at like 300 GB then fine. | |
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| | Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
1 edit | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? If they actually do this, they are going to almost have to have the cap tied to the speed. Something like 200GB for 5meg(lowest tier), 400GB for 10meg, and unlimited for 16meg(or whatever the highest tier is currently) would be acceptable. Unfortunately it looks like they are talking more like 5GB,20GB, and 40GB (all caps per month).
Edit: Another thing that could eliminate a lot of this problem is if they did not watch or keep track of the traffic between say 11pm and 7am. For the vast majority of users the system does not need to be "snappy" during those hours, so bandwidth hogs would essentially not effect the system for those hours. | |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? said by Lazlow :If they actually do this, they are going to almost have to have the cap tied to the speed. Something like 200GB for 5meg(lowest tier), 400GB for 10meg, and unlimited for 16meg(or whatever the highest tier is currently) would be acceptable. Unfortunately it looks like they are talking more like 5GB,20GB, and 40GB (all caps per month). Edit: Another thing that could eliminate a lot of this problem is if they did not watch or keep track of the traffic between say 11pm and 7am. For the vast majority of users the system does not need to be "snappy" during those hours, so bandwidth hogs would essentially not effect the system for those hours. So are you saying is if Charter had a 40 GB cap, but only have useage between 7 AM and 10:59 PM count towards that cap? Kind of like cell phone where between 9 PM and 6 AM you get unlimited minutes? | |
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| | | | Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? BF69
I still do not like the 40GB part but yes, in concept sorta like the cell phone thing. | |
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| Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
| usemybandw
But cell phones are going away from the metered format. When cell phones first came out you got charged for every minute. Now most plans have free nights and weekends. The hours for the free nights have been becoming (slowly) lower (earlier in the day) and at least one of the major carriers now offers free incoming calls. In addition to that the prices on cell phone plans have also been dropping. Five(?) years ago I paid roughly $40 for 400 anytime minutes and free nights (after 9pm). Now I pay roughly $40 for 1000 anytime minutes, free weekends, and my free nights start at 7pm.
As far as electricity and water, they are very mature technology. Both are also very tightly regulated by local public utility commissions (PUCs). A rate hike for them almost always requires a public review and is often rejected or reduced. | |
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| 
mmainprize
join:2001-12-06
Houghton Lake, MI
| said by useMYbandW :
Electricity, water, cell phones, ect ..all usage based services. Are you really that surprised that MSO's are moving to this ...it was only a matter of time. All ISP's will move to this model eventually. Be it DSL or Cable. It's all about profit margins.
Then why not for cable TV. I would like to only pay for what i use in stead of a package price.
I will tell you this is all screwed up, just as thing like IPTV and networked DVR's Sling modem and the many other to come are all being shutdown by worries of copyright, DRM and other issues.
If a low cap dose come i will just drop HSI and get dialup for e-mail and research. All the value that the internet has will be lost and it will be a blow to moving forward. I will then drop cable TV and get netflicks and an antenna on my roof. When more like me do this either it will cahnge back or they will lose money from customers dropping services.
It is a joke they want to charge a monthly rental fee for just about anything these days. | |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? regular antennas work just fine for both digital signals and HD signals. Who ever wrote that is an idiot. | |
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| | | | Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? Not only do they work just fine, but the HD from OTA is probably the best available. They do not compress OTA signal. | |
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| | | | | | Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? Ok, YES all HD is compressed. When you get a HD DVD(whatever format) it is also compressed, that is how digital video is moved (99%anyway). As you pointed out it is the rate it is compressed. The OTA basically sends the signal out at the same compression that they receive it. Cable/sat crunch it down(reduce quality) further to minimize their bandwidth usage. OTA does not care about the amount of bandwidth it uses. They do not have to reduce the quality of the video/audio so that it will "fit in the box" like cable/sat does. | |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
1 edit | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? said by Lazlow :Ok, YES all HD is compressed. When you get a HD DVD(whatever format) it is also compressed, that is how digital video is moved (99%anyway). As you pointed out it is the rate it is compressed. The OTA basically sends the signal out at the same compression that they receive it. Cable/sat crunch it down(reduce quality) further to minimize their bandwidth usage. OTA does not care about the amount of bandwidth it uses. They do not have to reduce the quality of the video/audio so that it will "fit in the box" like cable/sat does. for the the record OTA HD stream have a bitrate of up to 19.38 mbps blu-ray is up to 40 mbps and HD-DVD is up to 28 mbps. Not sure what cable or sat HD streams are.
EDIT
here you go
»blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=962 | |
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SyNiSt3r
join:2007-04-26
Morristown, TN
| I dont represent everyone but there is a solid reason why that charter has finished last in service and customer support for years on end.
If your service works, Great, good for you but when you have the number of people that has issues with charter its hard to argue my points. Youre one of a few that might stand up and say charter is doing a good job. | |
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| watts3000
join:2002-01-21
Birmingham, AL
1 edit | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? I agree with you Charter has problems a coworker justed dumped them to go to naked DSL offered by ATT. I guess I'm tired of the BullS*** myself the raising of rates and the garbage customer service. If I could go to ATT right now I would the only problem is I'm in a low speed area so I can't get ATT's higher speeds. I've often thought about putting in a squid proxy for caching on our home lan and dropping charter and dealing with regualar DSL 1.5 Mbps/256 Kbps. | |
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readabook
@charter.com
| said by SyNiSt3r :I dont represent everyone but there is a solid reason why that charter has finished last in service and customer support for years on end. If your service works, Great, good for you but when you have the number of people that has issues with charter its hard to argue my points. Youre one of a few that might stand up and say charter is doing a good job. The same 100 or so people who are upset with Charter hang out here all the time. The other millions of customers are happily surfing the web. You give too much credit to DSLR polls and consumer reports findings. Charter was named MSO of the year recently ...explain that. | |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? said by readabook :said by SyNiSt3r :I dont represent everyone but there is a solid reason why that charter has finished last in service and customer support for years on end. If your service works, Great, good for you but when you have the number of people that has issues with charter its hard to argue my points. Youre one of a few that might stand up and say charter is doing a good job. The same 100 or so people who are upset with Charter hang out here all the time. The other millions of customers are happily surfing the web. You give too much credit to DSLR polls and consumer reports findings. Charter was named MSO of the year recently ...explain that. You tell him to ignore polls and reports saying Charter is bad but one organization says Charter is good so of course believe that one. if that organization said Charter was the worst you'd be saying to ignore that one too. | |
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readabook
@charter.com | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? It's all about the source of the survey. | |
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| | | | 
Mashimaro
Problematic
join:2003-09-25
Alexander City, AL
2 edits | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? What about the source of anonymous charter employees posting in this thread?
I'm glad that I'm moving this year, and have the choice of moving to an area with competition. | |
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| | | | | markopoleo
join:2003-04-02
Bonne Terre, MO
·Charter Pipeline
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? said by Mashimaro :What about the source of anonymous charter employees posting in this thread? Yeah that really is a convincing argument..lol | |
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greatL0gic
@charter.com
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? said by markopoleo :said by Mashimaro :What about the source of anonymous charter employees posting in this thread? Yeah that really is a convincing argument..lol Oh so anonymous automatically equals employee (now that's logic)..lol lame. I'm no employee, but I think I pay Charter to use their network. If they say I need to keep it under 400GB in a month ..ok, fine with me. No sleep lost here. Some of you guys are, no offense ..overgrown babies. | |
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toolboy
@charter.com
|
You tell him to ignore polls and reports saying Charter is bad but one organization says Charter is good so of course believe that one. if that organization said Charter was the worst you'd be saying to ignore that one too.
No, I do belive what he is saying , is when people are happy, they usually dont say anything, but you same 50 or so keyboard jockeys, when you are on here are always whining. | |
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See 14 replies to this post |
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SyNiSt3r
join:2007-04-26
Morristown, TN
| readbook,
Youre right. It is about the source of the survey. Its just that you can find more sources to say charter sucks than you can to say they are good. Make no mistake, Charter lacks in customer care, Service and are behind in a number of other things such as bandwidth. In our county we are only offered charter. The city is offered another service. You wouldnt believe the number that dumped service the first chance they could get something else. Charter is trying to improve but as long as they keep techs that wont keep appointments, show up only a month late, youre not going to win many people over. | |
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Mumbly Joe
@charter.com
| I think charter is still trying to rebound from gobbling up a lot of over valued, over rated systems, poor and illegal executive decisions in the late 90's. There's not a lot you can do when you're 19 billion in debt. But going to metered service? Not until "the other guys" do it. BTW did anyone actually read Consumer Reports? How can you publish a national article comparing non competing services? This isn't toothpaste or toasters. Of course verizon was number one in Video - What do they have like a 1000 customers who have only been with the service a year? Of course they're thrilled. If you started any business in a sector where existing customers felt they were trapped you have success. But even the lowest rating scored in that survey was listed (at the very bottom) as 60-65 = fairly well satisfied. Yeah there's room for improvement, but I can't call that negative. That indicates that overall the telecom industry is doing a pretty good job of serving their customers. | |
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Tobashadow
join:2003-12-28
Sweetwater, TN
| If they start all capping me to the point i cant download stuff anymore. Then i'll quit paying for high $$$$$ biggest package they have which i move up to each time they offer a new faster one and start farming around for the cheapest to just surf the net on deal.
Caps wont bring extra profit they will bring extra loss's. | |
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DA
join:2002-04-13
Greenville, SC
·Charter Pipeline
 ·ViaTalk
| I am relatively happy with Charter now but if they instituted caps that were not reasonable and did not provide VERY good tools to manage it I would leave them in an instant.
I pay for the highest package Charter provides, I do not download illegal movies, software, music or anything but I DO use my connection very heavily.
At the least if they implement this they need to allow people like me to upgrade to a business class connection to avoid the caps. | |
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See 21 replies to this post |
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tzbear
join:2006-01-11
Eau Claire, WI
| Would powering down the cable modem when not using the internet be a good idea if caps are in place to save on bandwidth? More bandwidth savings could be done by installing ad blocking and javascript blocking plugins in Firefox. Also, turn off all program update functions off in software packages including Windows Update. | |
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san123
join:2007-11-22
Sanford, NC
·Charter Pipeline
| During peak neighborhood usage, my 10 meg connection averages 2 meg. Metered service will be welcome here if I am billed for what Charters system is capable of delivering rather than an expensive set price unjustified by the actual service....BRING IT ON!!!! | |
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| DA
join:2002-04-13
Greenville, SC
·Charter Pipeline
·ViaTalk
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? said by san123 :During peak neighborhood usage, my 10 meg connection averages 2 meg. Metered service will be welcome here if I am billed for what Charters system is capable of delivering rather than an expensive set price unjustified by the actual service....BRING IT ON!!!! What you will get will be a limit on how much you can transfer before you be billed an "overage" fee. So it is doubtful that it will solve your issue in the long-run. In the short-run it will likely discourage heavy usage but the userbase will continue to grow and will eventually cause saturation problems again. | |
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forreal
@charter.com
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? said by DA :What you will get will be a limit on how much you can transfer before you be billed an "overage" fee. So it is doubtful that it will solve your issue in the long-run. In the short-run it will likely discourage heavy usage but the userbase will continue to grow and will eventually cause saturation problems again. No offense, but you sound like a typical IT guy, not a network guy. | |
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| | | DA
join:2002-04-13
Greenville, SC
·Charter Pipeline
·ViaTalk
1 edit | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? said by forreal :said by DA :What you will get will be a limit on how much you can transfer before you be billed an "overage" fee. So it is doubtful that it will solve your issue in the long-run. In the short-run it will likely discourage heavy usage but the userbase will continue to grow and will eventually cause saturation problems again. No offense, but you sound like a typical IT guy, not a network guy. None taken but (Not that certs matter much) I am a CCNP and JNCIS and have worked as a lead engineer for 3 Fortune 200 companies. Though I have been in management the past 18 months. I have never worked for an ISP though, always on the Enterprise side.
Lets be clear though, how is my logic incorrect? Adding a cap would certainly limit usage in the short-term but if Charter continues to add users and doesn't increase bandwidth then the problem will return.
On a side note, you are posting from a subnet that's ptr records point to something.charter.com. Charter has always used that for their own use and .net for their ISP side... You posted earlier that you did not work for Charter, why are you posting from that subnet then? | |
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san123
join:2007-11-22
Sanford, NC | Intent of the post was to point out the problem service level today. Bill me for the 2 meg service I receive now rather than expensive 10 meg I do not receive. | |
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Xelloss
join:2007-03-02
Paso Robles, CA
| Capped system will not work for me, for one My house is a heavy bandwidth house, when it comes to Youtube or other websites. A Big list of bandwidth sites that I use is Revision 3, there videos can range from 50MB - 1 GB, I probably download 5 a week, then we have Xbox Live, a Demo, Moive download, trailer etc can range from 50 mb - 5 GBs. Gametrailers, Gamespot.com, IGN, Random downloads. Its adds up quck, this is just what I surf. If we include the rest of the family using the web probably another 20 GB ontop of that.
If charter goes to a capped solution then well I will drop not just Highspeed internet but probably TV, HDTV, 2 DVRs etc, along with I bet I can get at least 2 other family's to comply. Then talking crap about the company for the rest of my life, and boy do I know a lot of people that talk crap about Charter, well since I personally don't have no tech issues (most of the time) I can't complain. | |
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| Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? Xelloss
That may work for you but a LOT of us really do not have any other reasonable HSI choice. If they do this I think a lot of us will be in the situation where we will have to go to some sort of mobile solution. Laptops with multiple wireless nics? I really do not know what I will do if they put a sub 100gb per month limit on our connections.
Anybody have any suggestions? | |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? said by Lazlow :Xelloss That may work for you but a LOT of us really do not have any other reasonable HSI choice. If they do this I think a lot of us will be in the situation where we will have to go to some sort of mobile solution. Yeah Verizon has a 5 GB a month cap. And I can only get around 100 kbps with Verizon. And they want $60 a month for that. I have at&t and they offer up to 6 Mbps. And actually anything under the current 10 Mbps price and at&t is a better deal anyways. | |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| said by Xelloss :Capped system will not work for me, for one My house is a heavy bandwidth house, when it comes to Youtube or other websites. A Big list of bandwidth sites that I use is Revision 3, there videos can range from 50MB - 1 GB, I probably download 5 a week, then we have Xbox Live, a Demo, Moive download, trailer etc can range from 50 mb - 5 GBs. Gametrailers, Gamespot.com, IGN, Random downloads. Its adds up quck, this is just what I surf. If we include the rest of the family using the web probably another 20 GB ontop of that. If charter goes to a capped solution then well I will drop not just Highspeed internet but probably TV, HDTV, 2 DVRs etc, along with I bet I can get at least 2 other family's to comply. Then talking crap about the company for the rest of my life, and boy do I know a lot of people that talk crap about Charter, well since I personally don't have no tech issues (most of the time) I can't complain. Well you're the type of heavy user the ISPs are trying to get a handle on. Pretty simple, if you need more bandwidth pay the higher price. I'm not against a cap as long as it's reasnable. TW 40 GB cap is NOT what I call reasonable. 300 GB a month is reasonable at this point. Anything over that and I'm not really feeling sorry for you having to pay extra. Bandwidth isn't free you know. You seem to have the attitude that if you want to download 5 TB of data a month you should get that for your $50-$70. | |
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matt314159
join:2006-01-18
Hesperia, CA
·Charter Pipeline
| If charter tries to pull this crap, I will switch to Verizon 3mb DSL quicker than charter can say, "what could we have done to keep you with us?".
There's no way i would stand for a bandwidth cap of anything less than 300GB per month. Even then, I don't like it, because to me that signals the beginning of the end. It's a slippery slope once you let them start whittling away on your services. And I guarantee you they'll still increase their rates every chance they get.
Hopefully there is such an outcry from people who object to this, that they'll drop the idea alltogether. Or at least get the 40GB limit out of their heads.
At my house, we have three desktop computers, two laptop computers, a slingbox, vonage, and orb, all of which suck bandwdith whenever they need to. I bet we would hit 20GB easily in a month with just everybody's browsing, some video streaming, and our phone usage. That doesnt leave a lot of overhead, really. | |
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| useless
join:2006-07-16 | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? I think Charter is waiting for Comcast in regards to this.
You could probably get better information in that forum, believe it or not. ( Same with the bit torrent throttling )
A cap would indeed suck. | |
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Plattsburgh NY
@charter.com
| After years of Charter rate increases and the promise of better service only to still have nothing new, this takes the cake. I still only have 3 meg service and no telephone in my area. If they go to metered billing I will dump them faster than you can say 20 billion in debt, because that's the direction they will be heading in when they switch to metered billing. | |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? said by Plattsburgh NY :
After years of Charter rate increases and the promise of better service only to still have nothing new, this takes the cake. I still only have 3 meg service and no telephone in my area.
I though everyone was moved to 5 meg already? | |
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Plattsburgh NY
@charter.com | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? We should have been too. Even the reps at the 800 number are surprised when they see I can still only get 3Meg in my town. | |
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matt314159
join:2006-01-18
Hesperia, CA
·Charter Pipeline
| You know, as an alternative, I might even be okay with some sort of policy that gave me the option to choose unlimited bandwidth usage per month, in trade for speed caps that were in place during the day and removed at night.
For isntance, if they offered a package that capped me at 5mb down / 1mb up during the day, but then, say, after 9 or 10pm, to 7am uncapped, or raised the cap, to 20mb/2mb, etc, I could deal with that.
It would help with the legitimate problem of load balancing their network capacity during peak hours, and allow heavy downloaders some breathing room at night.
I'd go so far as to say I'd pay an addiitonal monthly fee for a nightly "speedbost". Doesnt Optimum online in NY do that? | |
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Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
1 edit | Lets run some quick numbers. Lets assume that the average customer has 5meg service @$60/month and that 95% of the customers would be in the less than 5GB tier. A nuumber of posters have stated that they think that the cable companies will drop rates for the sub 5GB tier. So lets take a look. Just for ease of numbers lets assume that there are one hundred customers.
100 X $60 = $6000/month (now)
95 X $45 (a guess) = $4275/month
($6000-$4275) / 5 =$345/month for each customer in the 5% over 5GB/month.
I do not believe that for $15/month reduction most people will be happy (I could be wrong) for this lower service (even if they do not currently use it). Even if I am wrong on that, there is no way a significant number of th 5% customers will be willing to pay the $345/month for 40GB of download. These people will either drop down into the sub 5GB tier or will leave the cable company. Either way the cable company will loose money.
Basically this means that if they do install the caps they will not be able to afford to offer any significant discount from the current service rate. | |
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See 13 replies to this post |
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Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
1 edit | Lets try this from another angle. The basic premise of this is that the bandwidth costs the ISPs too much money. While I cannot find a solid reference to it, it is widely quoted that the price the ISPs are charged is $.02-$.10/GB. In an attempt to verify this I looked at what a web hosting company charges (best I could come up with):
»www.inmotionhosting.com/hostingplans.html
$6.95 for 15,000GB/month
$8.95 for 30,000GB/month
$18.95 for 45,000GB/month
They are also providing other services on each tier (see link).
So the price of the actual bandwidth cannot be all that high or these guys would not be charging so little. Which leads me to conclude that it is not the bandwidth (internet backbone) that is the source of the expense but the individual companies equipment.
But that does not make sense either. If the equipment was the issue, then other countries (Japan, Korea, etc) could not be offering symmetrical 20/20 connections for $25 per month. We have heard that the cable companies have to spend so much money on new equipment to support the increase bandwidth being used. This growth should be reasonably consistent within countries that are of similar industrialized levels. A $9,000 router here should be a $9,000 router there as well. So why is a 5/512 connection here $60 and a 20/20 connection there $25? | |
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| rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? As we've heard many times, cable is a shared infrastructure. I know, I know...at some point, we all share but perhaps cable relies on more sharing than DSL and FIOS. This isn't necessarily a problem because if it's well managed (the right level of sharing), there should always be plenty of on-demand bandwidth for all. Given what I just said, the equipment charges might be related to splitting nodes (i.e. part of managing how much of the infrastructure is shared) and, potentially, running fiber deeper into their hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) plant to support the node splits.
All I'm saying is these costs could be real. In some respects perhaps this is cable's plan. Continue to offer greater speeds so they can raise prices or keep prices the same thereby funding the continued build out of their plant.
If they didn't do this, perhaps we would all be complaining about how vanilla, slow and cheap our cable service is. | |
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| | Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO | Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? rradina
The does make some sense but Japan also has cable internet. If that was the source of the problem wouldn't it effect them too? | |
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| | | rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? I have read that Japan's government provides substantial subsidies for technology infrastructure. If so, it may muddy the water.
I just don't know enough about the landscape in Japan to know whether this is a fair comparison.
And before someone is offended, I'm certainly not suggesting our market is more or less free than Japan. The US certainly has its fair share of corporate welfare. Just search for my account and USF and you'll get the idea. | |
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| | | rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO
| Another thing to consider is Japan's land area. It's ~145,000 square miles. California is 163,000 square miles. Japan's population is ~125 million. California's population is ~37 million. Consider California with four times as many people. With that kind of density, any infrastructure that's created will have higher potential utilization which means more profit.
Again, this probably muddies the water making direct comparisons less valuable. | |
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| | | | Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
| Re: So Charter is going to go to metered service huh? The population density is very similar if you look at the east coast. The US government also subsidized to the tune of 200billion in 1996, so I do not really think that applies.
If the problem really is equipment (as suggested above) and each piece of equipment supports X amount of load, doesn't the density issue really drop out? I mean if you have X amount of equipment at density A wouldn't you need 2X the equipment if the density doubled(2A)? | |
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