New Time Warner Cable CEO: We'll Keep Offering Unlimited Thursday Sep 12 2013 14:22 EDT Time Warner Cable has tread somewhat carefully since their 2009 metered billing PR disaster, caused by trying to foist low caps and high per-byte overages on all of the company's customers. While the company has slowly but surely tried to phase in new metered plans with caps as low as 5GB, they've been sure to make those options voluntary for customers. Time Warner Cable CEO (former COO) Rob Marcus spoke on many subjects this week at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference. One of them was metered billing, with Marcus promising that the company will continue to offer unlimited broadband for the foreseeable future. "Most customers today — the vast, vast majority — take our unlimited offering and I think over time most customers will continue to take unlimited," Marcus told attendees. "They value it and will be willing to pay for it. I think that is great and we have no desire to change that." Still, the company previously has made it very clear they see metered billing as the future -- because it both drives up earnings while protecting against the erosion of TV revenues from Internet video. It's equally clear Time Warner Cable hopes to market unlimited broadband as a premium product with a premium price tag. "I think consumption growth year over year in the second quarter is somewhere north of 40 percent," said Marcus of broadband uptake. "It has been in that kind of range for a long time and we expect it to continue to grow at a pace like that for as long as we can see. With that increasing usage comes an increasing utility to customers and we believe an increasing willingness to pay for that incremental utility." The company has long stated they're simply interested in "experimenting" with pricing, but their metered offerings have consistently failed to provide substantive or meaningful value. Under the company's Essentials metered tier, for example, the company promises users a $5 discount off their bill if they sign up for the plan, which features a 5 GB cap and $1 per gigabyte overages. Granted if you actually use your connection for anything more than checking the weather a few times a week, that very slight "discount" evaporates immediately and you potentially pay more than you did previously. "There are customers who choose to consume less and we feel strongly that we need an offering for them which allows them to pay less and eliminate the structure where they have to subsidize the heavy users," Marcus said, using some familiar Time Warner Cable rhetoric. Because there's such little value to the offering however, few have signed up for it. Time Warner Cable will surely be experimenting the next few years with ways to drive more customers in the general direction of their metered plans, the primary option being to slowly but surely raise the price of unlimited data out of the range of most users. Kind of like the boiling frog anecdote -- with you and your wallet as the frog. |
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collusionwith all the secret deals that go on these days, wired or wireless.. we're all the frog | |
|  47717768
Premium Member
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL
kudos:2 |
47717768
Premium Member
2013-Sep-12 3:16 pm
No Thank You"The company promises users a $5 discount off their bill if they sign up for the plan, which features a 5 GB cap and $1 per gigabyte overages."
I would pass up on that offer. | |
|  |  gjrhine
join:2001-12-12
Pawleys Island, SC |
Re: No Thank YouWe were wondering what you would do. | |
| | 47717768
Premium Member
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL
kudos:2 |
47717768
Premium Member
2013-Sep-12 3:39 pm
But. I think it is a good deal for the regular user. Meaning a prison who is using ISP for basic stuff like reading the news, doing online shopping, banking etc. | |
| |  tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA
kudos:7 ·Xfinity
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to 47717768
Most would, but I know a few older people who check a few emails, and pay/check a few bills online, but still prefer to read a real newspaper, write mostly snail mail letters, go for a walk instead of watch sports, and probably deserve more than a $5 discount, but will take what they can get (my dad argued for months to get his provider to give him a senior discount, which I'm sure now part of some fee that everyone else pays)
for his usage he'd be fine on basic DSL or even dialup, but he chooses to continue with cable. | |
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Re: No Thank YouFor the same reason that most (if not all) businesses don't promote their lowest price offering. | |
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anonome to 47717768
Anon
2013-Sep-12 5:14 pm
to 47717768
Virtual monopolies aren't really interested in saving you money. | |
| | | | | tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA
kudos:7 ·Xfinity
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tshirt
Premium Member
2013-Sep-12 5:28 pm
Re: No Thank YouEven non-monopolies are primarily in business to make money.
If not, we call them a charity (some of which are actual in business to make money, rather then provide benevolent relief)
That still doesn't mean that they aren't there to service/satisfy customers needs, just recognize thet do expect to recover all costs, plus profit in return.
They are NOT an enemy or a friend. | |
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anonome to tshirt
Anon
2013-Sep-13 1:54 am
to tshirt
Re: No Thank You"Grass is green. Sky is blue."
If you don't understand the incentive of competition, then you don't understand business. | |
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anon_anon
Anon
2013-Sep-13 5:45 am
Re: No Thank YouThe very same types who like to preach free markets and Laissez-faire economic policies, are also quick to defend monopolies and deride efforts to create competition in the market, like Google Fiber. They support free markets in theory as that is as part of Americana as the flag, high school football and apple pie, but not in practice as in a true free market in telecommunications corporations will have lower profit margins than they do now. An outcome where the corporations are getting less and the customers are getting more sounds an awful lot like socialism and wealth redistribution. An attack on monopolies is construed as an attack on capitalism and American way of life itself. How dare anyone suggest that the capitalism in America has not produced the best possible outcome.
Thus every red blooded American should be proud to overpay as much as possible for telecommunications as paying less and getting more for your money is a slippery slope towards socialism/communism.
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| | |  swintec
VIP
join:2003-12-19
Alfred, ME
kudos:5 |
to 47717768
its on the website for our division. it lists all of the speed tiers. | |
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| | andre2
join:2005-08-24
Brookline, MA |
to tshirt
Just as one possibility, their machines could be hijacked in order to send spam, resulting in big overages. I think paying the extra $5 is prudent just as insurance. | |
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·Time Warner Cable
 ·Vestalink
ARRIS SB6141
(Software) Sophos UTM Home Edition
Sophos AP15
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Broadband Being a Premium Product.Ok...
So where are the annual speed increases?
Where are the SUPER FAST tiers?
Is there an unlimited plan?
Why isn't low bandwidth customers being charged A LOT less, since high bandwidth users are so bad?
All TWC has to do is find a way to explain this as anything other than a CASH GRAB that's trying to make up from people moving away from Cable TV?
A rational explanation that is. | |
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Re: Broadband Being a Premium Product.said by buzz_4_20:Ok...
Why isn't low bandwidth customers being charged A LOT less, since high bandwidth users are so bad? Low traffic usage vs high traffic usage. Your use of the word bandwidth is incorrect in the context it is being used. Using a lot of traffic has never been the issue. It is over subscribing the cable nodes too much and at the same time continuing to push up the speed tiers (bandwidth). | |
| |  djrobx
Premium Member
join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
kudos:4
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to buzz_4_20
So where are the annual speed increases? All TWC's customers just got a 12% fluff increase. 50/5 became 57/5.7. Where are the SUPER FAST tiers? You can see on BBR's forums that there's regular activity with regards to upgrades to 8 downstream channels. A couple markets have 75 and 100mbps. TWC is slower than most of the other cable providers in this respect, but there is at least some progress. I would rather have 50mbps unlimited than 100 with a cap. Is there an unlimited plan? TWC's CEO is saying yes and that they will continue to. It surely comes with strings or a price tag, but it's still good news. Why isn't low bandwidth customers being charged A LOT less, since high bandwidth users are so bad? Since TWC started claiming that they will retain an unlimited tier, I haven't heard them complaining about heavy consumption. I've had 50/5 for over a year and at least in my area, they seem to have been able to keep up with it. | |
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Fees+Well just expect Time Warner to do something like a "non participation" fee for those who do not take part Internet Essentials or other metered program. They are seriously loving new fees.
A few months ago I got the $5.99 modem fee AND another increase of of $14 in the bill and I'm still under a new user promo. So I decided perhaps to drop Time Warner internet and get Windstream DSL which is advertised as $39 cost for both a 12 Mbits DSL and a landline. After asking for my full cost they tell me it will be between $69-$70+/month with fees/taxes (plus $100 modem charge).
Now I know that landlines have more taxes. That is not so much an issue. My issue is companies advertising $39 that would be read by most consumers as "close" to what they would expect to pay when after the order they could fine the REAL price almost doubled over what is advertised. Ie They are allowed to advertise a price will NEVER in any way shape or form be close to the real price when they get their bill.
For the average consumer it's very deceptive. | |
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Re: Fees+Read the fine print, its there: equipment and taxes are extra. | |
| | Bengie25
join:2010-04-22
Wisconsin Rapids, WI  ·Solarus
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to whiteshp
I know the feeling. While I didn't have TWC, my last ISP never gave me the same bill 2 months in a row. There were always new and different fees and the prices kept creeping up.
My new ISP advertised $99.99, and my actual bill is $94.94. I am not getting any discounts. I've been paying the exact same amount for months now.
I remember reading an article in PCWorld or something many many years ago. They talked about ISPs and how they would tack on these "Federal Something Fee" or "State blah blah tax", when they were not federal fees or state taxes. I guess there is no law claiming that something is a tax, so long as you do actually pay your taxes correctly.
It's just another way to nickle and dime people without technically changing the monthly bill for the services provided. | |
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anonome
Anon
2013-Sep-12 5:15 pm
Offering...never actually delivering.
"Consumption" implies a reduction in the supplied resource--something that never actually occurs with a network (until you turn it off). | |
| |  fatal
join:2000-12-29
Brooklyn, NY |
fatal
Member
2013-Sep-12 8:20 pm
Re: Offering...damn right this is the only reason id stay with twc the day twc implements caps i go to fios | |
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Stumbles
join:2002-12-17
Port Saint Lucie, FL |
PfftCEOs have become worse than car salesmen. | |
|  antdudeA Ninja Ant
VIP
join:2001-03-25
United State
kudos:5 |
For how long?I am sure it won't last forever. :P | |
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How about .. |
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