 Time Warner Cable Will Increase Caps Four new trial markets will see more breathing room... Friday Feb 06 2009 09:54 EDT The other day, we noted that Time Warner Cable says they'll be expanding their trial of metered billing ($1 per GB) into four additional markets. They haven't stated which markets those are, but you can be certain it won't be anywhere the company actually faces competition. As for the 5-40GB caps Time Warner Cable employs in their current trial market of Beaumont, Texas, the carrier at least says they'll be changing those in response to complaints, though they're not offering hard numbers yet. "The biggest complaints we heard from the Beaumont trial were that the tiers were too small," spokesman Jeff Simmermon tells us. "We listened to those complaints and will adjust accordingly, adding larger tiers for larger users and smaller tiers for households that use less," he says. "We think that charging for usage is an equitable way to generate the necessary revenue," says Simmermon. Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley offers similar commentary to the Associated Press, telling the news agency that a "small but vocal percentage" of customers in Beaumont complained about the paltry caps being offered, and Time Warner Cable plans to address this by offering both larger (and smaller) tiers of service. Simmermon didn't respond to requests for actual numbers, so we're not clear on how you get smaller than 768kbps with a 5GB cap, with users paying a buck for each additional gigabyte. Both spokesmen put forward the argument that Time Warner Cable apparently can't afford the relatively inexpensive upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0 without completely revolutionizing the American broadband billing paradigm. "It's clear to us that customers want online video, which requires substantial investment in the network," says Dudley. "We're willing to make that, and we're trying to find an equitable way to distribute the cost of that investment." Apparently we're to believe that revenue from flat rate billing for VoIP/TV/VOD and broadband, portal advertising, DNS Redirection advertising, and even car sales aren't providing Time Warner Cable and Roadrunner with enough revenue for fundamental, organic and necessary network upgrades. Of course charging overages isn't just about added revenue, it's about protecting TV revenue from inevitable Internet video competition. While cable caps are quickly becoming the way of things, only Time Warner Cable and AT&T are actively pursuing overage fees -- and industry analyst Dave Burstein says Time Warner Cable's specific numbers "don't pass the smell test." 40 gigabytes at seven cents (or less) is less than three dollars per month, while Time Warner charges over $40. "Any large carrier with a cap below 100 gigabytes and a price above $30 is abusing market power," he says. "Their bandwidth costs are less than the marketing budget, and the customer is profitable." |
 88615298 (banned) join:2004-07-28 West Tenness |
88615298 (banned)
Member
2009-Feb-6 9:36 am
better be by a lot.with Comcast having a 250 GB cap, Charter having a 250 GB cap and at&t having a 150 GB cap TW had no choice but to up thier caps because 40 GB seems fishy to most people. | |
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Re: better be by a lot.well said! | |
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Re: better be by a lot.He almost blew their cover with this statement: quote: "It's clear to us that customers want online video, which requires substantial investment in the network," says Dudley. "We're willing to make that, and we're trying to find an equitable way to distribute the cost of that investment."
If you change " an equitable way to distribute the cost of that investment" to " a profitable way to recover the loss of pay per view and premium channel income" the truth becomes visible. | |
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Titus
Member
2009-Feb-6 12:31 pm
Re: better be by a lot.said by RadioDoc:He almost blew their cover with this statement: quote: "It's clear to us that customers want online video, which requires substantial investment in the network," says Dudley. "We're willing to make that, and we're trying to find an equitable way to distribute the cost of that investment."
If you change " an equitable way to distribute the cost of that investment" to " a profitable way to recover the loss of pay per view and premium channel income" the truth becomes visible. It will soon equate to cable TV in general at our current rate of economic decline. Talking to people (I know some find that scary) at stores, gas stations, etc, tells a dire tale of cutbacks - and cable TV is on that list while internet seems a keeper to people making tough decisions. If you asked your kid(s) which they'd rather have, cable TV or HSI, I think the answer is obvious. -- | |
|  |  |  |  fiberguy2My views are my own. Premium Member join:2005-05-20 1 edit |
to RadioDoc
PPV loss was bound to happen; they charge too much for the service. Premiums.. man, when are they ever going to learn how to operate a business? There are two ways to get more business.. quality, and quantity.
Quality: Charge more for the service, but have less customers. (in this case that is) So you charge $20 for a channel,.. pack in 5 more just like it showing the same crap and be okay with people paying $20 for the stuff.
OR!
Quantity: (And, in this economic time, they SHOULD think VERY hard about this one) DROP the price of premiums like HBO & Showtime down to something reasonable.. say $10 per month for them.. get MORE people to subscribe to them and make more money. With services like HBO/Showtime, it's consignment. It doesn't cost more to show that network to 100 people as it does 1 million people... the show must go on.
The studios should realize that in this economy, people are looking to be entertained on less money. Making their service, which the costs are set, more affordable and attractive to people who are already subscribed to the cable / satellite service to the home, will most likely mean higher subscriber rates. This only leads to more revenue to the studios.
If they did this, there would be no need to look at other product lines to get more money out of it to shore up failing product lines. Businesses need to keep revenue at a certain level, that's no secret.. but, they can do it with out pulling these games of fees and excessive charges if they CHOOSE to make the right decisions. (Besides, dropping their rates WILL stimulate the economy in the long run)
However, they always all look towards other product lines to subsidize their other operations.. ie: cramming down fees on HSI to prop up video. Bundling phone services to raise the monthly rate in order to make more money on HSI. etc.
The dinosaurs in business need to die, .. die quick, and turn to oil and help out rising energy costs. (at least they'd be doing SOMETHING right for once.) | |
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Re: better be by a lot.When I see the likes of Comcast reporting record profits I have no sympathy for their whining about expenses. The entire cable TV business model is a "dinosaur" and they're only getting away with it since a large part of the population thinks cable = television and does not remember the pre-cable days when free OTA television was the norm.
These days cable is old hat and better figure out another way to survive other than interference with Internet-delivered product. Even OTA is making a comeback.
They might also take a look at the competition. I now have more channels with DirecTV than I ever got from Comcast, with two receivers delivering a spectacularly better picture than we ever got with cable, for about half what Comcast was charging. Even after a 12 month promo (which puts about $300 back in my pocket) we'll still be saving more than $40/mo. With OTA HD, Netflix et. al. on a HD TiVo and DirecTV we're still at less than what Comcast was charging. This is the brave new world. As soon as people realize what they are really paying for, one of those paradigm shifts will occur just like it did in the 80's from OTA to cable.
As I drive around here in the burbs I see a lot of brand new shiny OTA antennas and new satellite dishes. Cable is in trouble. | |
|  |  |  |  |  |  fiberguy2My views are my own. Premium Member join:2005-05-20 |
Re: better be by a lot.The model of Satellite and cable is the same when you break them down.. so I see no difference in the MODEL. Delivery systems, however, do the horse race where one will always take the lead over the other as they leap frog. Satellite is about to see another leap by cable and the race will once again change.
As for internet and delivery.. sure, I also agree with you.. however, there are two parts to that.. 1) There is the delivery system which does get more advanced as we move forward along with what it becomes capable of. 2) the price.
If anyone expects the first part to change with out seeing a change in the way its sold (price) then they are fools for themselves. If cable and phone both turned off their main services.. (phone stopped selling pots, and cable stopped pushing video) then what you're going to see are internet connections priced out at $100.00 + per month.
And.. wait one second.. did I just see you praising a $300 promo? Doesn't that go against your rants about how cable offer promotions as well? Do I smell a dual standard? | |
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Re: better be by a lot.I was perfectly clear in my original post. Cable is on the way out.
No sure what you are referring to about any dual standard. I will be paying 2/3 of what Comcast was charging me even without the $23 per month rebate for the next 12 months ($67 instead of $98), but until Feb. 2010 I'll grin at my $44 DirecTV bill while I watch even more dish and OTA installations sprout in this area... | |
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 |  fireflierCoffee. . .Need Coffee Premium Member join:2001-05-25 Limbo |
to 88615298
said by 88615298:with Comcast having a 250 GB cap, Charter having a 250 GB cap and at&t having a 150 GB cap TW had no choice but to up thier caps because 40 GB seems fishy to most people. I agree with you BF, unfortunately that assumes "most people" even know what the cap is, and understand its relevance. I bet if you told the average joe he had a 40GB cap he'd have no idea how it would or could impact him. | |
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88615298 (banned)
Member
2009-Feb-6 10:23 am
Re: better be by a lot.said by fireflier:said by 88615298:with Comcast having a 250 GB cap, Charter having a 250 GB cap and at&t having a 150 GB cap TW had no choice but to up thier caps because 40 GB seems fishy to most people. I agree with you BF, unfortunately that assumes "most people" even know what the cap is, and understand its relevance. I bet if you told the average joe he had a 40GB cap he'd have no idea how it would or could impact him. I bet all those in Beaumont that got overage fees on thier bills know how much 40 GB is now. TW just doens't want a national version of that clusterfuck. | |
|  |  |  |  fireflierCoffee. . .Need Coffee Premium Member join:2001-05-25 Limbo |
Re: better be by a lot.They probably do, but I bet if you ask them what did it most of them couldn't tell you.
They probably won't consider the usage that accompanies OS and other software patches, firmware updates, map updates (as in GPS) and other things such as on-line gaming, browsing, IM, video IM, applications calling home, virus scanner updates, etc.
They were simply told by the advertisers, "with 40GB/month, you could download a whole sh~tload of pictures*, days-worth of streaming music**, and hours of streaming video***"
Fine Print: * Assuming typical photo resolution of 320x240 ** Assuming typical streaming audio quality of 64Kbps *** Assuming over-compressed MPEG-4 format with 320x640 resolution.
Then they get the overage bill and wonder what the heck happened. Of course, by then they're locked in to a contract with ETFs and are basically screwed. | |
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Anon
2009-Feb-7 9:09 pm
to 88615298
said by 88615298:I bet all those in Beaumont that got overage fees on thier bills know how much 40 GB is now. You figure somebody would be screamin bloody murder on the RR forum or to some newspaper (which would get picked up here or maybe nationally) if ANYONE actually did get charged for overages. Since it hasn't happened, I'd bet money no one has been charged overages yet. | |
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to fireflier
said by fireflier:said by 88615298:with Comcast having a 250 GB cap, Charter having a 250 GB cap and at&t having a 150 GB cap TW had no choice but to up thier caps because 40 GB seems fishy to most people. I agree with you BF, unfortunately that assumes "most people" even know what the cap is, and understand its relevance. I bet if you told the average joe he had a 40GB cap he'd have no idea how it would or could impact him. You are probably right. I got a meter and three months averaged right around that 40GB you offer. So If I got Netflix streaming, I'm hosed. If I needed to download any full disc (linux distro, legit video etc) I'd be hosed. Until I added the meter I had no clue if I was at 10GB/mo or 100. Not something anyone can guess at. | |
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said by 88615298:with Comcast having a 250 GB cap, Charter having a 250 GB cap and at&t having a 150 GB cap TW had no choice but to up thier caps because 40 GB seems fishy to most people. Fishy, huh?! Can the big three, Please! Slap some sense into Frontier? The days of having to live with a 5 gig cap is fast approaching! | |
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88615298 (banned)
Member
2009-Feb-6 10:26 am
Re: better be by a lot.said by atigerman:said by 88615298:with Comcast having a 250 GB cap, Charter having a 250 GB cap and at&t having a 150 GB cap TW had no choice but to up thier caps because 40 GB seems fishy to most people. Fishy, huh?! Can the big three, Please! Slap some sense into Frontier? The days of having to live with a 5 gig cap is fast approaching! the best you can do is for you and everyone you know is to cnacell service. Yeah I know it will hard to do without or have to use dial-up( by the way with dial-up you could download 17 GB a month ), but that's the only way they will lsiten to you. When they lose subscribers by the boatload they'll up those caps. Unfortunatle too many people won't bite the bullet and will just bend over and take it. | |
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 |  SLD Premium Member join:2002-04-17 San Francisco, CA 1 edit |
to 88615298
See, TW now has people *happy* by raising their paltry caps because they set them so low in the first place. Now people aren't focused on the fact that there is a cap, but rather, how it is increasing. | |
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Re: It worked!Its a step in the right direction | |
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to SLD
said by SLD:See, TW now has people *happy* by raising their paltry caps because they set them so low in the first place. Now people aren't focused on the fact that there is a cap, but rather, how it is increasing. good point. a case study in managed expectation of consumers. | |
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said by 88615298:with Comcast having a 250 GB cap, Charter having a 250 GB cap and at&t having a 150 GB cap TW had no choice but to up thier caps because 40 GB seems fishy to most people. Not fishy. Unfair  The canadian isp implemented cap to do two things 1. reduce your usage 2. make more money the user are super screwed and the isp make more money wonderful concept? | |
|  |  fiberguy2My views are my own. Premium Member join:2005-05-20 |
to 88615298
AT&T at 150gb? I thought they too were testing 5gb caps in Nevada? .. or did that change?
Also.. I'm going to step in and say this about TWC, Frontier and the rest.. just becuase they're "average user" consumes upwards to 5gb a month doesn't mean they need to set their caps at such levels. It's obvious that consumers have gone above 5gb before and they aren't being harmed, financially. To impose a cap at the average consumer level IS in fact a cash grab on the company as it will raise, most likely, (and I'm pulling this number out of the air) 10% (or more) of their customer's bills.
Its true they need to define what they consider to be excessive usage.. that's what people asked for, and that's what people will get. But, it also doesn't mean they NEED to charge the overage fees either! For example, comcast has a 250gb transfer bucket with their service. If someone goes to 260, they don't need to charge for the overage especially while many are using 5gb a month. That tells me that another user's consumption was FAR below the 250 and the guy that went to 260 should be able to dip into the 255gb that one customer didn't use.
Having the caps/limits/transfer/buckets, what ever you want to call them, defined is a good thing and I applaud that. HOWEVER, it doesn't mean you need to enforce them either. Enforcing them is good when you have a node, for example, experiencing a slow down and someone's hitting the 1tb mark. If the node is being affected, you can stand behind your 250gb cap.. however, if someone is running 1tb from a node where most people use 5gb or less a month, and he's not impacting the rest, you look the other way. To be honest, this is how it was done PRIOR to the crying from users being cut off and caps being implemented. The only thing Comcast and other ISPs who cut people did wrong is they never gave a number that they "reserve the right to terminate" customers with.
I'm sorry to tell the AT&T, Time Warners, Frontiers, etc. of the ISP world is.. that if Comcast has 250gb, they had better be pushing their caps up as well.. ESPECIALLY AT&T and Verizon (should verizon decide to express caps) becuase the phone companies tout their dedicated last mile network which then goes into their backbones they got from AT&T and MCI. (ie: they own them)
The games are getting a little sick here. To be honest, and I can't believe I'm saying this, the ONLY player out there that is making an effort, to some degree, to operate their network correctly is Verizon.. I'd include Qwest but I don't think they will be around for the long run anyway even though Qwest has pretty much always ran their network on the notion that they sold a connection to the user... so use it as you need. | |
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Re: better be by a lot.said by fiberguy2:Also.. I'm going to step in and say this about TWC, Frontier and the rest.. just becuase they're "average user" consumes upwards to 5gb a month doesn't mean they need to set their caps at such levels. The thing is..... Frontier claims that the "average user" uses about 1 gig a month, so the 5 gigs a month they claim is more then enough. I use 10 gigs a month at the least. | |
|  |  |  |  fiberguy2My views are my own. Premium Member join:2005-05-20 |
Re: better be by a lot.They say 1gig? are they ma'ad? Personally, the 5gb is true for many casual users.. but, casual has gone to the past. 5gb will become 10, then 40, 80.. and so on. Personally, in one data back up, 1 gig is gone.  I consider myself on the high end of heavy users. There are 4 people in the house and I won't even begin to say how many computers I have hooked up. (And my servers run on DSL, not cable) .. but I think we're using about 60 gig a month. I don't need to download distro's over and over all the time and I don't download movies.. not at this time. | |
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Re: better be by a lot.Frontier is mad about the 5GB cap, however considering their size, at least they are trying to keep their DSL network well maintained. Ever since the holidays up until a few days ago, Frontier had been having bandwidth issues at night where I'd go from 3Mbps/384kbps speeds to 400-800kbps/384kbps speeds. Turns out, there's a lot of heavy DSL users in my area, as those speeds would be like that until 12:30 AM after starting to decrease rapidly at 3:30PM, where my speed would slowly come back. However, even despite the caps which I'm against as well (I used close to 200GB of data between my two connections last month, maybe more D: ), their support is good. The night I called, it was 7PM, they answered immediately and wrote a trouble ticket for me after checking the basics. Tech came out next morning during a snow storm, saw that things were fine, we talked, and 3:30 as the speeds began to fall again, called up the Frontier tech that stopped by and he said that my prediction of them needing more bandwidth was 100% right. Well, a week later, as he stated, my connection got shifted to a brand new router with new routes in the CO, and no more slow downs/high pings at night  . I'm wondering though, since Frontier has been quiet in the news lately about their caps, I'm wondering if they scrapped the idea and started boosting their network as lately in the Frontier forum there has been one or two reports of Frontier bringing in more bandwidth to the COs for trouble areas. | |
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to fiberguy2
said by fiberguy2:They say 1gig? are they ma'ad? Personally, the 5gb is true for many casual users.. but, casual has gone to the past. 5gb will become 10, then 40, 80.. and so on. Ah, 10, 40, 80 gigs..... As the frontier rep told me. Well it's only 1-2 bucks per gig over your allowed 5 gigs. Whats the problem! 0.o | |
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 |  |  Lazlow join:2006-08-07 Saint Louis, MO |
to fiberguy2
Fiberguy
I am right there with you on doing something about people who are dragging down the node during high volume times and ignoring users who download heavily during non peak hours (11om-8am?). Punish the ones who are actually causing the customer's issues and not just everybody who downloads a lot.
I do believe that this entire thing is about protecting their video business. | |
|  |  |  |  fiberguy2My views are my own. Premium Member join:2005-05-20 |
Re: better be by a lot.I think there is more than one thing going on. Are they wanting to protect their business model? sure! Is it a perfect model? Hell no... not in the least. I posted about quality and quantity and I mean it. They want more money from less customers instead of putting a product out there that more will buy at a lessor price giving them more money.. but I digress. However, I've also long called for the end of caps, period. What I DO advocate, and think is the best method is to throttle customer back on over all speed for a period of time, during peak, if they are utilizing too much at any given time. (ie: if they have the 16mb tier and are abusing the network, cut them back to 1.5 or 3mb for a period of time until the node slows down. You're not impacting anything major to the end user anyway. I also believe that demand is out growing the capacity expansion on the last mile. Comcast and TWC have been on a buying spree. They just ate up Adelphia, as we know. Many of those systems were neglected. There are also other systems they've purchased that were neglected. (There is a reason why so many were never upgraded, becuase smaller companies can't afford to upgrade them. They'd have to charge too much and satellite was a sure competitor for them which forced their rates down. To be honest, getting purchased by a big boy shows WHY the strength in side mattered here.) Everyone SHOULD know that you can't just turn on a dime and upgrade a network. I think two or three years for a complete rebuild, which is an AGGRESSIVE rebuild effort, is reasonable in time. However, it's much easier for someone like Amazon, for example, to simply throw in some servers, connect to the net, and start serving up bandwidth intensive content. Like I said, it takes YEARS to rebuild a plant to handle it. So, personally, I think there are far more things going on at one time. Meanwhile, the consumer is quickly finding more and more and more to throw at their connection, want more now, and get antsy when they don't get it. It's amazing how 2 years can feel like an eternity when you're waiting for something. Add in a horribly down economy and money issues affecting everyone, and you have network management taking the front page. Just as it's easy for an i-net provider to throw up a video service in a matter of a few months, it's easy for Comcast to implement controls to compete in the race. Things are going to improve.. and I think we'll see a reduction in caps over time.. but right now, people want definition.. they got it.  | |
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Lazlow
Member
2009-Feb-6 6:56 pm
Re: better be by a lot.Fiberguy
I agree that it takes time to rebuild a network. BUT it is not like no one knew the direction and speed that this was headed. It was obvious (to most countries) where we were headed years ago. Rather than reinvesting a significant amount in their infrastructure, the companies spent the money on bonuses and dividends.
While I am not a fan of throttling, it would be better(only during peak loads) than any cap.
The demand outgrowing last mile capacity MIGHT be explained as you describe on those systems that have been purchased in the last few years, but that does not explain why the rest of the systems are in the same boat. | |
|  |  |  |  |  |  fiberguy2My views are my own. Premium Member join:2005-05-20 |
Re: better be by a lot.Well, what DOES explain it is the technology not being available.
You have to take into consideration to be cost effective. I don't agree with any business that spends what ever it takes to upgrade, just to upgrade.
Prior to DOCSIS 3.0 you had:
Node splits: Expensive and often un-necessary not giving you more speed.
Docsis 1.1 to 2.0 upgrades. This doesn't give you MUCH more speed and, with 3.0 on the horizon, and now coming out, why invest that much money into a stop-gap measure just to upgrade? It makes no economic sense. If I were a share holder and they pulled that, I'd yank my stock.
Fiber?: Very expensive and it's not cables business. Also, it is a very expensive rebuild for cable.. in fact, a VERY expensive rebuild meaning they'd likely have to not only rebuild the entire last mile, they'd also have to invest in ONTs for every home served.. not cost effective with new technology on the horizon.
So, there are many other considerations that have to be taken into consideration.
Some people want to make this into something trivial, and I'm not saying you are.. however, these are just SOME of the things that are not taken into consideration when thinking it's a simple upgrade, still.
It's not accurate to think that they are not thinking about faster speeds and more capacity (Which is the real issue - capacity) but, they've been working towards getting to the 100+ speeds since back in 2000 that I can remember. The problem is getting to that point. | |
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Lazlow
Member
2009-Feb-6 7:31 pm
Re: better be by a lot.You are forgetting that other countries have cable too and they have had these speeds and capacity for a while. I agree with you that splitting the nodes would not have given them much of a speed increase but it would have given them a capacity increase (which is the real issue). Even Docsis 1.0 had 38Mbps speeds(down), so they had the technology available to increase the speeds (to say 20 down) years ago(euro docsis 1.0 had 50Mbps down). If they had split the nodes when D2 first came out (not necessarily switching) they could now have both the advanced speeds and the capacity to handle those speeds. | |
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  fiberguy2My views are my own. Premium Member join:2005-05-20 1 edit |
Re: better be by a lot.Ahh yes... BUT.. these other countries are also late entrants into the game of Broadband, many of them. A lot of these countries you speak of have two things going for them over the U.S. which is: 1) they entered upwards to 10 years after us, and 2) they're landscape is much more compact so upgrading and rebuilds come much easier and quicker than the sprawls of the United States. They also get a lot of money from the government to build out and some of them are nationalizing their infrustructure, which in the Unites States does goes against our way of life.
Case in point.. in So Cal,, the government who put money into one of the muni-systems wanted the operator to filter out anything objectionable and pornographic. As unconstitutional as that demand is/was, that was the game they play.
I'll personally stick with a little slower growth to avoid big brother, for one, telling me what I can and can't see.
..oh, and don't forget.. that 38mb was per node shared amongst users. In my city, the nodes run about 250 homes each which is on the low side compared to some systems. The former TWC system in the south metro here was running 1200 homes per node. Imagine 38mb on even a 250 homes passed node. | |
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Lazlow
Member
2009-Feb-6 10:11 pm
Re: better be by a lot.Most of those same countries have 50Mbps(plus) available for sub $50 a month and many have 100Mbps available(at sub $80) in most metro areas. I would also remind you that much of the internet backbone in the US was made with government funding (1996?).
Cable has always been shared, it is shared with D1 and it will still be shared with D3. If you follow the latest studies management compensation went from 40X average employee in the 80-90s to 4000X now. Take some of that money and split the nodes. Instead of 250 home switch to 125, you could stick with docsis 1 until the prices drop, bring speeds up to 20Mbps, and still not have any more congestion than we have currently(no caps needed). | |
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 |  dvd536as Mr. Pink as they come Premium Member join:2001-04-27 Phoenix, AZ |
to 88615298
said by 88615298:with Comcast having a 250 GB cap, Charter having a 250 GB cap and at&t having a 150 GB cap TW had no choice but to up thier caps because 40 GB seems fishy to most people. Cox also has a puny 40gb/mo cap. | |
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88615298 (banned)
Member
2009-Feb-7 5:10 pm
Re: better be by a lot.said by dvd536:said by 88615298:with Comcast having a 250 GB cap, Charter having a 250 GB cap and at&t having a 150 GB cap TW had no choice but to up thier caps because 40 GB seems fishy to most people. Cox also has a puny 40gb/mo cap. from what I hear they never enforce it so I'm not counting it yet. | |
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to 88615298
haha suckers  * MLPPP and No Caps gives me Unthrottled satisfaction * Boo | |
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If they would just be reasonable about it........Everyone knows the overages shouldn't cost as much as they do. I'm not a fan of caps, but I do see that in certain cases there is a need for them. They are doing this to make more money off of the people who use more bandwidth. Fine. But be reasonable about it. Limit the overage charges to say, 200% of their cost per GB. (which is still an insane profit margin) | |
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jmn1207
Premium Member
2009-Feb-6 10:12 am
Re: If they would just be reasonable about it........said by Camelot One:Everyone knows the overages shouldn't cost as much as they do. I'm not a fan of caps, but I do see that in certain cases there is a need for them. They are doing this to make more money off of the people who use more bandwidth. Fine. But be reasonable about it. Limit the overage charges to say, 200% of their cost per GB. (which is still an insane profit margin) I'd settle for a 1000% markup over their costs for bandwidth. I'd be willing to pay 10 times what it costs a cable giant to provide and maintain each GB of transferred data. And I would even pay by the GB from zero to whatever they can handle. Even with a minimum payment of $10 each month to go along with my "pay-only-for-what-you-use" plan, just about everyone would see lower bills each month with this payment scheme. If they want to go the metered billing route, lets do it in earnest. You can only get so much juice from a lemon. | |
|  |  fiberguy2My views are my own. Premium Member join:2005-05-20 |
to Camelot One
In all honesty.. they should not be able to charge for overages except under certain circumstances.. and this also requires the FCC to use that gush in their head they call brains. 1) DSL Providers: Overages fees are charged based on an over all system-wide capacity issue. ie: their entire system has to be negatively impacted over all. If their network is over sold AND over utilized (which it isn't) then they can take the overages, as audited by an outside firm, and charged on a per gig bases system wide. This would require some common sense though. 2) Cable: Same principle, however, it would require a maximum homes per node situation. (250 to 500 homes at most based on capacity/technology used) And same thing.. system wide, is the utilization causing the provider overages? If not, no overage. If yes, then they can "enforce" a cap and penalty ($$ per gig that is, over) based on system wide purchasing of bandwidth. They need to protect their systems and they can do it with out impacting all users in the form of rate increases. However, they need to be honest about this and mean what they say.. they're saying it's a capacity issue.. so prove it. Once you prove it, and it can be verified by an audit, then you can have your rate increase. .. oh wait.. this is what they do to power and gas companies already.  | |
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 Matt3All noise, no signal. Premium Member join:2003-07-20 Jamestown, NC |
Matt3
Premium Member
2009-Feb-6 9:44 am
Generate More Money and Kill Online VideoIt's really a win-win for them. They can stifle online video distribution which protects their lucrative VoD and cable service, all the while generating more money off each customer. | |
|  |  ••••••••• |  Rick5 Premium Member join:2001-02-06 2 edits |
Rick5
Premium Member
2009-Feb-6 9:56 am
To many of us here who frequent BBRwe look at these 5~40Gb numbers and say...huh? What are they thinking? And why are they so low. To Time Warner though, they probably look at them and see that the vast majority of their customers probably do fall into those ranges and the whole debate has probably become a numbers game of sorts. I've been a big proponent of the very upper tiers of customers starting to be subjected to caps and overage charges. I feel that way because like it or not..everyone else winds up paying for them. The ONLY reason someone is able to get a 6~15Mb connection and 300 gigs of data a month for 40 dollars and change a month is because everyone else is subsidizing that. And this is what I think caps and overages should address...not to seek to limit others from a reasonable to even a heavier amount of usage.
I mean..this is BROADBAND we're talking about. And the whole concept of having a connection this fast isn't to say to someone..you can have a 10Gig a month limit. I think that Time Warner would be well served to raise their limit to at least 100gig and call it a day at that level. Go over that and you pay more. I really don't think it will affect them because the majority of their customers still won't come close to that. It will be more of a marketing move than anything else to keep up the appearance that they're fair and competitive. What it will do though is to address the extreme users and to bring fairness back to pricing.
To be clear about this..I don't think there should be caps at all. If someone wants and is willing to pay for 500 gigs a month...the network should be able to provide for that. But, the customers wallets should also be able to provide for that then. And not expect for everyone else to foot that bill in the form of higher fees for all.
Time Warner management..you need at least 100 gig limits. Or that vocal minority will rip you to shreds because of it. | |
|  |  ••• |  ElJay join:2004-03-17 Portland, ME Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite Ubiquiti Unifi UAP-AC-LITE
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ElJay
Member
2009-Feb-6 9:57 am
So will TWC stop their false advertising about DSL speed?$1 per GB is absurd. I could see a tenth of that perhaps. Why aren't all of the content distribution providers up in arms about this? This sort of pricing could kill distribution models like those of Valve Software, Amazon Video on Demand, Netflix Instant Streaming, iTunes, etc. | |
|  |  •••• |  fireflierCoffee. . .Need Coffee Premium Member join:2001-05-25 Limbo |
Elephant in the room?"The biggest complaints we heard from the Beaumont trial were that the tiers were too small," spokesman Jeff Simmermon tells us.
REALLY???!?!?
[sarcasm] I never would have seen that coming. [/sarcasm] | |
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Re: Elephant in the room?said by fireflier:"The biggest complaints we heard from the Beaumont trial were that the tiers were too small," spokesman Jeff Simmermon tells us. REALLY???!?!? [sarcasm] I never would have seen that coming. [/sarcasm] Incorrect... The smallest complaint is having cap too small and the biggest complaint is having the cap LOL | |
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 MalibuMaxx Premium Member join:2007-02-06 Chesterton, IN 1 edit |
72 gigIs what I used last month... from what I done in a days work... i could hit the cap on comcast's network.
Do I... No... but thats more than what I hit in a month on average... i usually hit only 30ish gigs...
Time Warner is crap... especially if they think thats enough bandwidth for todays media age... things like netflix streaming pretty much doubled my usage this month and I'm not sure if they will go back to norm again...
edit: half my post wasent there??? | |
|  |  •••• |  88615298 (banned) join:2004-07-28 West Tenness 2 edits |
88615298 (banned)
Member
2009-Feb-6 10:34 am
Hopefully this leadsto competing by cap size. As we all know ISPs have been competing by continually upping speeds. Now that's getting to the point where that song and dance doesn't play as well. Sure once guy offering 5 Mbps the other one offers 10 Mbps. People can see that's a 100% jump in speed. One guy offering 20 the other 25 is there really that much of a difference and WTF are you going to do with that much speed when things already seem pretty quick with 20 Mbps.
So now they have to compete based on something else and it will never be price. They've already admitted they'll never do that. So the only other thing is caps. "Hey we have a 500 GB cap the other guys only offer 250 GB you can download TWICE as much!" They didn't plan that when they came up with this genius idea of caps, but inevitably that is where it is headed. The monster they created is out of their control now. I predict within 2-3 years caps will be essentially meaningless because they'll be so high. | |
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one2three4
Anon
2009-Feb-6 10:45 am
hmmapparently time warner thinks we should all be paying top dollar for "high speed internet" just to check our email. | |
|  |  Summit join:2005-03-14 Marion, OH |
Summit
Member
2009-Feb-6 11:05 am
Re: hmmsaid by one2three4 :
apparently time warner thinks we should all be paying top dollar for "high speed internet" just to check our email. Bunch of greedy SOB's!! LOL | |
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to one2three4
said by one2three4 :
apparently time warner thinks we should all be paying top dollar for "high speed internet" just to check our email. apparently they want us to use it to surf the web only and not do anything else... Do not watch video cause it consume to much bandwidth... just download mp3 and talk to others on forum... you can do that on dialup... whats the point of broadband that cannot be used much? they want to force all of us watch more TV which mean more profit for them and use less internet! | |
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 Doctor FourMy other vehicle is a TARDIS Premium Member join:2000-09-05 Dallas, TX |
What the TW spokesdroid said and what he meantWhat Jeff Simmermon, the TW PR droid said: quote: "We think that charging for usage is an equitable way to generate the necessary revenue,"
What he really meant: "We think that charging for usage is an equitable way to stifle the competition for own own VoD and cable TV services and make the consumers of our services pay even more." On another note about TW's sky-high prices: they've been advertising heavily (they must have a bigger advertising budget than the one for their bandwidth) for their digital cable plus free HDTV channels, TW VOIP, and basic HSI for 12 months, for $29 each. Wow! What a bargain (sarcasm intended here). That's almost $90 a month for triple play. I'll bet AT&T can offer something similar for less. | |
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All This Talk About CAPS, but.......if they go ahead and implement it, what stops a user from changing their IP address? Folks, the majority of users are on DYNAMIC IPs, not STATIC. Someone who has a low cap goes and changes their IP address by changing their MAC address in the router or on the only computer they have, and bang - they have reset the clock to zero, beginning anew with a clean slate. The only way CAPS are ever going to work fairly and correctly is if everyone is assigned a STATIC IP. In this fashion, everyone will be monitored fairly and correctly.
A side note here; I do not condone the usage of CAPS as it heralds back the days of early internet usage where your time on the 'net was monitored and billed by the minute. It is wrong, it is backward thinking, and most of all downright greedy in this day and age. If ISP providers cannot maintain the networks they have, then they should sell it to someone who can provide what the public wants or set speeds to where they can comfortably maintain the plant. The speed race is nothing more than bragging rights. I would settle for a stable 6gb to 10gb connection, than a 50gb connection that fluxes wildly all day every day because the ISP cannot maintain proper control of it. | |
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Do Something. Tell the FCC, not just DSL ReportsDave Burstein here, and thanks Karl for quoting me. The folks taking over at the FCC are in principle on the right side of this. Jules Genachowski put net neutrality high in the party platform, and Markey/Boucher are trying to get it in the stimulus. Of course they are "politicians", but they are good ones and know the issues. They've promised change; let's persuade them this is the right change.
Michael Copps, acting chair, has posted his email on the FCC site michael.copps@fcc.gov . His key colleague is jonathan.adelstein@fcc.gov . Most of the Obama transition team posted their emails on their websites, and responded thoughtfully but quickly when I wrote them.
Please, please, please be effective by making your email courteous and to the point. These folks are ten year pros in the business and generally know more than you or I. The best way to influence them is with facts they don't already know. You'll get a better response if you keep your message short.
No one believes me when I say actually they do listen. I'm not pretending you'll have the influence of Verizon's $7M lobbyist, but frankly everybody at the FCC is sick of the usual lobbyists saying things they've heard before. When they hear something new, they often pay attention. db | |
|  |  ••• |  roc5955 Premium Member join:2005-11-26 Rosendale, NY |
roc5955
Premium Member
2009-Feb-6 2:05 pm
Will they charge the data rate for VOIP?If so, there goes their "unlimited" calling plan. Maybe they should charge a message rate for each message via VOIP (even though they tell me it's not VOIP, what else can it be?) They could make a lot of money that way. And if it's not already in the pipeline, you can bet the mortgage that it will be in the near future, as they try to find new income streams. (Read new ways to rip us off!) | |
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TWC will have a poor fiscal year 2009TWC, which with the publishing unit of TW were the only parts of TW that made a profit last year, will have a much worse time this year. If the FCC and IRS approve the spinoff from the parent copany before the deadline of 31 March, TWC will have to pay TW almost $10M. This year, they'll see a significant chunk of their subscriber numbers fall as a majority of the subscriber base it inherited from the joint bankruptcy purchase (with Comcast) of Adelphia get transitioned to the newly created Windjammer Cable. With a drop in subscribers comes a drop in revenue. It they truly implement caps in markets where's there's even DSL competition, I think they'll see further drops in their subscriber numbers and revenue as people flee from this draconian, greedy pricing plan and their ability to attract new subscribers will be impeded. I also think they may see state regulators and state attorneys general beginning to scrutinize their fee structure if they don't make the caps more reasonable. (Most states have a wider variety of statutes available to protect consumers than the feds.) All-in-all, if they really go through with this, it doesn't present a very rosy outlook for their fiscal 2009 end-of-year report, especially as the country sinks further into a deep recession. | |
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A 5 gb cap is nothing.Let me figure something out. Lets say you have three PCs in your house, and for each of them download McAfee's SuperDat virus updates when they come out on each computer. These updates are now over 100 mb, and seem to be coming out 20 times a month. 20 times 100 mb times 3 computer equals 6 gb. You've used up more than your monthly allowance on these updates alone, without even getting to check your e-mail once or reading any news on CNN.com. Forget about even watching one grainy video on YouTube. There are ways to reduce these downloads (just downloading the DATs without the scan engine once and then sharing the same download with the other PCs). But if you do it the quick and dirty way, you're screwed. Of course, with a 5 or even a 100 gb cap, you're screwed anyway. | |
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vinnie97
Premium Member
2009-Feb-6 3:05 pm
Re: A 5 gb cap is nothing.DSLExtreme or Covad are looking pretty good right now. AT&T and TWC can, again, go down on themselves. | |
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 kamm join:2001-02-14 Brooklyn, NY |
kamm
Member
2009-Feb-6 4:11 pm
TWC's profit on bandwidth is over 1000% - LYING PARASITES.....that has to be regulated as such, with proper oversight. Yes, there, I just said it.
When greedy, arrogant monopolies like Time Warner, Comcast et al start abusing the market this openly then WE NEED A REGULATORY ACTION.
This entire fuckin' industry is completely broken - they lie to ANYONE including Congress which is already quite an astonishing development (start putting them in jail, let's see how quickly they will shut the fuck up) but the actual market abuses, purely based on lies, are simply breathtaking. | |
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asf5465
Anon
2009-Feb-7 6:31 pm
Re: TWC's profit on bandwidth is over 1000% - LYING PARASITES...said by kamm:..that has to be regulated as such, with proper oversight. Yes, there, I just said it.When greedy, arrogant monopolies like Time Warner, Comcast et al start abusing the market this openly then WE NEED A REGULATORY ACTION.This entire fuckin' industry is completely broken - they lie to ANYONE including Congress which is already quite an astonishing development (start putting them in jail, let's see how quickly they will shut the fuck up) but the actual market abuses, purely based on lies, are simply breathtaking. again, a facsist makes his case. | |
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RegulateWHO to kamm
Anon
2009-Feb-8 3:36 pm
to kamm
Just how would you regulate them? Also who would provide oversight?
List your top 3 regulations on Cable Companies. | |
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TWC capsI wonder if TWC will attempt to add the caps to their system in Charlotte, NC which is also the headquarters for Time Warner Cable? Hmmm, somehow I doubt that will be one of the first places where they implement caps. Caps are BS to begin with. Charter has a 60mbs service that is uncapped at $140/mo but then if you get any speed less than 60 they add the caps. It is quite obvious that this is all about money and profit and dividends, etc. Greedy selfish business and not very good business practice at that when you F&*& the customer. | |
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33358088 (banned)
Member
2009-Feb-7 1:49 pm
YOU mean likeBell canada telling me 4 times over the phone that 90% of users , use 30GB or less and hten putting a 60GB cap on everyone, and hten what doi see recently a 100GB cap. getitng there bell maybe in 5 years you will be able to offer out what you contracted to millions of canadians.
OH time warner i see 40GB sounds like bell and rogers funny how rogers sits there cap at exactly 95 GB NOT 100 but 95GB must be rogers network needs to lose 50 people to make profits more attractive.
Screw people we dont matter and ACTA is coming and every app you use for it will be illegal even your ftp programs and people doing any innovative software design on suchg apps will all be criminals
Your all going to prison and when we all get there who will pay for the guards?
what are uyou doing life for...i took 5 songs man , im rela bad ass dont mess with me or ill start singing like a fruit. | |
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This is not the first rate increase either!This is not the first rate increase either! Customers were recently duped and switched to higher rates in Rochester. If you are paying $49/month call up their customer service and ask for their $24/month service. It is a little bit slower but most people will not notice the difference. » www.discussny.com/showth ··· p?t=6784Nick | |
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