Public rage stalls Time Warner trials of consumption-based internet
By Laura June 
posted Apr 16th 2009 11:22AM
posted Apr 16th 2009 11:22AM
Time Warner's new data capping broadband scheme was never expected to win any popularity contests, and the details of its plans are so frustrating, that this probably should not come as a surprise. Regardless, it looks like the company's plan to further roll out testing of the consumption-based billing method has been foiled, or at least stalled, because it couldn't find enough customers to participate in the testing. TWC had planned to test in several locations, including San Antonio and Austin, Texas, but the response has apparently been so negative, and there were so many complaints, that the company has "delayed" the trials until October. So... maybe if we keep moaning about it the plan will be abandoned altogether? Here's to hoping, anyway. [Via The Register]
squeaky wheel gets the oil
Great, as a Time Warner Cable RoadRunner broadband and digital cable user I don't have to worry about switching my provider(s)...for now. However, rest assured if they do make this change they will be losing my account along with my mother's and girlfriend's whom I have influence over. While we're at it TWC stop trying to nickle and dime us on the DVR pricing or I'll be kissing those goodbye too. A good strategy would be actually lowering prices. Also start increasinng your RoadRunner upload speeds or we'll all be kissing you goodbye anyways. Finally, a word about those stupid orange cones you make your employees put out when they park. I want to encourage every TWC customer to subsidize their bill by starting to swipe them and selling them on eBay.
yup, i already said screw you to DVR from cable companies. i just wish that the cablecard infrastructure was so messed up and screwed us DIY HTPC peeps (stupid cablecard certified crap!!!! arggg!!!)
Public rage doesn't seem to work on comcast. :(
- Don't touch our Internets, bitches!
So they think come October people will suddenly want to jump on board with this?
No, they are hoping we will all forget and then they will roll it out as quietly as possible, hoping no one will notice.
Just like Billy Bob and the Boxmasters ?
Time Warner Cable needs to go away.
still we pay more and get less... fvck TW
I'm lucky. I have three choices in high speed.
1) Time Warner - coax
2) SureWest - coax
3) AT&T Uverse - copper/fiber from the node
The only one I'm missing is Verizon FIOS. I don't expect it to roll out any time soon though. I'm not in a Verizon territory.
So, the second TW tries to pull it's crap I'm jumping ship to one of the other services. I let them know in an email already.
finally power to the people!
Stand up for your rights, This is bad. Maybe I should start that here or something. Rogers is like that but I get Unlimited Bandwidth for $75/month. Tricked them on their own policies.
Yeah. I'm still shocked our opinions actually count.
Now, world peace?
This is has absolutely nothing to do with "rights." Except for your right to not give them your money which is precisely what the people offered testing did. A dollar is a powerful ballot sometimes.
just to clarify.. i said nothing about "rights", i'm all for voting with your money.
Fi-OS
Up to 50/20 mbps !
Over 200 HD Channels !
Unlimited Bandwidth on All Plans !
Call today!
Yeah right, not available at your location
The very second it comes to the Milwaukee area I'll call. Till then its AT&T or TimeWarner.
Yeah--in Milwaukee it's 10Mb. TWC, or 6Mb. AT&T DSL. Ugh.
yeah.... but one thing.... fios aint everywhere......
last time i heard it was only tampa.... any progress yet??
man if they rolled that out everywhere people would be jumping onboard like CRAZY. they aren't even to SF yet so i guess there's no hope for them going to smaller places.
My experience here in Philly is that they are doing the burbs first. So SF might be behind the smaller places.
There is pretty good availability throughout the northeast, particularly in New York and New Jersey (where I am located). There are about 13 million home with access to FiOS :)
http://www.dslreports.com/gmaps/fios
i'm in phoenix AZ. the way i understand it, qwest owns all the lines here. verizon is not an option for anything but cell service in this city. qwest is rolling out their own sh!tty fiber to the home netowrk with less than impressive speeds, and i don't see a possibility of FIOS getting here..... ever. so for now and the forseeable future, i'm on cable. till cellular high speed exceeds its capabilities for the price.
@love it, Availability in NY is pretty good, but the Rochester city government and Frontier aren't letting Verizon in. That and the fact that we're a huge college town, I'm pretty sure, are the 2 reasons they decided to try to cap us. I can get FiOS an hour drive in either direction (Buffalo and Syracuse), but the city needs to get its act together and realize that Frontier DSL is BS...
I have TWC and hate it soooooo much!!!! so tired of their useless internet. I just received a call today from AT&T that uverse (and their internet) is available in my address...switching this week!!!! The money I will pay to TWC to cancell my stupid 2 years contract will be the best money I ever spent!!!
People have spoken. Seriously, Time Warner, stop now before you lose more customers!
(I'm actually in Austin...and was furious when I first read about this in the paper)
I just hope enough people are smart enough, that once this is implemented (and TWC still decides to spread it to all consumers) that people jump to ATT, VIoS, or other alternatives....just something to show TWC that aside from complaints....they're not hollow ones.
Thank God everyone complained. That crap is a terrible idea.
I'll make sure my gf keeps moaning. :)
How did they think this would work?
The only way anyone would sign up is if TWC sends out a letter detailing a user's usage and telling them that they could save money. In other words, a bunch of grannies using email only get letters saying "hey, your usage is less than 1GB a month--you can save by switching to this plan".
For most people first off they don't know how much bandwidth they're using, so they have no idea if they'll save money. And for a large number of people of course they want unlimited service.
Hooray! I can keep my TWC cable connection until October.
The day these caps are instated I'm switching cable providers.
Give me 250GB / mo (with some sort of rollover) or give me another cable service provider.
All I can say is HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Now that's done. The only way they would be able to even get the public to even consider something this stupid is if their prices were insanely low. Like 10 a TB a month and no fees hidden or otherwise.
I wish there would be some uproar over the caps Charter Communications started in February. They are more reasonable than TW. 100GB on accounts up to 15mb, 250GB on accounts 15mb to 25mb, and unlimited on the 60mb plan, but the 60mb plan is close to $140 I think. Why is Time Warner the only company getting heat. Probably because Charter hid it in the small print of the Feb bill and didn't bother telling anyone about it. And as far as I can tell (I exceed the cap every month) they aren't enforcing it yet.
Probably because TimeWarner's has been the most ridiculous. 60GB a month for a 10-15mb plan! That's absurd!
shutterfly sent me an email after kodakgallery claims they would delete my photos if there's no purchase on account... claiming that they would keep my photos even there's no purchase.
I would imagine competitor of time warner will do that same...
They're not abandoning these plans, they just changed a date. This is no sign of any progress from a consumer standpoint. Time Warner is still going ahead with their horrible plans. People still need to stand up and complain.
Excellent. Whatever causes them to change or postpone their plans for the cap is a good thing. I was seriously looking into a DSL alternative, as bad as DSL is.
What do you have against DSL? I know in some areas you might not get as fast a speed, as cable, or perhaps your uploads aren't as fast as they could be. On the other hand, where I'm at, I get 10 Mbps with CenturyTel for the exact same price my Dad is paying Charter Cable for 2 Mbps!
DSL is generally crap in my area. I'm not aware of a service that offers more than 2.5 down, while I am getting 6+ through cable. My dad had DSL & it was dirt slow.
DSL may be the bee's knees elsewhere, but not in Cincinnati.
Here in Cincy DSL is fine I get 5mbps down and I live in West Harrison which is a very rural area, and I had 6 mbps down when I lived in Middletown. I think Cincinnati Bell told me I can get 10 mbps down here soon. I know it's not as fast as cable but I'm sure as hell not going to switch to a service that may be capped in the future.
The day this is implemented, I will be switching to ATT Uverse.
they're still going ahead with trials in NY and NC...dont mess with texas?
They're not cancelled here in Rochester. Indeed, they're moved up to August.
I don't think they cancelled anything, they just clarified exactly what their plans are going to be.
Rochester's getting a rally together about this, on saturday.
http://futureunderground.net/ has some info, there is also a FB event I cant find right now
Hopefully we'll get taken out of their "test" soon.
(The only thing they're "testing" is "can we really get away with this?")
I moaned. I moaned loudly. I might be in the non-test market TWC monopoly that is Manhattan but reading that really pissed me off so I moaned. Though in all honesty, I would switch to Fios if I didn't live in a 100 year old building that will get Fios the same year we evolve into a whole new species
Someone made an excellent point on the radio: they market this as a "fairness" tool to ensure people who overuse thier services are not paying to little, while people who use the service very little are not overcharged. Well, I watch 2-3 shows a week on various cable channels, but I pay the same as someone who keeps 5 HDTVs on all the time and consumes massive bandwidth that way. I don't see them putting any caps on TV usage, nor do I see them offering a-la-carte options so I can buy the 5 damn channels that I watch and not pay for 1000 that I don't. I don't even speak the language of 10 of the channels, why do I pay for that? How is that fair? But apparantly, bandwidth for downloads is a limited resource; bandwidth for TV is unlimited to the point of forcing content on people. BS.
PS, I live in Austin, and the minute they roll out caps at TW, AT&T will get a call from me.
Well, the technology is different, and so while the analogy is good, its not perfect.
With regular cable tv, you pay for a certain amount of bandwidth (channels) that are always streamed to your tv's, only watch a certain amount at a time (DirecTV's 8 sports channels at a time mucks things up a bit). If you have the TV on all day, you only consume.......
....screw it, they are both complicated (with OnDemand and multiple tvs and phone and such). You are right. TV takes up way more bandwidth (Comcast is even compressing HD channels even more, they already look like crap). If cable had better infrastructure (like Fios), they could offer more bandwidth, ie no data caps! They are just trying to push people to watch programming on their expensive regular cable. Its content control now.
Well, not defending TWC, but that is not exactly the way TV works. All TV channels are broadcast all the time to your house. They just charge you more to unlock more of them. So its not like anyone is using more bandwidth to watch 5 channels at once instead of 1 since all of the channels are being fed in the pipe. (However, I do think On-Demand might be actually streamed on-demand, not sure though).
However, it is a good point that if they care so much about the casual user, they don't offer some cheaper "pick your own channels" tv or something.
I don't claim to know how the magic that makes my TV work actually works, but are you saying that there is the same amount of bandwidth used between TW's local distribution point and my house whether I have the TV off or I am watching a 2-hour HD movie (at about 3GB, I'd guess)? The water in my pipes is waiting just outside my faucet in the pipes, waiting for me to turn it on. But is my episode of Biggest Loser just sitting in the lines, along with 1500 other shows, just waiting to get in, and they've sent it hoping I'll watch? Methinks not, but meknows not...
Think you need to keep TV separate from Pay Per View ON Demand programming. TV is streamed to your house all the time whether you watch it or not, its just whether your set top box decodes it based on your account settings. Hence, when you switch to a show already in progress, you don't start at the beginning. Movies on Demand is very different. That is streaming on demand and requires content servers at their end to queue up the requested content and stream it specifically to you. Kind of like a Netflix over the web rental. Speaking of which, Netflix probably has more to do with TW wanting to impose bandwidth caps than infrastructure issues. As brick and mortar video rental stores all go Chapter 11, TW is now feeling the pinch to their revenue stream from Netflix, iTunes Rentals. If there is any infrastructure issue it is because TW wants to use more of the available bandwidth to deliver Pay Per View services. I.E. nickel and dime you somewhere else while claiming to save you money if you have low internet usage.
@JoeNES
Yes, that is correct. Think of it as like radio stations. They are always broadcasting their signal, whether you are listening to it or not. It is the same with Live TV on cable, all channels are always being sent. Your cable box knows what subscription plan you have so it knows to not let you watch channels you aren't paying for (like parental control blocking channels).
Well, its actually not that simple.
Sure the ANALOG channels are all broadcast. But increasingly, especially on Time Warner, the digital channels are becoming switched, meaning that they aren't broadcast unless somebody on your plant is watching them. Which allows them to support more channels and allocate more bandwidth for internet etc on the same plant.
So to some extent the analogy is still valid. To some extent.
Well actually the way TW(in Rochester and Austin especially) are going for TV delivery, the analogy applies better and better. Pretty much all the channels added over the last couple of years(including most of the HD channels) are delivered via switched digital video(SDV) where (as best I understand it), a number of channel frequencies(and keep in mind that cable modem and digital cable frequencies overlap) are set aside and the settop boxes on a given cable segment(probably neighborhood) actually request what channel they want to see, and it gets assigned to one of the available frequencies(if available...I've had times when it told me that I had to try again later for that channel). So in the SDV model a person with a standard def TV is likely rarely using up one of the SDV channels where a HDTV watcher would be...that seems to fit the analogy.
Time Warner isn't in my market, but if they were I would burn they suckas down.
I get stuck with Qwest and their 7mbits for 46.99 a month which will go up to 59.99 in a year.
The day TW caps my service, i wont complain,... i'll simply cancel the service and go to someone else ....
(FiOS)
Wait you can get FiOS now? Why the hell are you still with TWC then?
When cancelling and they ask you the reason, shout it out, "DATA CAPPING SUCKS, PIGS". The might listen to that.
@ krische
your comment actually made me wonder .....
i'm switching over today.
Thanks.
I fired an email at TWC stating that if they enforce a bandwidth cap I'm switching all my services to AT&T and Dish.
Just sent TWC an email saying if they bring this to my area I am canceling my subscription.
there is going to be protest this saterday in greensboro. http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/04/15/article/time_warner_cable_protest_planned_for_saturday
I have FioS
I have jealousy.
I had FIOS, but then moved to a non-FIOS state, so now I have Comcast.
I will say that I really liked FIOS for Internet, but after trying to help family members that had their TV service with "Whole House DVR" (or whatever Verizon calls it), I was less than thrilled with that aspect of their service.
Still I really miss the reliable download and high upload speeds. I will jump right back on if they ever come out to my area.
all they're gonna do is delay it till October and make mandatory instead of asking nicely today.
Where do they think this will work? I mean what guy in one of these meetings said "You know what would be a great idea? Lets publicly and openly take away services in a general way to all of our customers."?
I have FiOS and Cablevision actually came to my house to try and get me to come back... I told them if they gave me service for free, I might come back to Cablevision... The rep didn't laugh.
I laughed. :)
lol thanks for that i laughed too.
Also, TWC HDTV quality SUCKS SO BADLY!
They must compress the shit out of the signal, because any time I'm out on Long Island and the lucky sonofabitch has FiOS, I'm constantly in a state of jealousy/awe at how much crisper the picture is.
BRING FiOS to NYC!!!!!!!!!!
One good thing about this is just the thought of caps made me load software to track my usage. So far this month I've used around 7 Gigs up and down, and that doesn't count my PS3 or Ipod. Hopefully they drop this whole nonsense, but if/when they decide to pull the trigger I'll have a better idea of what I use and need. The less money I can give to TW the better.
what kind of software did you use to monitor your usage?
Its a program call AnalogX NetStat Live. It's simple to use and understand, I'm not sure if it is the best but it works fine for me.
http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/nsl.htm
damn i was hoping it would work for both mac and PC. thanks anyway
greedy, greedy Time Warner.............sad
I remember the days when people paid by the hour to connect to AOL via dialup. I'll go without before I use anything other than unlimited broadband.
I am a TWC customer in NY. I heard from a TWC employee that TWC might be sold to COMCAST because TWC had been spun from the TW group.
When my unlimited becomes consumption based or TWC is spun off to COMCAST, I will no longer be their customer. I will switch to FIOS before it even gets close - though FIOS costs more - or as a backup, there is always DSL.
The only way anyone will agree to trial this is if it has a potential to lower their costs. If the plan is structured such that users who are now paying $40-45/month can limit their usage a little and pay $30/month, they'll go for it. The idea that internet charges might go from $45/month to $150/month without any increase in service for some users is ridiculous, and it's no wonder they aren't getting support for their trials.
*chants*
no means no! no means no! no means no!
/end-chant
as for the matter at hand. I'm all for it, IF IT'S ACTUALLY FAIRLY IMPLEMENTED, and not just some tool for them to make more money!
I'm at my gf's apt. about 80% of the time, so I really don't use much bandwidth at my own apt. whatsoever. If they wanna cut my broadband bill (and cable TV bill, for that matter!) down by 80%, then it's frankly fine by me. But something tells me they won't be doing this!
FUCK YOU, TIME WARNER!
*chants*
no means no! no means no! no means no!
/endchant
I too have just sent an email to TWC telling them that I will switch to AT&T if they roll this out.
I cannot believe that the TWC people who came up with this idea are so dumb. Unless there is a consensus amongst all the ISP's, this isn't going to work. I would happily go to slower DSL than have caps.
Uverse where are you in Austin?
if there is a consensus, that's a form of price fixing, which is very much illegal.
TW is selling their cable company...or already has...so is the issue really with TW or is it with the new owner?
This just show how pathetic Canada's broadband system is. Rogers has been having these data caps for more than a year now and yet, no one has said anything to them. I guess the monopoly is working for them. Oh man there is monopoly in every field in Canada
They could very well lose tens of thousands of customers in Austin alone if implemented. Don't mess with the geeks!
It's got nothing to do with bandwidth. It's an anti-competitive move on their part to make services other than their own to be more expensive. They don't like Netflix download services, Xbox/PS3/WII media services, or Slingbox/Hava place shifters, Youtube, Hulu, etc. It's all about suppressing these providers by making them too expensive to use so they can fill in the space.
I feel like I made a difference with the e-mail I sent voicing my disapproval of their tier based pricing. Even if I just added one e-mail to the thousands others have sent.
Thank the lord, at least the listened to the people, that was gonna be terrible. WAY TO GO AUSTIN
Time Warner internet is listening to its customers? Holy crap! The end is near! Repent!
I live in Rochester NY. When I first heard I called to complain(as did everyone) and told them that despite being satisfied with their cable TV service and owning an excessively expensive HDTV I would be canceling it to help cover the cost of the metered internet pricing. I also told them the second a viable alternative internet service was available in my area be it FIOS, DSL or hell even a tethered 3G solution I would be dropping their internet service as well.
When the dust settles I would/will not be signing back up for cable TV service, instead id just watch everything online via another company. Sure it might take some time for the situation to sort itself out but long-term all it means to them is they lost a customer of 11 years for good.
The only question the customer service rep asked me was why I'd be willing to potentially pay more to cancel/create services with several companies to make that happen. I simply told him it was not about price but principal. Id gladly pay double if I knew the company wasnt trying to screw me over.
I guess alot of people are smart enough to do/say the same things :)
It's like they think the customer is just this annoying thing that gets between them and their money.
we're pretty much aware of FiOS, but its not in our area. I believe TW is doing this to grab as much $$ as possible before FIOS becomes available everywhere, then TW bails out when their last customer leaves them. But this pretty much extends my service till fall, so I'll stick around. TW, if youre reading, you know what kind of shit your company will go thru in 2010.
This needs to be stamped on and stamped upon hard by all consumers. Data capping and throttling is rife in the UK due to British Telecom and their restrictive practises.
In the rest of Europe, things are pretty free and when I visit the UK it is like going back a generation with people trying desperately to manage "how much data they download."
This must not be allowed to even begin in the US. Once it gets in you will NEVER be rid of it.
JUST SAY NO!
It all just seemed like a way to squeeze consumers more, by going to DOCSIS 3 while capping data amounts. It would force consumers to validate (and sometimes spend more on) cable's video services. That's essentially a violation of Net Neutrality, as it limits your ability to utilize your Netflix subscription to stream videos, while the cable company forces you to use their video services.
Fuck TW. FIOS FTW! Hope the press attention moves the internet competition forward vs. the cable monopolies! Also maybe the FCC will take a look at this too...
If this crappy-data-cap ever comes to my town, I'll go back to AT&T DSL even though it's slower.
I sent a letter to my local Time Warner office (Palm Springs Area) and told them that if they even THINK about this crap, I will take all of my business to Verizon FIOS. I had FIOS internet and phone and was very pleased with the reliability and speeds, but was still forced to use Time Warner for TV since satellite doesn't carry our local network feeds in HD.