As a IT Support Tech, I suppose I understand why they are looking at this pricing scheme. Bandwidth costs money*, and as more and more high-bandwidth content comes on line, it costs more to provide access to it. But I would only support such a scheme if the money is truly going to improve the infrastructure, not just line the pockets of the ISP’s management. I personally wouldn’t use that much, but if I did I would expect to pay more for it.

*You’ll notice that “free” internet service has all but disappeared. What is still around is crap.

This is quite normal in other parts of the world.

In Australia, I pay for 12gb(+24gb offpeak), and we’re bandwidth shaped (dial up speed) after using our 12gb up.

On my ISP, if they change their rate plans, you can choose to remain on the one you already have. Their current plans are actually significantly worse than what I have managed to keep, offering 7gb, uploads counted and no offpeak for the same price.

Your internet is still significantly cheaper than here.

They’ve had tier pricing like this for a long time in England. I’m not sure how it is now as I’ve been gone 10 years, but if anyone in the UK has a comment, please speak up!

Here they tend to limit the speed since we’re all on a shared (for the most part) infrastructure. Personally, I don’t mind having some slow periods (there’s not too many) – but I’d have one heck of time trying to justify $150/mo for just Internet service. Not to mention the $100+ for our cell phones, plus the $50+ for cable TV.

You almost need a second job just for the creature comforts anymore.

Austin – where I am – is one of the test markets for this. There’s already an online petition against this here. If anyone is interested, you can find it at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/nocap/petition.html

In the UK some companies give you a bandwidth limit. i.e so much Gb per month and then ramp up the price. Yet, this is becoming much rarier for home and business use.

It is much more common now to just to slow down your speed rather than charge extra for going over your limit.

Everything comes with a “fair use policy”. To get busted you have to be downloading heaps of stuff each and everyday. If you go out once in a while, and turn off your machines. You should never reach this.

All it takes is a little research to find the best deal or a quick call to your ISP to say you are leaving and they all bend over backwards to keep you.

@james R I’m paying $45 a month for 5Gb wireless broadband! I don’t know who you’re with but that seems a lot!

I think the biggest issue with this is that it is perceived to be a way for the ISP’s to make more profits and protect other consumable properties such as landline service & cable TV. And that’s what it appears to be in the Time Warner case.

When we allowed companies to create ‘triple play’ services and bundles, it really squeezed the ISP market in most places of the US. If you didn’t offer more than just broadband, you pretty much couldn’t compete. Now that they have strategically eliminated this group and services like Skype, Ooma, Hulu, YouTube, Streaming Netflix are the big threats to the other services. Because these services run on top of Broadband, these ‘Triple Play’ companies have calculated that this protects any possible revenue loss or shift in consumer behavior.

Now I can in some ways respect that and go with an Electricity metered usage style for the Internet BUT here’s the problem: Everyone should then get the Top download speed available (I haven’t read if TWC is still having ’speed tiers’) and most importantly, the should not QoS various forms of traffic in this model as this would be another way of ‘herding consumers’ to buy the ‘Triple Play’. You should also have a plan the starts at 1GB for $10 for the super lite user that just checks email (a senior citizen as an example).

That all said, those prices of TWC are far out of line with competitors’ plans. The base rate works out to a truly jaw-dropping $6 per GB per month versus almost everyone else is under 50 cents per GB!

I’m with optus, AFAIK it’s either 60 or 70 a month, but we get discount on phone and pay TV. We get 12gb onpeak, 24 offpeak, uploads not counted, which isnt that bad really. There’s no real alternative in my area. We’re too far from the exchange to get a decent speed on ADSL.

Manielse: While TWC’s costs for going over are ridiculous, I’m struggling to feel any compassion for you guys. Even with caps, your internet is still significantly cheaper than here and you actually still have unlimited plans available.

To be honest, I think most people don’t realise that they would be fine with a 40gb cap for example. We’ve got 3 heavy users here, including gaming, steam, software development, youtube, bittorrent, video streaming… and we manage on 12gb/24gb (onpeak/offpeak).

And for the price we pay for that 12gb/24gb, you Americans get 100gb (and much faster access…)

Besides, if their overage charges are that bad, walk! leave them and go to someone else. Surely if they change your plan drastically, even if it is mid contract then you should be able to move, otherwise…. you signed it.

From my perspective – I already pay $55/mo for cable internet – 6Mb/384K from Comcast. Plus $30/mo for wireless internet through AT&T. So I’m at $85/mo for Internet.

The thing that upsets me with all of this, is that they’re charging me for not just the Internet service, but “features” of said connection – like webmail, homepage, and other junk that I’ll never use from them. Not to mention as someone said… using that to cover losses from other services which I don’t subscribe to.

I’ll gladly pay for services I use … but these people are pass through to the content I want. Let me pay for the service. Don’t let me pay for that, and 10 MB of website space, plus 50 email addresses, plus the cost of licensing 30 Rock from NBC for your Digital Cable customers. I’m not a digital cable customer and don’t want to pay for it.

The first company that comes along and offers 100% no frills, no extras, ‘dumb pipe’ internet access for a reasonable fee… I’m there.

@James R – As for not feeling any compassion – look around. People in suits are STEALING from everyone – yourself included. You’re getting taken for every bit of money they can get from you to line their own pockets. Companies are failing all over the place because earnings are down. But somehow the people at the top are still taking home multiple millions of dollars (pounds, whatever) per year. So their income keeps going up, profits keep going down, and our costs keep skyrocketing to cover the difference.

So that’s fine. You keep right on paying through the nose for ’service’. You keep paying for more while they give you less. You keep paying someone millions per year while they run their company into the ground. But I’m going to keep right on making sure that everyone knows when a company is doing whatever they can to steal more from our wallets, because let’s be perfectly honest – this is theft. Where TWC is doing this – there is no other options. The customer can’t just say “I’m going to abc company”… because there is no other options. They aren’t improving the service – they’re charging more, and providing less. And while you may be happy with that, I personally think its garbage and they deserve to get dragged over the coals for even trying it.