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Fighting Words: Time Warner to limit broadband downloads in more cities
There's a broadband battle brewing, and Time Warner just fired the first major shot. The company announced it's going to start limiting data usage for its Road Runner broadband customers in more cities than its single test market in Beaumont, Texas. Stinging from a $16 billion fourth-quarter loss as customers abandon cable in droves, Time Warner must have figured it needs to do something to stop the bleeding.
Company COO Landel Hobbs was short on specifics, but that Texas test program sets a limit of 40GB per month (enough for about two HD movies per week), after which customers are charged for overages. Hobbs didn't say what the limit would be for the additional cities, which cities would be involved, or how much users would be charged for exceeding that limit.
Something's fishy here. Time Warner would rather sell you its on-demand movies and cable TV service than have you using Road Runner to stream or download videos on Apple TV, Netflix box, or numerous other downloading/streaming mechanisms. But Obama's net-neutrality-friendly FCC might not take too kindly to such shenanigans. Them's fightin' words, Time Warner.
Silicon Alley Insider, via Electronista
By MarkMontgomery at 2:02 PM ON 02/04/09
I think it's outrageous that Time-Warner even CONSIDERS charging us extra to use a service that we are already geting screwed for. There's no way that I use enough bandwidth to merit being charged 50$ a month. I download 1000 to 2000 images every day so this decision will definitely affect me. Mark Montgomery boboberg@nyc.rr.com
By Aeolius at 3:17 PM ON 02/04/09
I have been using Time-Warner for TV, Internet, and Phone service for years. If they pulled a stunt like this, however, I would drop them in a heartbeat.
By Dane Bramage at 4:30 PM ON 02/04/09
i don't get it... if people are leaving the service, then why raise prices (which the are effectively doing). i mean... i may leave BECAUSE of this.
By JWWright at 4:35 PM ON 02/04/09
$90 a month to watch endless commercials? No thanks, cable.
Anything I want to see is on DVD or downloaded from P2P.
Cable stinks, especially TimeWarner. How about letting us pick the channels we want, you dirtbags?
By endimion at 5:40 PM ON 02/04/09
Lol i already didn't like the company prior knowing they had a cap.... but now i'm even gonna despise them.... UL or DL caps in the 21st century is a conservative joke.... I'd be over the limit in a day without even DL illegal stuff...they have much to learn from europe on that one
By skullivan at 7:28 PM ON 02/04/09
I left my cable company (Cablevision) for Verizon FiOS specifically because they were capping my upload speed (and I was hardly a heavy user). Limiting data usage is just a surefire way to scare off even more customers.
By Akito38A at 2:57 AM ON 02/05/09
Wow only 40 GB? to be fair most broadband companies (comcast here) Have some sort of term in their contract saying you may be warned or dropped for excessive bandwidth usage. I use Comcast cable and I use a ton of bandwidth All day and all nite. But I am still not violating the agreement. (i vastly exceed 40GB per month)
Oh well I always knew roadrunner sucked. Good job time warner you will lose many customers. Also the reason why many people are leaving cable is They just hear "HIGH SPEED INTERNET." Or "broadband" and switch to DSL saving a lot of money. Of course its typically much slower but most people dont know that.
By vincent at 2:19 AM ON 02/22/09
Comcast has a monthly download cap of 250GB, which is massive compared to the 5GB - 40GB caps that Time Warner is proposing. Among other things I access the Usenet newsgroups and those downloads alone exceed 40GB. I thought the following articles on this topic were interesting:
http://www.newsadmin.com/usenet_commentary/commentary_02162009.asp
http://www.newsadmin.com/usenet_commentary/commentary_02092009.asp
By nerdyman1023 at 12:52 AM ON 04/03/09
at 15mbps it would take about 45 min. to use up a month worth of data. Oh yeah great plan Time Warner, up the download speed so you can start charging users after 45 min of downloading a couple HD movies it's an awesome buisness plan to force your customers to switch to an ISP that doesn't limit how much data you can download.
p.s. as others have said your cables plans are aweful
By Webby at 10:11 AM ON 04/03/09
By SunDown at 7:07 PM ON 04/03/09
All I ask is a little pre-activation notice for a pay-as-you go plan . . . . so I can change to another supplier!
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