Time Warner is looking to rape its customers for money for internet usage. According to a company spokesperson, they will be charging customers based on how much data they download starting later this year. It will be a tiered setup based on how much bandwidth you use per month. It will start as a trial run in Beaumont, Texas, after which the company will decide how and when to roll the program out nationwide.
Personally, I find this to be very shitty. With everything going the way of the download, bandwidth usage is on an exponential rise across the board. With Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, and Amazon all offering movie rental downloads (and some in HD), this will only drive bandwidth needs further for the general public. Online media, from music to movies to games, has grown immensely in the past decade and will only continue to grow at a very fast pace. Time Warner looks to be exploiting that and trying to make a buck on Joe Customer.
They haven’t announced what the bandwidth tiers will be, but I’m expecting the one that falls in line with current pricing won’t be that big. For those of us who game online a lot, download demos and trailers daily and weekly, and rent HD movies online, we can probably expect to see a modest increase in our internet bills in the coming year or so. It’s a pity, really. Other countries see 100Mbps unlimited connections for much less than what we pay for 5-10Mbps.
[via Wired]
5 Comments
Write a Comment»yeah thats fair, but i’ll stick with at&t thank you very much
This is a screwed up situation. The only way I see it working is if they set the low tier as what we get now, and make the higher tier something above and beyond.
But in the end, we’re going to get hosed.
I hate the idea
Stupid company trying to take everyones money. Horrible idea, maybe Congress can get envolved… please please please. Oh well, as long as it doesn’t hit mediacom or atleast one other good cable provider I’ll be fine.
I do not have a problem with this as long as they keep it fair and are not simply looking for a way to charge more money. The ISP’s keep saying that they want to charge heavy internet users more….but what about the people who use the internet in the most limited way, do they get a price break? The ISP’s are now making a fortune and if they want to restructure their payment scale then that is fine as long as they pass the extra earned money from heavy to limited users. Unfortunately, I don’t see them lowering they charges much for their service regardless how much you use it.