[Infowarrior] - TW Cable Links Broadband Prices With Usage

[Richard Forno]

Time Warner Links Web Prices With Usage
Thursday January 17, 7:42 am ET
Time Warner Cable Will Do Trial on Setting High-Speed Internet Charges Based
on Usage

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080117/time_warner_cable_internet.html?.v=2

NEW YORK (AP) -- Time Warner Cable will experiment with a new pricing
structure for high-speed Internet access later this year, charging customers
based on how much data they download, a company spokesman said Wednesday.

The company, the second-largest cable provider in the United States, will
start a trial in Beaumont, Texas, in which it will sell new Internet
customers tiered levels of service based on how much data they download per
month, rather than the usual fixed-price packages with unlimited downloads.

Company spokesman Alex Dudley said the trial was aimed at improving the
network performance by making it more costly for heavy users of large
downloads. Dudley said that a small group of super-heavy users of downloads,
around 5 percent of the customer base, can account for up to 50 percent of
network capacity.

Dudley said he did not know what the pricing tiers would be nor the download
limits. He said the heavy users were likely using the network to download
large amounts of video, most likely in high definition.

It was not clear when exactly the trial would begin, but Dudley said it
would likely be around the second quarter. The tiered pricing would only
affect new customers in Beaumont, not existing ones.

Time Warner Cable is a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc., the world's largest
media company.