[Infowarrior] - Time Warner Unveils 40 GB Bandwidth Cap

[Richard Forno]

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Time Warner Unveils 40 GB Bandwidth Cap
8:51 PM - April 3, 2009 by Marcus Yam
Source: Tom's Hardware US – Category : Miscellaneous

Time Warner Cable will soon be expanding its bandwidth capping plans  
to more cities.

ZoomAt a time when new media and entertainment delivery systems are  
evolving and leaning on internet distribution, internet service  
providers are cracking down on the bandwidth that its users consume.

Time Warner Cable, which owns the Road Runner internet service, will  
this month begin monitoring the activity of its customers in Austin,  
TX, San Antonio, TX and Rochester, NY, according to BusinessWeek. Roll  
out of the new program will happen sometime closer to summer, with  
Greensboro, NC being the first city to see the change.

New customers in those markets will be put on tiered and capped plans  
with monthly bandwidths limits starting at a miniscule 5 GB for the  
entry level $29.95 fee all the way to an paltry 40 GB for $54.90. The  
levels will be 5, 10, 20 and 40 GB, with overages charged at $1 per GB.

"We need a viable model to be able to support the infrastructure of  
the broadband business," Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt said in an  
interview. "We made a mistake early on by not defining our business  
based on the consumption dimension."

With competitors such as Comcast offering 250 GB cap, Time Warner  
Cable’s top limit of 40 GB seems backwards in comparison.

With video streaming services such as Netflix on the PC, Xbox 360 or  
other set top boxes, such a cap could severely limit utility or make  
internet bills skyrocket. Analysts estimate that a family who opts for  
the 40 GB plan and streams 7.25 hours of online video a week could end  
up spending $200 per month on broadband usage fees. For the sake of  
comparison, the average American household spends 60 hours per week  
watching TV.

Time Warner Cable defends its plans by saying that most people do not  
use that much data. Basing its claims from a trial of 100,000  
customers in Beaumont, TX about 14 percent exceeded their cap and had  
to pay about $19 in overages. Time Warner Cable added that the top  
quarter of users consumed 100 times more data than the bottom quarter  
of users. We explain this simply by that there are those who use the  
internet for modern services such as video delivery, and another type  
of customer that just uses it to send emails.

For the sake of the progression of new technologies, we hope Time  
Warner Cable at least offers its customers a little more freedom in  
how they use the internet.