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Internet provider to test billing on usage, rather than flat fee
"Time Warner Cable Inc said on Wednesday it is planning a trial to bill high-speed Internet subscribers based on their amount of usage rather than a flat fee, the standard industry practice.
The second largest U.S. cable operator said it will test consumption-based billing with subscribers in Beaumont, Texas later this year as a part of a strategy to help reduce congestion of its network by a minority of consumers who pay the same monthly fee as light users. The company believes the billing system will impact only heavy users, who account for around 5 percent of all customers but typically use more than half of the total network bandwidth, according to a company spokesman. Slowing network congestion due to downloading of large media files such as video is a growing problem for Time Warner Cable. The company said the problem will worsen as video downloading becomes more popular. But the move could prove controversial. Unlike with utility bills such as the phone or electricity, which have traditionally been based on usage, U.S. high-speed Internet subscribers have come to expect a fixed monthly charge. An Internet bill typically only varies based on the speed of the consumer's Internet access. Time Warner Cable, which has 7.4 million residential Internet subscribers, is hoping the move will not confuse consumers if introduced nationwide and is planning a trial period. "Largely, people won't notice the difference," said the Time Warner Cable spokesman. "We don't want customers to feel they're getting less for more." News of Time Warner Cable's plans was originally leaked on an online industry forum BroadbandReports.com. Other cable operators may follow Time Warner Cable's lead and phone companies such as Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T Inc are likely to be watching the New York-based cable operator's plans. As U.S. consumers have become more used to streaming and downloading digital media over the Web, their Internet service providers have started to come under pressure to be able to keep up with growing demand in a cost-effective manner. Comcast Corp, the largest cable operator with around 13 million Internet subscribers, has been accused by consumer groups of blocking Web traffic moving across its networks, prompting a notice of inquiry by the Federal Communications Commission earlier this week. Comcast denies it blocks any Internet traffic saying it uses bandwidth management technology to help improve the customer experience but which may slow down some file transfers" http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080117/...er_internet_dc I know they say most won't notice a difference but I hope this crap doesn't catch on. I thought the days of pay per use were long gone. Also bearing in mind that other broadband companies are eyeing this closely such as At&T and Comcast to see the results. They said the only ones who will notice a difference are heavy internet users. Well I guess that means a lot of us cuz my internet is always on and I like it that way :-/ |
Re: Internet provider to test billing on usage, rather than flat fee
Didn't they try that when dial up first started, then they changed it within like a year.
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Re: Internet provider to test billing on usage, rather than flat fee
Oh it was a few years. Dial up was excusive and costly back in the day. I just think this is a step backward though.
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Re: Internet provider to test billing on usage, rather than flat fee
If they give a choice, I think it's good. Save the poor person who's only on a few hours per month some $$$.
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Re: Internet provider to test billing on usage, rather than flat fee
I would hate to see the bills that some of the WOW regulars will get if this goes through.
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Re: Internet provider to test billing on usage, rather than flat fee
WoW doesn't use that much bandwidth...downloading films and music does...
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Re: Internet provider to test billing on usage, rather than flat fee
Foolish.... they need to offer tiers, and throttle down the speed of those who want cheap access.
Otherwise, someone else is going to come in and offer it for a bit less, and they lose anyway. |
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1. Home light 750K = 19.95 2. Home medium 1.5K = 29.95 3. Home high 3.0M = 35.95 4. Home extreme 6.0M = 50 something A lot of folks that I know who download the "must haves" use the 6.0 and say it's "awesome", many music files are finished before they can get the folder destination distributed, and movie files are seconds to the minute now. I'm sure this caught somebodies eyes?! |
Re: Internet provider to test billing on usage, rather than flat fee
<font color=lime>I pay 21.95 for 3.0M a month. :showoff: </font>
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Re: Internet provider to test billing on usage, rather than flat fee
I think this experiment isn't going to go well. If the company tries to set up the new pricing plan so that they get the same amount of $$ as under the current plan, then there will be a decent percentage of users who have their bills go up.
Many of them will then switch to an alternate, flat fee, provider (especially the really heavy users), meaning that TWC would need to raise the rates on the lighter users who are left--resulting in another wave of switching. Unless this idea catches on and all the major providers switch to pay by use, TWC will lose out (as light users get to pay less, and heavy users go with flat-rate competitors). |
Re: Internet provider to test billing on usage, rather than flat fee
What REALLY sux is that many counties thruout the US grant exclusive rights (read monopoly) to a cable provider in their county. I am not neccessarily against this practice, if the provider would do something like,,,,YOUR FEE IS BASED ON YOUR USE!!!!!
With NO competition, then the only market drag is government regulation. Pick your poison. |
Re: Internet provider to test billing on usage, rather than flat fee
I am comfortable right now paying $55/mo. to TWC for my 8MB connection. I would be fine with TWC giving a break to people that use the internet alot less than me and lowering their bill, but I will not pay more than my $55 which I think pays for my usage well enough. I could not see any reason why they'd need more than that from me.
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Now if the goal is to get the heavy users to leave to ease the pressure on their system, then a pay by use plan would have exactly that effect (light users bills go down, so they stay, heavy users get charged more, and leave). |
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The average high speed user does not use his connection. These people log on to check their emails and visit their blogs. They're paying for something like 4 megs per seconds unlimited high speed access, but they don't use that. So what do the networks do? They resell that connection. Hey, if they can sell that same 4 megs/s line to multiple users, why not? But gasp! People are actually starting to use their connection and we sold more than we can handle! Let's threaten, overcharge and throttle these "abusers" who dares use what they pay for! We can just point at mom and pop accounts for justification. Seriously. If they sold you a 4 megs/s line, then you can not abuse, it's impossible. All you can ever do is 4 megs per seconds! Isn't that what they advertised as and you paid for? If five percent of their users can use fifty percent of the network, then maybe they shouldn't have been so greedy and oversold their network. |
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