Comments on: Time-Warner Road Runner Service’s Usage Cap Test: 5-40GB Per Month

By: Brian Hill

Brian Hill — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:13:00 +0000

Heres a podcast documentary talking about Time Warners plan along with the child prot\ection crusaders plotting for net control, net spying, and net censorship.

http://current.com/items/89953332/the_start_of_a_orwellian_internet_society_brought_in_by_time_warner.htm

By: Shari

Shari — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:31:07 +0000

3 people in our family play mmorpg’s. Probably around 30 hours of gaming DAILY total … and that’s on weekdays. One of us downloads 10 gig games on a monthly basis, and on occasion we stream movies from netflix. We’re a normal family … and currently have RR Turbo to keep up with us all. This plan pulls the Turbo off the table, which is the start of the trouble… paying the same as turbo for less bandwidth? Then you have to wonder whether they really mean the 34 hours of gameplay per gig… will they stick to that, or is that subjective? Different bandwidth meters give different results, and none of the ones i’ve tried gave me those. Everything else showed us using close to 40 gigs within a week. They really need to pass out the meters ahead of time if they’re set on doing this. I can’t afford a dollar per gig if we’ll be going over by 120 or more per month… that surprise bill the first month wouldn’t be very kind to an internet dependant family like ours ^^

By: Terry

Terry — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:45:59 +0000

I see the good points and bad, but lets face the fact that this is a step backward for technology. I understand that not everyone uses the internet the same way. I also believe that there is an unsided bias that goes with this bandwidth cap. There is constant mention of controlling traffic of those who download from torrent sites, or host content themselves – the “abusers” if you will. On the other side, there is mention of the poor internet challenged individual who merely looks to read the news and check the email. These people may use the internet more than they realize…

What about all of those Xbox 360 and PS3 owners out there? There are all kinds of add-ons that you download for your games that are hundreds of MB in size. But I’m not just talking about gaming. These consoles are geared toward the next generation of how we get our media….Streamed. Both platforms offer video download, and those of you who have downloaded HD programming know the files can be huge. Netflix offers streaming video on Xbox 360, and aside from consoles they also offer there own video streaming box that hooks to your tv. At some point, we may just be watching our everyday television via the internet. How will the TWC caps affect this? Easy, you’ll be paying for every bit of it. (Sorry Netflix, I will be cancelling my subscription in July.)

For those of you who have the next generation of smart phones, do you use the wifi capability in your home because you get a better signal? I have the blackberry curve and on my phone I have wifi with UMA. Im not sure what it stands for, but basically when im home, it links to my home network and sends all of my text messages, email, and even my voice calls through the internet instead of a cell tower. I had to laugh when I realized I pay tmobile to use my internet for the voice calls. Now it looks as though I may pay even more for those calls if I happen to go over my monthly internet cap.

And what about those great offers for VOIP phone service? It makes sense that all that talking we do on the phone translates into some amount of data per second that we will pay for. We may as well go back to using hard lines for our phone use.

Does this mean we can now sue all those companies that like to add the autoupdate feature to their PC software? Your operating system has to update itself to be more secure. If you have antivirus, firewall, malware blocker, or spyware blocker software you download updates daily to be more secure. Many of these programs you pay a subscription for, and now you may be paying for the updates as well. Are we supposed to turn this stuff off now and jeopardize our security to save money? And those are all the basic programs. Don’t forget about all of those other add-ons that probably came with your pc. They all want you to have the latest version.

What happens when you are nearing your 40G cap and you contract a virus that mass emails from your pc? Hopefully your AV caught it before you start paying extra to TWC!

And finally, I wonder if Timewarner has really thought about the fact that they will be instigating criminal activity because of this change in internet usage. Think about it. How many people out there buy routers and do not secure them because they either dont know how, or do not want to be hassled with entering passwords? Tightening the bandwidth may help line TWC’s pockets but will undoubtedly force some to prey on open networks. Think of the mess that will create. That poor email jockey that claims they never use the internet suddenly gets a whopper bill from TWC. How will they prove they should not have to pay for it? Ultimately, it’s their IP that will run the bill up. Better staff up in customer service Timewarner, I hear the phones ringing now….

Ok. Before I get responses that I am going overboard and some of the things I mentioned use minimal bandwidth, doesnt it stand to reason that collectively these things could add up over time and force even a so called “non-internet abuser” to go over their alloted usage per month?

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:23:49 +0000

The beginning of the end of net neutrality. I am waiting for TW to say, “oh if you go to one of our partner websites it won’t go against your usage cap”.

This is also aimed squarely at the “I don’t need cable” I can download my episodes user. Not after this.

What an anti-business, anti-consumer crock of snow this is. The amount of patent misinformation coming from Time Warner will be a sight to see.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:53:58 +0000

I think this will have a big impact. when dsl started to put caps on its usage cable took the first chance they had to save money since there was no more competition. this will start to destroy the economy even more. because avg. users will be so paranoid about going over the cap they will cut their browsing 50% leaving online only businesses to fend for themselves. in turn making more and more businesses go bankrupt and close as more and more companys follow the cap trend. plus not to mention the business sites will have to cut down on the ads they have on their sites as those ads consume bandwidth. thus making them lose even more money. see my friends this is a good example of what would happen if amd went bankrupt it would affect us as a whole. plus i just upgraded my lite version to standard and they told me oh phone “oh dsl puts caps on their service we let you use as much as you need” i didnt even get my digital phone installed as of this comment. and its not like i can switch to dsl they are starting the same trend. the switch to HD with channels is sucking up bandwidth too making it worse

By: Dixie Cathcart

Dixie Cathcart — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:17:48 +0000

Recently I haave had a lot of difficulty keeping DSL service connnected by Time Warner connected. NOW they have not only increase the 29.99 start up package to 39.95 each month but have just added $10 to the current fees, I do not have their bundle)this was a personal choise, and it is only a contract-which I wish I could cancel- that keep me using this service.
I don’t like to have the service jump
$20 just because they can do it. Stop this robbery of the service some of the online student need and get back to service

By: Lucas

Lucas — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 02:58:13 +0000

i look at it a different way. why should someone who barely uses the net pay the same as someone that is on all the frigging time. if the cable companies create flexible plans with perhaps a ‘buy more gigs’ option or even a pay as you go where you can buy X gigs and then when you use them up buy more, it’s not so bad.

By: GMan

GMan — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:46:25 +0000

I second your last paragraph result. But seriously question if TWC hasn’t already started monitoring our usage as well as holding it down to a level they consider is enough! And surely what they consider and what is actually appropriate are completely out of sync with one another. I myself download more than any average user and if this so called plan was directed at users such as myself, I would not get past two days before they were cutting me off or billing me for hundreds of dollars worth of so called bandwidth i.e.: MB up/downloaded material (streamed). I say not only should they not be allowed to even consider this sort of activity. They should in fact be looking at increasing the available bandwidth already provided across this country. It is as most of us already know not even close to being sufficient to our needs and or our growth expectations for the future of broadband service (s). I am in no way surprised to hear of this so called plan by the one and only TWC Company. Iâ€™ve seen their business practices first hand and without a better terminology to use Iâ€™ll use what best describes them, to me â€œ They Suckâ€. That said, I trust will not have a need to worry over this issue for much longer. Surely with a new administration on its way in, the new and improved powers that be will never allow it. It can only result in stifling our ability to remain not only competitive but also can keep us ahead of the pack in our pursuit of a bigger better line of communication between countries, companies and people of the world. Bigger is not always better but surely it is when we speak of our ability to communicate with one another! The old DRM for broadband! What next, banning books maybe!!!!!! Who would even consider such, in 2008? Nuf- said. Letâ€™s face it the bottom line here is growth without growth. The day we started believing that stocks were only worth owning as long as they remained growth stocks was the day we signed our own death certificate. A company can be profitable even if it isnâ€™t growing at all. The myth of growth stocks was invented just as the myth of higher taxes cause layoffs and or productivity slowdowns. Itâ€™s all BS. It may be the difference between the CEO buying a new yacht this year or another beach house but itâ€™s not going to affect the working class even slightly. Do you really think that additional taxes on millionaires and large oil companies is going to shut them down or cause them to layoff anyone? Yeah, when monkeys fly out of your buttsâ€¦ Itâ€™s always the same when it comes to the consumer in this country, we pay and the top money earners donâ€™t itâ€™s just that simple. So, what does this have to do with curbing bandwidth. Everything if you look at it in the proper light. TWC needs to show growth so since they arenâ€™t able to attract enough new customers to show said growth they bump up your monthly service fees and Walla, youâ€™ve got growth. At least as shown on their quarterly report you doâ€¦.but real growth, well that is debatable. In closing we should all have the same answer to these question. Not no but Hell No! No DRM, No Bandwidth scaling and no more BS! Give us what you advertise and what we pay for. Itâ€™s not rocket science. Donâ€™t promise what you donâ€™t plan to deliver.