Rochester residents learned about Time-Warner’s new Road Runner usage caps on this evening’s newscasts.  WHAM-TV covered the story from the angle of the typical 20-something who uses the Internet like many do these days, fully leveraging streaming video and audio services, downloading music, and participating in social networks.  Of all of the groups to be most impacted by the draconian usage cap Road Runner will impose, it will be the under-30 crowd that will never make it with just 20GB per month.  Many won’t even be able to keep within 40GB.  Parents, in particular, will soon face some major problems with how much their kids are using online.

WHEC-TV examined the story from the typical middle class, middle aged customer who is now faced with the prospect of having to monitor virtually everything they do online to make sure their cap isn’t exceeded.  At a time when financial pressures are at the worst for residents of the Flower City, leave it to Time-Warner to stick it to their most loyal customers with what amounts to a huge rate increase when customers are stuck paying overage fees.  Get less service for more money.

WROC-TV recognizes what Time-Warner’s executives don’t.  The Internet is no longer just a convenience.  It’s part of our daily lives, from the time we get up in the morning to the time we retire for the evening.  For many people, a paradigm shift is about to take place as they realize online rationing is here.  And pay particular note to the fact the primary reason this cap has landed on residents of the Flower City comes from the fact there is no competition from Verizon FIOS, the direct fiber-to-home broadband and video service network being constructed in Buffalo, Syracuse, Binghamton, Albany, and New York City.  Instead, we remain saddled with the uninspired and insufficiently resourced Frontier Communications, which saw fit to announce its DSL service would introduce a 5GB usage cap on its customers last summer.

StoptheCap! was integrally involved in fighting that ridiculous usage cap, and its implementation was indefinitely postponed.  But Time-Warner can safely assume that Rochester is a safe place to slam a usage cap on customers, because Frontier would likely follow with its own.  If that happens, there is nowhere else Rochester residents can turn for unmetered Internet access, something that isn’t true throughout the rest of the state.  That simple fact belies the propaganda from Time-Warner’s corporate spokesperson complaining that Road Runner has somehow become “unprofitable.”  Apparently that’s true only here.  Elsewhere in New York, where Verizon is ready and willing to welcome fleeing Road Runner customers, with no usage cap of any kind, it’s apparently profitable enough.

For many, this is well beyond simply a question of cost — it’s also emoti0nal for many now faced with having to literally ration their online usage, just to help fill Time-Warner’s coffers.

Count Your Gigabytes Time Warner Customers

WROC-TV Wednesday, Apr 1, 2009 @10:03pm EST

Time Warner is changing the way you pay for internet. They’re doing away with unlimited internet at a flat rate. As News 8’s Matt Molloy reports – the bigger the user, the bigger the bill.

For Christan Vosburgh the internet is part of the daily routine.

“I use it to check facebook, myspace I would say I use it about an hour and a half, two hours every night,” said Vosburgh.

Vosburgh like other Time Warner customers pays a flat monthly fee for internet. But that will soon change, the company is introducing a new plan – the more you download the more you pay up.

“The average consumer who does some email and downloads some music they won’t need to know too much,” said Ross Aronson of the Computer Doctor in Henrietta.

But Aronson says if you do more, listen up.

“Every single household that has someone that’s 12 or 13 they are not going to be able to get by on the small plan, it’s going to cost everybody more money,” he said.

Think of it like your cell phone plan, say you have a plan right now with 400 minutes. If you go over that limit you get charged for each additional minute. With the internet instead of minutes it will be gigabytes so if you have a plan with 40 gigabytes a month and you go over you’ll pay more.

Plans range from 5 gigabytes a month to 40. Say you download a 2 hour movie from I-tunes, Aronson says that could take about 1 gigabyte. Time Warner will introduce an online gauge that allows you to track your usage.

“You’re going to have to watch that gas gauge and everyone’s gotta know on a constant basis am I downloading something that’s going to cost me extra money,” said Aronson.

For Vosburgh it means keeping tabs on how much she’s doing online.

“I probably won’t be doing as much on the internet because of it unfortunately,” she said.

The new billing will start later this summer in the Rochester area. Plans will range from $29.95 a month to $54.90. For each gigabyte you go over you’ll pay an additional dollar.