SubscribeReaders of the San Antonio Express-News discovered a blazing headline today on the newspaper website: Time Warner to add Internet meters for San Antonio.
When Bryan Lee wants to see just how much bandwidth his Internet connection gobbles up, he logs on to a Web site that tracks his usage on a daily basis.
The 31-year-old project manager for a Dallas-based software company is one of Time Warner’s proverbial guinea pigs in the cable company’s ongoing test of metered service in Southeast Texas.
Before moving to Lumberton, a small town about 12 miles north of Beaumont, he enjoyed unfettered downloads. Nowadays, his monthly usage is capped at 40 gigs. And there’s an extra incentive in place to make sure he’s keeping downloads and video streams in check: overage fees.
“I look at the meter probably once a week,” he said. “It really changes your mind-set with this whole overages thing. You become fearful of going on the Internet.”
After bowing to backlash from customers and Congress over plans to change pricing for Internet usage, Time Warner Cable is moving forward with plans to outfit customers in San Antonio and three other markets with similar measurement tools.
The cable company is hoping the “gas gauges” will make it easier to eventually try again at implementing a billing structure that charges customers varying rates based on Internet usage.
StoptheCap! readers Jimmy and Sebastian noted the article, and the ranting and raving from outraged subscribers down in San Antonio — more than 65 in just the last few hours alone. It’s good to see subscribers are just as mad as they were two weeks ago when the cap “experiment” was on before it was off. And as we have been warning all along, it’s going to be “on” again real soon.
I dropped a comment over there encouraging readers not to simply limit their anger to the comments section on mysanantonio.com, but to also get their butts over here and start getting educated, informed, and prepared to do battle with Time Warner the instant the Time Warner Money Party is back on again.
If you’ve arrived here today because of that comment, welcome to the fight. We’re ordinary subscribers of broadband service from many different companies and in many different cities. We share one thing in common – NO CAPS! Many of the folks you will encounter in our own comment section are also victims survivors of the Time Warner experiment in April in Austin, Rochester, San Antonio, and Greensboro/Triad, NC. We’re all working together to effectively resist money grabs by big cable.
You will find an enormous number of articles, video and audio clips, references, and news here documenting the whole sorry affair. Please bookmark this site and stay in touch. We will have calls to action on a regular basis to effectively keep abusive business practices at bay.
If you’re new, you can find the Comments button adjacent to the headline of the article. Click it and say hello and tell us your story and views.
They never reveal when this “tool” is coming out.
*Sighs*, welcome to about a month ago, San Antonians, but the resources are here.
In case TWC and other Internet Capping Providers haven’t “heard”: your customers overwhelmingly have said that they do not want caps, but we’ll just have to keep repeating it until it sinks in …
I think it will be interesting to see this “gas gauge”.
Will it display “filling up” or “running on empty” ?
Two very different thought patterns.
Too many people went to sleep after Schumer’s speech
One of the things I’m going to do when the Gas Gauge arrives is test it alongside BitMeter to make sure TWC gives honest results. Distrust But Verify, you know….
I know for one, I’m keeping an eye on TW down here in San Antonio. The sad fact is that options are limited for most customers in the area. With 2 million people in the city, as of the 2008 census, and growing… TW will not bully us all around. As the drama drags on, other providers will step up efforts in a weak economy to gobble up those that TW is blindly squeezing the blood out of. I happen to enjoy the quality of service I have, not looking forward to the hard choices that will need to be… Read more »
TWC is basically ruining the greatest technology ever conceived in my opinion. Really pisses me off. Makes me want to be a politician so my voice will at least mean something. Politicians in NC don’t give a shit, none at all.
I am also in San Antonio and am waiting to see the usage meter. If past service is any indication, TWC will bury it on the RR page and then go ahead with caps later anyway! Just remember how TWC works….You wake up one morning and they tell you “Remember the newsgroups you USED to have? Well…..” So call customer service. The response you get is “too bad!” Then when you call to drop service, they cry and moan and offer all sorts of “incentives. “We value our customers…What would it take to keep you?” I have been spending more… Read more »
When they cancelled usenet, that was definitely a sad day as well.
Agreed.
It was wrong for TWC to decide they were too “lazy” to maintain their NNTP / Usenet server (doubtful as to how much maintenance it really requires, though I have to think the downloaders of binaries had something to do with the decision). But again, this seems to be another misinformed “executive” decision on TWC’s part, because unless they are monitoring what binaries are pulled off of Usenet, they are blocking other legitimate and lawful access to Usenet, which any user that is paying for an Internet connection is entitled to. Usenet _IS part of_ the Internet. By not offering… Read more »
All of us in SA need to organize… We need to reach the teenagers that will be affected as soon as the cap comes into effect and later when they get a few years older and become the ones paying for service… They are a valuable resource we need to tap into in order to spread the word and teach their parents… Is there a way we can get in contact and see what we can do?
Oh my google, I forgot about them not offering usenet any more because I switched to Giganews so long ago. Now I am even more pissed off at TWC, I didn’t think it was possible.
4th of July-Declare Independence.
If TWC is your TV provider Fire them! No Money =No power over your life. Civil Disobedience may well mean consumer activism
I already dropped everything not a part of my PLG.. so far I have an extra $40 in my pocket… I was offered all kinds of stuff not to drop all my premium channels but told them no and told them why… I wonder.. “What will I do with all the money I saved?”