SubscribeStatement from Landel Hobbs, Chief Operating Officer, Time Warner Cable
RE: Consumption based billing trials
4-9-09
Some recent press reports about our four consumption based billing trials planned for later this year were premature and did not tell the full story. With that said, we realize our communication to customers about these trials has been inadequate and we apologize for any frustration we caused. We’ve heard the passionate feedback and we’ve taken action to address our customers’ concerns.
With the ever-increasing flood of content on the Internet, bandwidth consumption is growing exponentially. That’s a good thing; however, there are costs associated with this increased Internet usage. Here at Time Warner Cable, consumption among our high-speed Internet subscribers is increasing by about 40% a year. As a facilities based provider, we’ve built a network that must be maintained and upgraded. We have increasing variable costs and we have to continue to invest in the network itself.
This is a common problem that all network providers are experiencing and must address. Several other providers have instituted consumption based billing, including all major network providers in Canada and others in the U.K., New Zealand and elsewhere. In the U.S., AT&T has begun two consumption based billing trials and other providers including Comcast, Charter and Cox are using varying methods of monitoring and managing bandwidth consumption.
For good reason. Internet demand is rising at a rate that could outpace capacity within a few years. According to industry analysts, the infrastructure may not be able to accommodate the explosion of online content by 2012. This could result in Internet brownouts. It will take a lot of money to fix the problem. Rather than raising prices on all customers or limiting usage, we think the fairest approach is to move to a tiered model in which users pay more if they use more.
If we don’t act, consumers’ Internet experience will suffer. Sitting still is not an option. That’s why we’re beginning the consumption based billing trials. It’s important to stress that they are trials. The feedback we’ve received from our customers has been very helpful. We’ve made changes to the terms in our current and upcoming trial markets as follows:
• To accommodate lighter Internet users and those who need a lower priced option, we are introducing a 1 GB per month tier offering speeds of 768 KB/128 KB for $15 per month. Overage charges will be $2 per GB per month. Our usage data show that about 30% of our customers use less than 1 GB per month.
• We are increasing the bandwidth tier sizes included in all existing packages in the trial markets to 10, 20, 40 and 60 GB for Road Runner Lite, Basic, Standard and Turbo packages, respectively. Package prices will remain the same. Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.
• We will introduce a 100 GB Road Runner Turbo package for $75 per month (offering speeds of 10 MB/1 MB). Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.
• Overage charges will be capped at $75 per month. That means that for $150 per month customers could have virtually unlimited usage at Turbo speeds.
• Once we implement this trial, we will not immediately start billing customers for overage. Rather, we will first provide two months of usage data. Then we will provide a one-month grace period in which overages will be noted on customers’ bills, but they will not be charged. So, customers will have an opportunity to assess their usage and right-size their service packages before usage charges are applied.
• Trials will begin in Rochester, N.Y., and Greensboro, N.C., in August. We will apply what we learn from these two markets when we launch trials in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, in October, but we will guarantee at least the same level of usage capacity in these trials.
• As we launch DOCSIS 3.0 in the trial markets, we plan to offer a 50/5 MB speed tier for $99 per month.
Again, the Internet is dynamic and continually evolves, so our plans will evolve as well and aren’t set in stone. We appreciate the feedback we’ve received. We’ll look forward to more dialogue as we progress in these trials. You can send your comments and feedback to us at [email protected].
Landel Hobbs
COO
Time Warner Cable
For questions, etc:
Jeff Simmermon
Director, Digital Communications
Time Warner Cable
Find us on Twitter at: @jeffTWC, @MsmarTWC, @MelissaTWC_TX
Wow! Unlimited internet for only $150 a month, and right now I’m paying $50 a month! That’s only an extra $1200 a year! What a great deal for me!
For any of you on twitter please join me on http://www.twitter.com as I start my personal campaign against Time Warner my username is ne0ngreen4 that is a ZERO not the letter o in Ne0ngreen4. More to come
• As we launch DOCSIS 3.0 in the trial markets, we plan to offer a 50/5 MB speed tier for $99 per month.
With a 1GB cap you’ll be paying overage charges in a matter of seconds…ROFLMAO!!!
Of course this is a different “trial market”. I am still skeptical that they plan on releasing DOCSIS in the cap trial markets.
Not enough. Keep the pressure on until they put forth reasonable plans.
No. Keep the pressure on until they eliminate the cap. No plan that contains a cap is reasonable.
Once again, it’s the principle behind capping that is at issue. As the internet grows, those caps will eventually become irrelevant, putting companies like Time Warner back in the position we see now. They’ll have the flexibility to modify pricing and modify overage charges. The variable rate home loans that sunk the banking system worked similarly. It looks to me like Time Warner is attempting to leave the door open. On the other hand, should Time Warner offer me a 50/5 MB speed package for a flat rate within a price range comparable to say Verizon’s FIOS, I’d be ok… Read more »
So, based on this, their best offering, pre DOCSIS 3.0 is going to be half the speed of FiOS at roughly 3 times the cost. Way to hand all your business over to Verizon Time Warner. This whole they’re saving you money theory is patently ridiculous. 1GB a month with $2/Gig overages?? They’ve already started the bump the cap up damage control which at this point is still a laughably poor effort, not even doubling the original pitiful caps and still way below even other competitor caps. If they justify it based on some providers in Canada and New Zealand,… Read more »
This is awesome, so when they upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0 I can totally use my entire month’s internet in ~34 minutes!
I pay $40/month now for RR Turbo…
I am a college student and will not be in Rochester during the this grace period they speak so fondly of, so I won’t be able to properly asses my internet usage until they’re actually billing everyone…
I am a college student, and I can not afford to pay $150/month for internet…
This is absurd…
I have Road Runner Turbo, which has an unlimited 22.5 Mbps down, which I pay $60/mo for. This fall, I’ll get a 100 GB cap, 44% of the speed, and all for 25% more money at $75/mo. Of course, I already blow through that cap. By November I’ll probably max out that $75 extra.
So I get less than half the speed I get now, for 2.5x what I pay. Awesome.
So wait.. I’m confused.
If TW implements the tiered system, and people pay but won’t change their current internet habits, how does that help the original problem of bandwidth consumption and the battering the TW equipment takes.
basically- we pay more without fixing the problem.
Amazing how that works, isn’t it?
They are all over the place . . . seems like we are getting to them keep up the preasure
this is ridiculous. imagine a typical user who picks up a 2 or 4 gig cap, for their shiny new computer which they purchased with a vanilla copy of windows xp or vista. 2-3 gigs of patches and updates later, and they can no longer access the internet for an entire month without risking overages? Then there’s users like me and i’m assuming some of the others posting here… What kind of insanely overpriced plan am i going to have to settle for to replace all of my music or steam apps after a reformat? how about movies and other… Read more »
I normally am restrained and try not to call people names, but this Hobbs guy is an ass. He is not living in the real world.
And now we reach the “false compromise” portion of our programming.
For those not familiar with what is one of the oldest tricks in the book, this is where you propose something absolutely ridiculous and then, when everyone’s all riled up about your horrible plan, you propose to “settle” for what you REALLY wanted and everyone praises your generosity and willingness to listen.
Well said. In fact, perfectly elucidated. How incredibly stupid do Hobbs and his cronies think we are? Amazing, absolutely amazing. I am consistently underwhelmed by their condescending attitude.
I think TWC’s real plan is to pull the bandwith caps stunt to force their user base to other ISPs. No users on TWC’s network means no bandwith problems.
Solution #7 1) Sign up for TWC business class service. 2) Buy a Linksys or Asus router for $59.95, install DD-WRT firmware and config as a bridge. 3) Share the business class connection across four or 5 households. Bingo – you’ve got unlimited bandwidth at faster speeds than you had before for the same money or less. This is going to take the title for the worst business move away from Coke and their two versions blunder. There are too many ways around this cap for it to ever work. And as soon as TWC starts getting into people’s pockets… Read more »
Well as a TWC customer for 15 years and and RR for 10 the only way I will stay with them is if they offer the 50/5 and no cap, But I don’t see that happening. I live in Greensboro NC and I don’t have much choice. I was thinking about Earthlink but if they are going to cap also I’m SOL. The last time I checked my phone lines are not good enough for DSL (I hope that has changed) and FIOS is not anywhere near me.
Haha, right. That really makes us happy. Here’s the great part: He said prices for the other tiers will remain the same, that still means that if i decide to pay the same amount of money per month as I do now, my usage will still have to drop to less than 20 gigs. NOT GOOD ENOUGH TIME WARNER
“we realize our communication to customers about these trials has been inadequate and we apologize for any frustration we caused.” -Yes, a lot of frustration has been caused. Why has it taken over a week to get some concrete answers? “Weve heard the passionate feedback and weve taken action to address our customers concerns.” Great! You finally realised that internet caps are not fashionable! Oh wait, I read on… “Cable, consumption among our high-speed Internet subscribers is increasing by about 40% a year.” -So our caps should increase 40% every year, or grow monthly accordingly automatically. “As a facilities based… Read more »
OUCH! It seems like the only person drinking the TWC Kool-Aid is TWC… they are getting hammered everywhere I look…
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Rochester-NY-Versus-Time-Warner-Cable-101836
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Time-Warner-Cable-Offers-Weak-Concessions-101838
Thanks for confirming that I am, in fact, living in the reality based world. I had to ponder for several moments whether or not it was just me that was out of touch.
Nope… it’s still them.
Definitely them. Most of the people I know seemed to have heard it first from me, and just about each person I told about the good times we’d soon be facing just looked at me with jaws dropped and asked me if i was serious.
for the fifty-cent question of the day… if volume is their problem, (the amount that people are downloading isn’t really bandwidth,) then how logical is it to introduce faster speeds which would put a greater strain on their already strained system…
Seems to me they really haven’t thought their excuses… errh I mean reasons through all that much.
Now lets see how much ‘bandwidth’ I can chew up by pulling down a few ISO’s….
I opened up an irc channel at irc.freenode.net
join #stopthecap
Thanks,
Josh
If you are opposed to TWC’s attempt to institute consumption based metered bandwidth, please contact NY US Congresssman Eric Massa with your concerns. Eric understands the issues and is working with 400 of his fellow Congressmen to fight the attempts of TWC and other ISPs to institute consumption base metered Internet services. Your voice is important, let it be heard. http://massa.house.gov/?sectionid=7§iontree=4,7
Mr Hobbs is being disingenuous. By his own admission, Internet usage is projected to grow by 40% each year. Supposing I manage to cap my monthly usage at 10GB (hypothetically), and I sign up for the 10GB/month tier. Next year, my data consumption would have grown to 14GB, forcing me to essentially swallow a $4 price hike every month next year. Unless Time Warner is saying that they are planning to increase the caps by 40% each year, having those caps in place don’t make any sense at all beyond the first year. Taking the argument a little further: behaviour… Read more »
This statement from Landel Hobbs really offends me. I feel he/she is truly insulting my intelligence.
I’m going to continue to steer my friends/family away from Time Warner.
I was trying to get my dad to switch to Roadrunner and the TW phone service also , but this weekend I am telling him to stay right where he is with Frontier. We will be soon to follow … as soon as cable internet service in this town is officially capped.
I’ll switch to DSL damm it!
Switch to earthlink
My post from DSLReports…. “Time Warner wishes to bill us as a utility does, so I say that in the same way that we can purchase electricity from different providers and the power comes through the same lines, that we should be able to purchase internet service from as many companies that would or could be allowed to use Time Warner’s lines. Right ? So in all fairness, this is what should happen. That way Comcast or some other provider would be allowed to provide us with internet service in the same way as Time Warner is now. I just… Read more »
“Our usage data show that about 30% of our customers use less than 1 GB per month.”
I don’t really get Time Warner. They want to lose revenue by charging these 30% of people less. Smart move you fucking idiots. This will be the downfall of Time Warner. The End.
I just got a new computer last summer. I have a program called NetMeter installed that tallies up how much I download & upload and keeps Daily, Weekly, & Monthly totals and also projections on how much I’ll use for those time frames. I’ve used between 30-65 GB each month so far. I mostly watch YouTube (which recently went HD for some videos, one 10 minute HD video could be 150MB), but I just started watching Hulu.com shows this week (I missed Terminator, Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox when they first aired, so I can catch up a bit). I’ll… Read more »
My parents DSL connection could probably qualify for the 1GB plan over 2 computers, except I come over to visit and ruin their curve by listening to internet radio and getting required updates they refuse to even know about. They may like this plan and switch TO RoadRunner, but they’ll ban me from their computers & they won’t get their required updates.
What a joke. I’m am so sick and tired of TWC trying to justify there reasons for this cap. We all know for the $40/mo we pay they are making a huge profit. There is no way they would be in business this long if they weren’t. A few things really get to me. They call what they are doing a “trial” yet they already have pricing plan in place. They are conducting these “trials” at the worst possible time of the year. During the summer when college students have gone home, nice weather means less time indoors and on… Read more »
I forgot to add this to my post. “Overage charges will be capped at $75 per month. That means that for $150 per month customers could have virtually unlimited usage at Turbo speeds.” They make it sound like its a great deal. So for only $110 more than I pay now I can have the same exact thing. Good luck with that campaign. I’ve had a bandwidth monitor on my computer for a week now and i’m already at 21GB used and this was a light week for me. Only streamed a few TV shows and only online gamed a… Read more »
time warner sucks, i work for time warner and get free cable and internet and wont even use it, i went out and purchased dsl.
Somehow I don’t believe you.
Since Earthlink will have to buy their bandwidth from TW, TW says Earthlink will institute the same caps as TW…no reply from Earthlink yet. Frontier tried caps last year and will likely try again once TW gets theirs in place.
So my parents have Verizon DSL, but I don’t know if Verizon will serve my apartment successfully. I looked at the Verizon Turbo package with 7Mbps download & that’s what I need for HD from YouTube.
Everyone is waiting on Earthlink. There is also LocalNet, which has a webpage that looks woefully out of date. I was told their speed was actually the same as Road Runner, but don’t know that first hand. Frontier will not impose caps or even revisit the cap issue until 2010 at the earliest, according to a company spokesperson. No need to be in a hurry towards Frontier this second, but if you need a cap free guarantee, a multi year price protection agreement will give that. Verizon should be able to tell from the customer service center whether your place… Read more »
Every Tier is gonna be capped with overage charges. This doesn’t just affect heavy users, it affects everyone. People are gonna throw out their routers so bandwidth doesn’t get stolen. I’d say 90% of the people are gonna discontinue service no matter what. There will be a strike by customers against TW and it could last for years and bankrupt TW, then we’ll have no TV either.
To put a cap on the internet is to limit the full potential of the internet. The internet is a collective and an ever-expanding thing, with vast untapped potential that is only capable with the faster speeds. We are living in a time with incredible technology, don’t you think we are capable of devising more efficient resources in managing our internet consumption? Time Warner is trying to advertise the horse and buggy in the time of the automobile. It’s not going to work, their options only resonate how out of touch and obsolete they are inevitably going to become. You… Read more »
I fully agree with all the posters here/.i’ve been online since 1997 (webtv),and later went netzero(another slow dialup service) and in 2003 went high speed(comcast which here in dallas went time warner)./ i use the net for downloading music tracks from emusic.com,who’m i have a membership with./i love to watch stuff on youtube and i enjoy streaming my cam (via my ip number,using wecamxp software)a few hours a day so i can chat with friends and family./i’m disabled and these things have become part of my life on a daily basis./i pay twc slightly over 160 bucks a month for… Read more »
I WILL IMMEDIATELY CANCEL MY TIME WARNER ROADRUNNER SERVICE WHEN THIS HAPPENS. I AM IN THE GREENSBORO AREA AND THIS WILL AFFECT ME. I PLAN TO SWITCH TO SATELLITE FOR MY TV AND EITHER AT&T OR WHOEVER DOESN’T CAP THEIR INTERNET. I REALLY WISH VERIZON OFFERED INTERNET IN MY AREA, I WOULD INSTANTLY GET IT IF THEY DID.
VERIZON, PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO GREENSBORO NOW!! WE NEED YOU!!
Well so much for home based internet businesses… I’ll drop the Road Runner, the cable TV AND the phone…. There ARE other ways to get on the internet without getting further screwed by these gouging freaks.