The company is testing a service with new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas where customers will have a monthly allowance for the amount of data with a $1.00 charge per gigabyte. The company had already warned back in January that it was going to test rates and test some metered and tiered internet access services, so this isn't likely to be a bomb dropping into the school yard.
Slower services of 768 kbps with a 5-gigabyte monthly allowance are going to run $29.95, while their fastest and larger service with fast downloads at up to 15 megabits per second and a 40-gigabyte cap will run $54.90 per month.
Apparently 5% of its internet users are taking up half of the capacity on local cable lines.
For basic web users this is a non-starter. But for those who download videos and send out or access large files regularly, this could become a head scratcher as very few consumers have any real clue what their internet usage means in terms of bandwidth. It seems that Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube and all that free porn are going to end up costing you after all.
That's one way around net neutrality...
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-03-2008 @ 11:12PM
Josh said...
If 5% of users take up half the bandwidth, then get the money from them. This isn't a democracy, I don't want to pay for their usage like I have to pay taxes to support other people.
If I start downloading big files like movies, I'd expect to have to pay more. Nothing in life is free.
But if other people downloading multiple large files is causing my bill to go from what was $29.95 to $42.95+, then go after them for the extra.