Well so much for downloading purchased movies or games demos.

Just look at the comments this thread got vs. all the other ones near it. I guarantee this is the same result they will get when bringing these ideas to other departments, companies, customers, ect.....

WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY - They'll be hearing that a lot.

I wonder if Time Warner various departments ask for feedback from other departments. If they go any further on this plan, "on demand internet movies" goes out the window.

Here's a thought: the providers should INVEST into upgrading their infrastructure to handle more people using MORE of their bandwidth MOST of the time.

So many other countries have HUGE pipes to the home without bandwidth caps.

Anyone know how much bandwidth VOIP would take up? I imagine it would be little.

Oh noes, the thieves may actually have to pay a little more to be a thief! Meh.

This will adversely affect a lot more people than the Pirates out there. This is going to affect gamers and people who work from home. They must really enjoy pissing off the customers, cause if they tried this with me (BIG GAMER!!), I would drop them faster than you could read this post.

So if I use well under the 'allotted amount' do I get charged less? What if I got on vacation for a whole month and use 0, do I get charged almsot nothing? Yea, didn't think so. Screw this monopolistic crap broadband we have in the US. I have two choices, one of which is even slower DSL and the other which is the manipulated connection of Comcast. And the damn FCC is in bed with the communications industry and doesn't seem to do a damn thing to help the consumers. I'm really getting fed up with this crap.

I think they should give the people not using all the bandwidth a break (like me...eh...sometimes)

And it's not all piracy bandwidth...that would adversely affect people using NetFlix's online viewing, downloading games from the Xbox live Marketplace (Xbox originals are DVD-sized!), patches/maps/mods for online games...it probably does affect just 5% of the population, but I think legitimate (non-piracy) uses for bandwidth will result in people getting pissed.

Damm, it seems like the big-time pirates here are taking are being heavliy offend to this move. I doubt that they are even using Time Warner. It is even more sad that they immedately blame Comcast for no real reason.

It is so cool to bash big telecommucation companies and make lube jokes. :roll:

Ultimately, Time Warner is like every other major, monopolistic company in today's world - they are trying to figure out how to get all of their customers to pay more, more, more, while they deliver less, less, less for those charges, with the hope of eventually not actually delivering anything for the money.

heh, reminds me of when the Simpsons had prohibition and duff beer stated that people will love their new found alcohol-free duff. two hours later, the boss hung a out-of-business sign on the front gates. Its a great way to send your company rocketing to a fun little place I call chapter 11. at least its better to watch that on tv, then those horrid reality shows.

Basically the short form is this:

Under TW's brilliant and inspired new program, true synergistic visions of financial movement are created and leveraged to secure future growth.

AKA

The people barely using the internet get the same bill they do know, and those annoying users that actually USE the service will get billed hundreds of times more!!

I don't see a problem with it as long as GB/$$$ per month rates are reasonable.

Bandwidth costs $$$$$$.

I hate these limits on Internet access, not because I use much bandwidth, but because having a limit means that I have to think "Is this really worth downloading?" rather than just doing it.

So instead of people who use almost no bandwidth paying less, they're just charging people who use more, more and people who use it just to browse the net and check email are going to keep paying the same thing.

You know it goes both ways. Someone who occasionally uses their line should only pay a few dollars a month and those who use more should pay more then average. That is, of course, if this was actually to do what they're saying it's supposed to. Instead it's just to keep milking their cow for as much as they can.

If my broadband provider introduces caps like this I'll be switching right away just because I don't support what they're doing. They make it sound like they're a dieing cow getting sapped dry by all the heavy bandwidth users and if they don't get more money they'll die. Reminds me of some dial-up companies back in the day having more subscribed users then they could support at one time. This time they have subscribed users without the bandwidth to support them all. Corporate America FTW. I love the whole idea of getting someone for what its worth, I think I'll try that whole sueing thing too... I hear you can get free money.

The spokesman added that his company doesn't want consumers to "feel they're getting less for more."

Funny, because that's exactly what they're doing.

"We plan on using lube when we bend our customers over, so it won't be as uncomfortable and cause as many complaints/lost business."

Uh-huh. And when people start getting charged $500+ a month for using legal, bandwidth intensive services like WoW or Netflix's online streaming, and thus start dropping Comcast so quickly you can see scorch marks, they'll toss this idea into the trashbin right along side their bandwidth throttling idea.

I downloaded ubuntu, kubuntu, kubuntu-alternative, and the ubuntu alpha this weekend. I would hope that 3 GB of ISOs would not have pushed me too far up their sliding scale.

I wonder if 5% includes all of us? I mean, my parents, sister, and some friends don't exactly use their cable modem much at all, really. They barely know how to download files. They just know it makes their web browsing and email checking quite fast. I'd imagine that most users are going to be like that, honestly.

Time Warner are basically saying that $50/mo isn't enough to allow you to fully use the 7mbps they advertise (around here).

I don't see a problem with this. AT&T and Comcast need to continue what they're doing for the greater good. How else would you put bad companies out of business?

Paying per hour was what AOL did long time ago and I can still remember the $500 bills that I would rank up. Nowadays it would be horrible to think how many things at home use bandwidth.

#1 VOIP
#2 Windows Update
#3 Games
#4 Some weird service needed for my FIOS TV.

A computer with software could also eat a bunch of bandwidth as well.

#1 Anti Virus
#2 Weather software
#3 Spyware software
#4 Software that just likes to check for updates.

Here's my favorite of them all. OPEN WIRELESS ROUTERS! Gonna be funny when your neighbor runs you up a $500 Comcast bill. There maybe a new venture to hack into routers and constantly change your Mac address, just to keep yourself unkown.

I say let them do it. You'd have to be an idiot to buy it. I'd use DSL over Cable any day just for the piece of mind. Got enough things to worry about as is. I certainly don't need to worry about internet usage.

What's next, charging people for how much TV they watch? Just as stupid.

Well I suppose it all comes down to just what their $/GB charge is. I'll believe it when I see it as to if this will actually end up as any sort of a improvement for their customers. It's certainly not a technologically forward-looking way to go unless their rate is very very lenient. These cable companies own the market for fast internet and I think this is obviously just a way to control their costs and skirt around building more and more infrastructure to support their increasing bandwidth offering claims.

If they only want to punish some subscriber who pegs his 7mbps line 24/7/365, well maybe it makes sense. However, considering these folks ARE in the minority, why would it really impact the cable infrastructure at all? Hopefully this isn't just a way to make their service much less than it actually is promoted to be. Or worse, to allow them to say they offer 10mbps now and actually get you big time with their new DL rate charges.

"Oh we offer 7mbps* rates for only $35/mo** for 6 months*** !"
we need more asterisks in life.

We have other companies around here who lease the cable lines (Earthlink and maybe more) so I wonder if one could just switch to them.

If this were ever to become widespread, pop up spyware could become a new underground industry, forcing end users to eat a higher bill due to involuntary bandwidth usage

This is the opposite of the way most services work. Initially, service is metered. Regular land line use was metered initially, then it went all you can eat. Many telephone based ISPs were metered, then went all you can eat. Cell phones started out metered for both incoming and outgoing, then they relaxed in the incoming, then they went to commodity pricing, and now you can buy all you can eat data plans (which is sort of redundant because it's all the same traffic). I suspect all it will take is one company going all you can eat to change the whole cell phone industry.

Even if Time Warner is initially successful, I do not see this as being a workable long time strategy. All it takes is for one service provider in the area to stay unlimited and TW's plan fails. If all of the local services switch to metered, then you have the grounds for an anti-trust suit.

Is it just me that read this and thought: That seems a bit unfair to use tuberculosis as a way to charge people for TV...

That should help kill bittorent. No one will want to keep the link open even on legit stuff after their DL is completed.

Any I the only one who BTs gigs of data / week just with OSS?

My DSL ISP was recently bought out by AT&T. Haven't noticed any issues...yet...

Haha. Morons, what a step backwards. I'm so glad I don't live in areas where Comcast Time Warner is the only broadband provider.

Edit: Who are we hating now? Haha.

I don't belive MMO's use that much bandwidth compared to downloading a file, but if they play around the clock I guess it would add up. I doubt this would go over well, people would start looking for other ways to get their internet connection, but people would definately find out if other's are stealing their wireless connection, or maybe more people would start