I don't know if they could meter us here. We're not your average location in America. There are A LOT of people in the tech industry here who would be kind of pissed off. It's going to be interesting to say the least.

These companies are just out to screw us all to make a buck. Maybe they should upgrade their networks to something that can handle the increase in bandwidth demands. It's only delaying the inevitable.

6/17/2008 12:43:11 AM

Quote :

"Maybe they should upgrade their networks to something that can handle the increase in bandwidth demands."

Doesn't that take money though? Hence the metering...

6/17/2008 1:02:06 AM

Well at least if they said they were upgrading that might justify the constant rate increases and the price I pay for their cable, internet, etc.

TWC made a profit of $1 BILLION in 2007. Can't they take that and do something about their damn network without jacking up rates and tacking on more fees?

6/17/2008 2:20:40 AM

Why would they do that when they can keep their profits, raise their rates/fees to pay for infrastructure upgrades, and not lose a significant portion of their customers in the process?

Don't like it? Go with another ISP. If enough people do that then TW might have to make more competitive offers.

6/17/2008 8:09:38 AM

$1B of profits means nothing without looking at profit margins. Its an intellectually dishonest way (that's assuming you're not simply ignorant) of distorting facts when trying to attack a company, as the lefties love to do when attacking oil companies and their 'unreasonable' profits, while neglecting to mention that they're barely making a 10% profit margin.

That said, TWC is constantly upgrading their network and adding more and more bandwidth. Just because you don't like your bill does not mean that they're sitting on an ancient network. It just isn't true, or we wouldn't have an entire lab dedicated just to TWC deployment testing.

6/17/2008 8:12:27 AM

See, the problem with all these flawed "go to another ISP arguments" is that they're all somewhat in collusion and providing crappier service for more money. They're using the same outdated networks they always have because they can and there's no fear of competition.

There's really almost nothing else decent that you could get around here for the price for road runner, and yet road runner is STILL overpriced. They've made more than enough money and have enough business that they could've raised enough capital in the public market to start funding FIOS networks to bring this area to the next step in internet service. They aren't though, they found out that if they just use stall tactics and manipulate the media scene and whine about how only a few users fully use their bandwidth (when everybody is paying the same price to use) and how that's not fair and that they're not only going to raise the monthly rates on the service, but that they're going to charge outrageous fees for going over your bandwidth allotment (depending on who your provider is).

The only light I see in all of this right now is that Verizon is investing heavily in FIOS, and actually recently made a public statement that they were going to expand their network a little more than they had anticipated by 2011 because it looks like it'll be worth the billions that they are spending to build the new network.

If Verizon manages to spread their service throughout the triangle (not just in parts of Durham where it is now available), TWC would really be faced with some serious competition. It would screw up any plan to go and start charging more for internet when, for that same price, you could get a 10/5 FIOS line.

[Edited on June 17, 2008 at 8:21 AM. Reason : ^ It's true that they're upgrading, but there is still no competition to bring prices down.]

6/17/2008 8:20:26 AM

Where in durham is it available?

6/17/2008 8:30:06 AM

when I first got broadband in 1999, I was paying $80/month for DSL.

When i switched to roadrunner a few years later I paid $44.95/month.

I still pay 44.95/month, and my download speeds have increased several times over the past 6 years, and my bill has remained the same.

If you need more bandwidth, you can get RR Turbo, for an added cost.

If you need less bandwidth, you can get RR lite, for a reduced cost.

I think you people are just bitching because you're college kids, and that's what college kids do.

6/17/2008 8:30:55 AM

^ I'm bitching more about the lack of competition. There's also no good cost-effective ISP around here with decent upload speeds for the residential market.

As it is now, without any real competition here to TWC for internet (or cable service), TWC has no reason to innovate or to provide better service or to offer better technology to their customers.

^^ More or less, nevermind on that. They've got the basic infrastructure installed but apparently it was killed off by red tape. There were signs up promoting FIOS on a billboard somewhere in Durham, but I guess this area won't get any real competition for shit like this for a while. I don't really get that either, my friend lives up in a fairly rural part of Massachusetts and can get the shit. There must be more bureaucrats than wanting customers in this state.


EDIT: ^^ Although apparently Verizon is offering something to compete with TWC in a few localized spots.

Quote :

"As a second place prize, Verizon is presently offering in Southern Durham its higher performance DSL, 7.1Mbps, also known as the Ultra or Turbo plan. I can't speak for other CO's in Durham, but I was told that the Lakewood CO would have this service level by June. The price, I believe is $39.99 per month, which is $2.00 more than the current, 3.0Mbps service."

[Edited on June 17, 2008 at 8:57 AM. Reason : http://www.bullcityrising.com/2008/02/update-verizon.html]

6/17/2008 8:50:16 AM

Quote :

"If you need more bandwidth, you can get RR Turbo, for an added cost. If you need less bandwidth, you can get RR lite, for a reduced cost."

i don't think that's the issue in question, but i agree with your point that since they offered tiered service, there's no valid reason in changing it

Quote :

"I think you people are just bitching because you're college kids, and that's what college kids do."

i'm not a college "kid"...i'm an adult consumer with a full-time job and multiple part-time jobs as a consultant...i am, however, a consumer and have yet to hear any VALID reasons why they feel the need to reduce service...YOU already pointed out that they offer tiered service, so what possible reason do they have (i mean valid reasons, not the bitching and whining that TWC is implementing right now) to charge more for less, other than to increase their profits?

i'm content (not happy, but content) with my service at $35/month...i'm betting there are enough people like me that if they go through with this asinine plan, we'll leave and go with someone else...TWC has very little in the way of competition (as mentioned above) and so they're trying to find out how much they can get away with...this is not some company that's struggling to stay alive or even offer competitive services and pricing

shoot, the only reason i with TWC in the first place is that i was hoping to be able to steal cable like i've done for the past 6 years

6/17/2008 10:07:01 AM

these fucking ads would be the first thing to go my end if they metered.

6/17/2008 10:15:41 AM

Quote :

"As it is now, without any real competition here to TWC for internet (or cable service), TWC has no reason to innovate or to provide better service or to offer better technology to their customers."

not far from the truth, but keep in mind, as i said earlier, TWC and other MSO's care more about retaining/gaining video customers than data customers right now. they have higher priorities.

6/17/2008 10:31:35 AM

Wilson, NC is doing a fiber network for tv/phone/internet (think FIOS) with very fast speeds for dirt cheap, done by the county, funded privately.

time warner boosted their speeds there and cut the cost.


they can do it, as long as there's competition.

[Edited on June 17, 2008 at 11:16 AM. Reason : FIOS]

6/17/2008 11:16:26 AM

Quote :

"have yet to hear any VALID reasons why they feel the need to reduce service.."

What service reduction has occurred?

They just bumped up the speeds to 10mbps a few weeks ago.

EDIT--

if you're referring to dropping usenet, big deal. You and 5 other people care. Everyone else who is aware that usenet even exists subscribes to an unlimited use service.

6/17/2008 11:31:11 AM

the SP's have definitely gotten it right on this one. usenet is for pedophiles.

6/17/2008 11:38:18 AM

^^ uh, no, i'm referring to the original point of this thread...

going from unlimited data to limited data qualifies as a reduction in service, does it not?

and, even if they knock it down to $20/month for 5gb and charge $1.50 for each additional gig, then doesn't that mean that after 10gb more (so 15gb total), i'm paying more money for less service than i'm currently experiencing?

does the math confuse you? i've never used usenet, so i couldn't care less about them dropping it...but do you seriously not see the complaint with those people who download more than 15gb a month (in this scenario...i don't see them dropping the price to $20 any time soon, capped or not)?

[Edited on June 17, 2008 at 12:21 PM. Reason : .]

6/17/2008 12:20:35 PM

Quote :

"going from unlimited data to limited data qualifies as a reduction in service, does it not?"

I fail to see how a trial on new customers in one town in texas reduces your service.

6/17/2008 12:54:18 PM

Quote :

"Everyone else who is aware that usenet even exists subscribes to an unlimited use service. "

Yeah most usenet users won't care about TW dropping thier usenet. If you care, you subscribe to giganews/usenetserver.

Quote :

"the SP's have definitely gotten it right on this one. usenet is for pedophiles."

That's kinda like saying the entire internet is just for porn or torrents. According to the cnet article:

Quote :

"the venerable pre-Web home of some 100,000 discussion groups, only a handful of which contain illegal material. "

^yeah it's a trial. I doubt it will succeed. Even if it does in one form or another hopefully FIOS will arrive by that time to add some competition.

6/17/2008 1:16:43 PM

Quote :

"if you're referring to dropping usenet, big deal. You and 5 other people care. Everyone else who is aware that usenet even exists subscribes to an unlimited use service. "

Except that's what TWC already offers. An unlimited use usenet service.

6/17/2008 1:37:34 PM

Quote :

"I fail to see how a trial on new customers in one town in texas reduces your service."

you know, for a mod, you must be totally unaware of the direction that this thread has taken...you've completely ignored the fact that it's about the possibility of TWC changing their basic service model and focused on one tiny aspect like usenet (which, if you'll go back to page one, was not mentioned in the article)

6/17/2008 3:17:38 PM

Listen, you claimed that you experienced a reduction in service.

I asked if you were referring to usenet because that is the ONLY official reduction in service that has occurred.

You are whining like a little bitch about the *possibility* of something happening that hasn't even come close to materializing on a large scale yet.

6/17/2008 3:25:19 PM

Quote :

"Listen, you claimed that you experienced a reduction in service."

where?

Quote :

"You are whining like a little bitch about the *possibility* of something happening that hasn't even come close to materializing on a large scale yet."

in my posts, i see references to how much it would suck if they did it, and how they have no valid reasons for doing it...i also "whine" about the possibility of large hadron collider opening micro black holes over europe and the possibility of being nuked by korean missiles

but i suppose you have a difficult time looking past the end of your nose to anything that's more than an hour away

6/17/2008 3:35:12 PM

http://www.networkperformancedaily.com/2008/06/bandwidth_caps_and_the_cogniti.html

Quote :

"The Power Law Curve, or "Pareto Principle," or "80/20 rule," is part of the Internet. Roughly 20% of people who participate on Forum X will leave 80% of the comments, roughly 20% of the gamers on World of Warcraft will log 80% of the game hours, and there's been an entire philosophy of thought called "The Long Tail" about how the power log curve affects many aspects of Internet business. Business, by the way, has known about the 80/20 rule for a long time - which is why 20% of a supermarket's products will result in 80% of it's sales, or in a small business, why 20% of customers will provide 80% of the revenue. So let's put this old argument to bed - 5% of the users will consume 50% of the capacity. If you removed those 5% of the customers from the pool, chances are that the new top 5% - or what used to be the second 5% - will now consume roughly 50% of the capacity! Of course, this doesn’t stop Time Warner from offering 15Mb download speeds to customers who pay for the service. You’d think that if Time Warner was really concerned about network congestion, that they would scale down the bandwidth that they offer, rather than the data that people download. Because data – data is an infinite resource. There’s no limit to the number of bytes out there that you can download. What is a limited resource is bandwidth – that is, the amount of data traveling along the same pipe at the same time. And caps simply don’t help with that. Whatever Time Warner’s actual rationale, it has absolutely nothing to do with network performance. (Which is why you’re finding this discussed on Network Performance Daily. I know. Irony can be so ironic sometimes.)"

6/18/2008 1:46:06 PM

^of course Leddy is going to say it's about chopping off the top 5% of bandwidth hogs to improve overall conditions for everyone else, but i highly doubt that's the strategy here.

cable has had the oversubscription woes since its inception, so why are they just now implementing this? don't get me wrong, bandwidth has become an increasingly precious commodity in the last few years, but there's more to the bandwidth cap experiment.

it all goes back to what robster said on the first page of this thread:

Quote :

"Its not about their "Bandwidth" being high. Its the fact that more and more studios are putting their movies and tv shows available via the web, so as this trend continues to move forward, TWC wants to get a piece of the action."

6/20/2008 8:17:23 AM

Quote :

"So let's put this old argument to bed - 5% of the users will consume 50% of the capacity. If you removed those 5% of the customers from the pool, chances are that the new top 5% - or what used to be the second 5% - will now consume roughly 50% of the capacity! "

That math doesn't work.

Quote :

"And caps simply don’t help with that. "

what? Caps are an easy way to throttle high usage people without impacting the bandwidth of other users. I'd much rather have a cap than get my bandwidth cut in half. Obviously there are better solutions (packet shaping), but that guy just comes off as a retard whos upset he might not be able to download all his animes.

6/20/2008 9:54:24 AM

you work for TWC don't you

6/20/2008 1:47:10 PM

no im just not retarded

6/20/2008 2:47:55 PM

Quote :

"I asked if you were referring to usenet because that is the ONLY official reduction in service that has occurred."

I thought the whole usenet issue was due to child pornography increase.

6/20/2008 2:57:48 PM

bump for Fail Boat

http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/04/01/twc-moves-consumption-based-internet-billing-to-more-markets/

[Edited on April 1, 2009 at 3:17 PM. Reason : now it's time to whine! ]

4/1/2009 3:13:55 PM

Quote :

"but we'd be remiss of our duties if we didn't share this gem of a quote from TWC CEO CEO Glenn Britt: "We made a mistake early on by not defining our business based on the consumption dimension.""

More affirmation about how retarded TWC really is. Are they trying to get people to switch providers?

Maybe, to their credit, they really don't want the high usage people which probably account for a small portion of their user base, so they'd rather really stick them with a bill if they are too stupid to switch, and if they switch, so be it, TWC saves money that way.

4/1/2009 3:23:54 PM

whew, glad i don't live in greensboro

4/1/2009 3:26:05 PM

Not another April Fool's joke.

4/1/2009 3:38:44 PM

could someone please educate me on TWC's cost rises for each gigabyte that is downloaded

isn't most of their business fixed cost plus tons of already sunk investment? isn't the variable cost for a gigabyte of data transfered across their network close to 0?

4/1/2009 7:53:05 PM

Yeah, but the problem is that the packets can be pretty heavy, causing wear and tear on the cables.

4/1/2009 7:57:54 PM

the real reason all of the ISPs are looking at caps is because of the advent of useful on-demand video streaming that is accessible to most anyone who wants it (think hulu and netflix instant watch).

they're seeing their cable revenues drop dramatically. why pay $100/month for something you can stream the majority of for free? they don't want to just be dumb pipes.

conveniently, caps are "net neutral" in that they don't discriminate based on traffic type, so they'll more than likely get away with it.

think about how much data you use when you stream a netflix movie in HD, or download an HD rental from the itunes store... etc.

you'll go through a bandwidth cap in a hurry if you're not careful.

4/1/2009 8:09:44 PM

I don't pirate illegal movies and mp3s so I'll be ok.

4/1/2009 8:12:42 PM

There's nothing illegal about watching a bunch of HD shows on hulu

4/1/2009 8:16:40 PM

Quote :

"I don't pirate illegal movies and mp3s so I'll be ok."

Don't be a jackass. Hulu, iTunes, netflix, and <insert whatever cable channel>'s web based media player are not illegal viewing/listening.

4/1/2009 10:46:14 PM

yep, Solinari shows his uselessness at intelligent discourse yet again

4/1/2009 10:49:37 PM

Quote :

"I don't pirate illegal movies and mp3s so I'll be ok."

you didnt read any of this thread, did you

4/2/2009 12:15:13 AM

You'll burn up their 40gb cap pretty quick as well if you spend a decent amount of time each week doing anything online.

TWC has to pay per gigabyte to a Tier 1 telecom company, right? Somebody like AT&T? So for somebody like AT&T, this sort of metering scheme won't have a ton of benefit because they don't pay anybody for their bandwidth since they are the network (unless they just want to take people's money away). Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here.

4/2/2009 1:12:38 AM

AT&T still has to pay for routing some of the time (you can't be everywhere), but yes, since they own a large chunk of the infrastructure, their costs are lower.

4/2/2009 1:19:16 AM

except for, you know, the enormous fixed costs that owning and operating a network incur...

4/2/2009 1:33:47 AM

You gonna do anything else besides troll this thread?

4/2/2009 1:43:10 AM

Sorry - forgot that its forbidden to disagree with certain people on here. I take it back - AT&T pays very little for deploying and maintaining its network

The fact is, bandwidth hogs used to be limited to just a small portion of people who pirated movies and did p2p... Now with hulu and HQ youtube, everyone's grandma is getting in on the game.

Now all this bandwidth is not free, contrary to popular opinion ITT. The fact is, all the normal people out there who didn't p2p were subsidizing your bandwith excesses. Now that they're all suckin down tons of bits too, the ISP either has to add capacity (and then charge more to recoup the costs) or charge more to incentivize its customers to use less.

40GB should be plenty for normal web usage. Quit watching HD content over the internet and the problem will go away.... But wait, there isn't even a problem to start with because TWC hasn't put in a cap!

[Edited on April 2, 2009 at 2:00 AM. Reason : s]

4/2/2009 1:50:23 AM

Quote :

"AT&T pays very little for deploying and maintaining its network"

nobody is denying that.

we were only talking about paying other tier 1 providers for routing over their infrastructure.

your bridge is waiting.

4/2/2009 1:56:41 AM

I know that's what you were only talking about which is why I pointed out the high fixed costs of network ownership.

But I guess it plays better into the, "i'm getting ripped off" rant to only focus on paying other tier 1 providers for routing over their infrastructure.

The fact is, running a network is expensive. There is finite capacity. Tons of people are using tons of capacity now and that is increasing rapidly. I don't care what shell games you want to play in this thread over who's paying who for what, the fact is, bandwidth costs money and we're all gonna have to pay more eventually since as a population we're drastically increasing our bandwidth usage. I know you p2pers haven't personally increased your consumption (because you were already maxed out), but grandma did and so did your uncle.

[Edited on April 2, 2009 at 2:08 AM. Reason : s]

4/2/2009 2:05:12 AM

Quote :

"I know that's what you were only talking about which is why I pointed out the high fixed costs of network ownership. But I guess it plays better into the, "i'm getting ripped off" rant to only focus on paying other tier 1 providers for routing over their infrastructure. The fact is, running a network is expensive. There is finite capacity. Tons of people are using tons of capacity now and that is increasing rapidly. I don't care what shell games you want to play in this thread over who's paying who for what, the fact is, bandwidth costs money and we're all gonna have to pay more eventually since as a population we're drastically increasing our bandwidth usage. I know you p2pers haven't personally increased your consumption (because you were already maxed out), but grandma did and so did your uncle."

you seem to forget that as transmission and routing technologies improve, the cost of bandwidth gets cheaper (arguably not at the same rate that bandwidth consumption increases, but still, it's significant).

4/2/2009 2:18:54 AM

Quote :

"Quit watching HD content over the internet and the problem will go away"

4/2/2009 7:42:37 AM

QUIT THE FUTURE

4/2/2009 9:09:14 AM