Time Warner Net bringing "Beaumont" style caps to

Brian Boyko · Post by **Brian Boyko** » April 1st, 2009, 11:24 pm

I'm extremely angry, EXTREMELY angry, about this.

Time Warner is going to make Austin a "test market" for bandwidth caps.

I actually had about 15 days uptime, with the network connection, so I actually had a listing of how much data I downloaded. It comes to about 300 gigs a month - yes, much of it is the high definition Improv videos that I record and put on YouTube, also my other stuff. The largest plan will be 100 gigs a month, after that, it's $1 a gig.

Since neither AT&T nor Verizon nor Grande service my (sweet) apartment complex, this means I'm going to have to move when this becomes active in three months. Best estimate is that I'm going to end up paying $300 for Internet service under this plan, from my current $60.

The worst part about this is that I had to cover this for work, and there were times that the PR person either seemed so uninformed about his own products that it ill befit his position, or he may have - and I use this term with caution - been disingenuous. On top of that, lines like "The fact that we're better than our competition doesn't make us a monopoly" on the VP of PR for TWC's twitter posts boil my blood - because it's the fact that there IS no competition that makes TWC a monopoly.

That'll all come out in the story tomorrow. I just - it was a very, very hard day, and all I want to do is... well, all I want to do is do things that are liable to get me arrested, possibly committed - so I can't do them.

I wish I still had long hair to pull out.

I'm crap at organizing protests but if anyone's running one, let me know. I'll be there.

PaulM · Post by **PaulM** » April 2nd, 2009, 9:56 am

Yeah, this is Time Warner stemming the tide of their losing cable business. There's a growing trend of folks who are dropping their cable programming and opting for cherry-picking their programs from services like Hulu, cutting into TW's margins quite a bit.

We've had extremely mediocre service from TW since my moving into Austin. Grande provides service into the area, and I believe Verizon might as well (FIOS would be pretty sweet). Between the service and bw caps, our subscription with TW may soon draw to a close.

Asaf · Post by **Asaf** » April 2nd, 2009, 11:07 am

Please keep us posted. I will want to know when to jump the Time Warner ship.

A

mcnichol · Post by **mcnichol** » April 2nd, 2009, 11:09 am

ah shit.

yes, please update if you hear anything. the articles i found just said "this summer."

EmilyBee · Post by **EmilyBee** » April 2nd, 2009, 11:22 am

Grande may have its issues, but, damn, I'm glad we switched to them when we could.

Sorry to hear about your troubles, Boyko. My thoughts are people should vote with their money, because that's what the corporations seem to hear. (A well-worded letter would also help. We wrote a detailed one explaining why we would not be going back to TWC.)

Good luck!

kbadr · Post by **kbadr** » April 2nd, 2009, 11:24 am

Boyko, start a campaign and spread the word so anyone who doesn't like this cancels their account on the same exact day. That'll send a message.

I think using a tech-savvy city like Austin as their test market was a poor choice.

Matt · Post by **Matt** » April 2nd, 2009, 11:35 am

kbadr wrote:I think using a tech-savvy city like Austin as their test market was a poor choice.

From a marketing research standpoint, it was smart - they can probably assume the backlash here is about as bad as its going to get, and judge national rollout plans with that in mind.

Therefore, I aim to pollute their test market data as much as possible

acrouch · Post by **acrouch** » April 2nd, 2009, 3:06 pm

Sign a petition!

http://www.petitiononline.com/nocap/petition.html

Brian Boyko · Post by **Brian Boyko** » April 3rd, 2009, 7:42 am

I'm covering the details at www.networkperformancedaily.com

Metering will take effect this month, though they won't start billing for three months. So, about August.

Unfortunately, I cannot cancel my service as Time Warner is a monopoly in my complex; as I mentioned, I can't afford $300/mo for Internet, so I'm essentially getting kicked out of my home.

I did some math, by the way, and I found out something interesting.

How much is 300GB?

Well, 300 GB is what you get when you take a 15Mbps line (which Time Warner sold me) and you use it for 31 hours a week - or 18.5% of the time (which is the average amount the U.K. teen uses it a week; that's the only data point I could find) at 25% of saturation.

In other words, I'm using 25%*18.5% of my capacity; or 4.6%.

Less than five percent of capacity, and I'm an 'excessive' user.

Screw them.

apiaryist · Post by **apiaryist** » April 3rd, 2009, 10:30 am

I'd jump ship to Grande now, if you are able. I know you can't, Boyko. But everyone else should change over now. And tell TW exactly why. There were minor problems when I first signed up with them 5 years ago, but I've had great service from Grande for over 3 years now. I also read a quote from a Grande spokesperson stating that they had no plans to put any kind of cap on network use.

Screw monopolies and screw lying, greedy hypocrites.

Lants · Post by **Lants** » April 3rd, 2009, 11:30 am

Grande just doesn't cover enough areas in Austin and TW knows this.

I was upset when I first got the info from TW that they would be doing this, but I didn't realize that at the price I pay now, I'll only be getting 5GB???!!!!!!! PER MONTH!!!!??????

I hate to have to switch to the slower, more expensive DSL plan, but that will be my only option once this goes through.

This is terrible. If this goes through, everyone will follow suit.

kerri · Post by **kerri** » April 3rd, 2009, 12:10 pm

I ve had grande for about two and a half years. I dont download illegal stuff that often but when I started getting heavy into the Wire two years ago and couldnt wait for the new episodes I started downloading it. After about four months Grande busted me and said they would cut our service and turn us in if we were caught again. Had this happen to a couple other friends too. So be warned, although i am sure you tech folks know how to not get caught.

Baldenhofer · Post by **Baldenhofer** » April 4th, 2009, 6:14 pm

Chiming in to say I'm also angry about the new development. I'd love to jump to Grande but they don't service my area. As far as I know my only other option is Earthlink, which offers significantly slower speeds. Time Warner set up an e-mail address to share your thoughts. I doubt anyone important will actually read them, but send a message to realideas@twcable.com, it's better than doing nothing.

Justin D. · Post by **Justin D.** » April 5th, 2009, 2:28 am

If you scroll down here, you can read Brewster McCracken's (one of the best names ever) statement about the caps.

To sum up:

"This proposal will make it more expensive to innovate. It will increase costs for local businesses. The very people who would carry the brunt of this tariff are the people who the Internet has empowered to connect and create without having to turn to large corporations to fund their efforts.

Time Warner’s information tariff proposal is inherently constricting to the local economy. This business model also severely hinders the potential of the Internet. It is not good for Austin. It is bad for the principle of an open Internet. It undermines the public interest."

I was already set to turn my cable off on Monday, but now, I think I may just have to make an appointment with Grande Communications for a new internet provider.

TexasImprovMassacre · Post by **TexasImprovMassacre** » April 5th, 2009, 3:33 am

kerri wrote:I ve had grande for about two and a half years. I dont download illegal stuff that often but when I started getting heavy into the Wire two years ago and couldnt wait for the new episodes I started downloading it. After about four months Grande busted me and said they would cut our service and turn us in if we were caught again. Had this happen to a couple other friends too. So be warned, although i am sure you tech folks know how to not get caught.

typically when this happens its because they were able to upload media from your computer. If you set up your torrent programs to not allow users to upload from you, or to remove the torrent files after they've completed downloading you shouldn't have trouble. Or, if you aren't using torrents, apply the same settings to whatever file share program you are using.

I also like to use these forums
www.quicksilverscreen.com