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Time Warner: No plans to tier Internet use in So. Calif.
March 31st, 2009, 5:01 pm · 12 Comments · posted by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
In April, Time Warner Cable will start charging heavy Internet users a higher price than customers in the same city, according to a report by BusinessWeek.com.
Customers in Rochester, N.Y., Greensboro, N.C., and Texas cities of Austin and San Antonio will be offered tiered pricing that can cost those who go over their limit an extra $1 for each gigabyte over the allotted amount. Call it overage fees for the Internet industry.
But not here in Southern California, says Darryl Ryan, Time Warner Cable’s director of media relations.
“There is currently no plan to rollout consumption based billing in Southern California,” Ryan said simply.
Thank goodness, since I know a lot of folks who are using Internet to watch free TV shows on Hulu.com.
Well, there are no plans to do so here that anyone knows of. Yet.
According to the BusinessWeek report, Time Warner Cable’s CEO Glenn Britt said the company needs to figure out how to make more money from its Internet operation. “We made a mistake early on by not defining our business based on the consumption dimension,” Britt told BusinessWeek.
The story goes on to say that customers will be offered four rate plans, between $29.95 to $54.90 per month. The example? A family on a 40 GB plan that streams 7.25 hours of online video a week could spend up to $200 a month on extra fees.
That said, however, by rolling out a pay-as-you-go Internet plan, customers who don’t use the Internet much won’t have to pay as much.
Good or bad, it’s nothing that we in O.C. have to worry about yet.
Time Warner isn’t the only one testing this out. As the BusinessWeek article points out, AT&T is testing this in Beaumont Texas, while Comcast cuts the user off after one warning.
More TV news: Check out the Gadgetress Guide to local TV services. Latest TV services headlines:
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way to go…information will become the privilege of the wealthy. The next thing that will happen is the government will react by insisting that public access to internet is needed to keep the common person going to school, purchasing products and participating in the public processes that are all migrating to the internet. The government will then have to create a new federal office to administer such a public access program increasing taxes and providing thousands of new publicly paid jobs. The media communication companies are taking the lead from the drug dealers- give it away for free and then when everyone has adapted and needs it, jam them up.
they would lose many customers if they did that..I have them now for the internet,but if they did the tier pricing, I am out…and if they all did this, I’m out all together of the internet…internet and tv and radio..eventually someone would come to their senses and offer the internet again at a nominal cost with normal pricing…
risingup pretty much stated it~
Yikes…I just switched to Time Warner for my internet today. I guarantee the second this happens over here I’m out.
Will be there be a tea party? Throwing our modens in the river?
Any company that makes money off of cable or sattelite television is looking at this, because they realize people are finding they no longer need subscription television when they can watch/download all of the movies and television shows they want from an online soure.
So, Time Warner doesn’t want you to just use their Internet service – they want you to also keep their cable television service.
That is the main reason for these limits. Phone companies already saw this when people realized they no longer needed their land lines once their mobile service got reliable and inexpensive enough.
All I can say is if your company starts to do this and nothing else is available boycott (cut back on your service) them or go somewhere else if possible to protest. Or write and let them know you will not accept this.
I am not with Time Warner anymore but seriously would either cut my tv or internet to keep it under 100 dollars (bundle package) a month.
Time Warner is the scum of the Earth! Obviously they just want to get rid of their customers and go bk.
Yeah Time Warner needs to figure out how to make more money from the Internet so it can pay CEO Glenn Britt’s multi-milion dollar salary instead of investing in it’s oversold, outage prone network.
Time to dump cable and switch to Verizon FIOS, people
this is ridiculous. I am an IT professionsal living in the greensboro, NC and i use WAY more than 40 GB a month for LEGITIMATE uses. between xbox 360, online games, and the videos we watch through the netflix on demand, i wouldn’t be suprised if my house used 40 GB in a weekend. I have had timewarner internet for nearly 7 years, i have their cable service and their internet phone service. I will be canceling everyone of these services and switching to DSL and directv before the day is over. I can only pray that enough ppl follow suit.
This is rediculous, people are already having to cut back on every end of entertainment as it is, all they have to resort to is TV and Internet. I live in San Antonio and work while running an online arcade( TheGamerStop com ), the downloads and exploring I do throughout the internet would create an insane bill, and I don’t even go on youtube or download music. This won’t only affect streaming media junkies but anyone playing casual games to downloading simple games. Is it going to get to a point you need to calculate how much a download is going to cost you? I have to agree with most of the users that have commented this blog, but what the did people think that companies were going to do when they started getting taxed more? You think they are going to take that bite, hell no they will roll those cost down to their customers that are trapped in a monopoly by service franchises
Time Warner will soon go under and ATT will come in and gobble them up. That is my hope sense UVERSE is a much better product.
A Tier will most certainly be a corporate killer
Time Warner and ted turner are paying for there political views.
They should go under.