AfterDawn: News

Update: Time Warner's bandwidth caps will hurt the future

Following Time Warner Cable's decision to begin trials of bandwidth caps, analysts and critics have begun speaking out about it.

As company spokespeople have have confirmed, the trials, beginning in Beaumont, Texas, will have "5GB, 10GB, 20GB, and 40GB limits depending on the service level" and there will no longer be an unlimited access option. Any subscriber which goes over the alloted bandwidth will be charged an undisclosed amount for each GB of data over the limit. The company did however say that the caps will only be given to new customers in the area while "legacy" customers will continue to have unlimited access.



The new model is not unique but it is very rare in the US where most ISPs opt for an unlimited model or "soft caps" where excessive use will merit a warning and possible ban if the numbers are extreme.

However, the critics of the new model certainly have a point. The future of online video will depend on unlimited bandwidth, especially as the world moves to HD. For example, a full length feature film in SD will normally consume 700MB to 1GB of bandwidth and HD videos available through Apple TV, Xbox 360, and other services normally consume 5GB of bandwidth. Downloading a few HD videos might cost you a ton of money if Time Warner has its way.





Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 20 Jan 2008 18:58

• Previous article

• AT&T will offer iPhone to business accounts

• Next article

• Retailers make room for Blu-ray

• 27 comments

• sk8flawzz

  omj what is Time Warner thinking?
  and damn yea a 720p movie can be almost 4GB, and 1080p can be from 8GB to more than 11GB, depending on movie length.
  They shouldn't be putting bandwidth limits, they should be giving us faster speed options for more money and keep it unlimited, jackasses..

  20.1.2008 19:20 #1

• amf0802

  I wonder if this includes online gaming? I wonder if its considered using up bandwidth to play on Xbox live, and if so then that must be a serious amount of bandwidth for a serious gamer.
  
  TW is trying to punish, or get a hold of, the users that are illegally downloading and taking the majority of the bandwidth. But as the article says, they will be punishing any user that uses legitimate online video sources. Or even something such as iTunes.

  20.1.2008 19:20 #2

• windsong

  Just one more way that our corporate greed filled masters are dooming us to the third world in the twenty first century...The rest of the world can't wait to increase speed and utilization of the net and here we have these bozos that want to do this stuff to reduce usage and the demands for speed increases that they don't want to pay for because they want to hold on the the business model of the nineteenth century. Anyone want to start taking bets on what language people in the former United States Of America will be speaking in a 100 years or so?

  20.1.2008 19:32 #3

• BcMester

  Didn't TW just jump on the bluray bandwagon...? I think they would like to see some revenue from it. They want you American guys to stop fooling around with online video, netflix and shit, and move back to good ol' disc purchasing... Just like old times.
  Quote:...the trials, beginning in Beaumont, Texas, ...Trials my ass. They just say "trials" to avoid immediate uproar from their subscribers, but I'm sure they have already decided to go ahead with it. Or does anyone seriously expect them to say "well people, it didn't work out so we'll just forget about putting caps on your accounts"?

  20.1.2008 19:48 #4

• DXR88

  Cap me lose my bussiness, your not that great anyway the only reason im still with timewarner/brighthouse is be cause i cant get FiOs in my area.
  
  I loose connections at random times of the day like 3 times a week for about 3 hours a day or more. call em up guess what, they tell me oh im sorry were working on the lines in your area. call up my buddy that works for brighthouse in my area guess what, theres no work schedualed in that area.

  20.1.2008 19:57 #5

• maxxjulie

  i guess i'll have to switch to verizon fios whenever this happens in my area.

  20.1.2008 21:37 #6

• fungyo

  Quote:Didn't TW just jump on the bluray bandwagon...? I think they would like to see some revenue from it.Bigpond here in OZ have unreasonable caps (some only 200MB) on their plans. I believe they do this deliberately so people can't download movies from online retailers.
  What Bigpond do is offer movies themselves through their own online shops and the downloads don't go towards the customers monthly quota.
  Bigpond have quite a few services that don't count towards your monthly quota.
  
  This smells like anti-competitive behaviour and stinks real bad.
  
  This is probably what TW will do.

  20.1.2008 21:59 #7

• limelight

  My God is this a horrible idea.
  
  In addition to the HD content being a helluva lot more GB, sites like YouTube and even Netflix's streaming movie service will consume bandwidth.

  20.1.2008 22:19 #8

• ZippyDSM

  Ah yes welcome to the backasswords tiered internet!

  21.1.2008 00:01 #9

• shummyr

  I smell a LAWSUIT coming in the near future
  they should have unlimited bandwidth

  21.1.2008 00:16 #10

• eiamhere

  Online gaming does count towards your bandwidth allowance. This is a joke. This amount is easily eaten up nowadays.

  21.1.2008 10:53 #11

• emugamer

  Sure glad I don't hav TW. I'm DL'ing 5GB/day.

  21.1.2008 11:57 #12

• simpsim1

  Originally posted by windsong: Just one more way that our corporate greed filled masters are dooming us to the third world in the twenty first century...The rest of the world can't wait to increase speed and utilization of the net and here we have these bozos that want to do this stuff to reduce usage and the demands for speed increases that they don't want to pay for because they want to hold on the the business model of the nineteenth century. Anyone want to start taking bets on what language people in the former United States Of America will be speaking in a 100 years or so?What they're actually doing is reducing consumption so that they can increase takeup. They're doing it here in the UK, but not with caps. They stealthily throttle peak time usage so that they can squeeze more and more users onto their already cramped network. Then they punish anyone that wants to use their "Unlimited Service" by limiting what they can use the service for.

  21.1.2008 12:02 #13

• DXR88

  there's still SatCom-23 in Florida its an Internet satilite it was decommissond for use by its former owner but its still active. i use it for a backdrop if my primary internet connection fails. its only drawback is that you need an old comcast satilite dish. the old ceramic white ones.

  21.1.2008 12:19 #14

• chinpark9

  But why Beaumont? Are the people there more gullible than in the rest of the states? I know some people down there in Beaumont, and I am sure they will not be too crazy about this!!!

  21.1.2008 12:48 #15

• fgamer

  OMG...this is crazy. This is what happens when a large company monopolizes cable and internet in certain areas. Time Warner is pretty much the only ISP around where I live (and I would hate to consider DSL). If this happens I may be forced to send emails and cancel my service. I hope this isn't ignored by people, because most of the other important topics get ignored because people are so worried about what Britney Spears is doing next. People should be in outrage..but the average home user don't know what the hell bandwidth is. My guess is they're trying to ease this onto all subscribers by slowly rolling it out in Texas..the town of stupidity!! F*** Off Time Warner!!!

  21.1.2008 13:42 #16

• DXR88

  If the people that knew what timewarner/brighthouse are trying to do. 2.3 million angry/hate emails to timewarner cant go wrong

  21.1.2008 13:52 #17

• david89

  this is worse idea i heard in along time 40GB not even enough why couldn't they make it 200GB like comcast this suck

  21.1.2008 13:59 #18

• jAmEsTn

  I too would be affected by this. Perhaps I should sign up for their 5GB package so I can blow it on 1700 minutes on my vonage telephone. I read somewhere that they claim the average consumer wont be able to difference? Try again. If there's such a problem why not sell chunks of data that rollover..?? That'd make more sense to me. They've already lost me on the TV bandwagon and if this happens here than they've lost me on the Internet one as well. Only thing I can add is, just you wait till the average typical user sees their first overage charge by simply using their VoIP.. Downloads that movie from Netflix.. Plays on youtube for hours at a time.. even the typical Myspace Junkie!!! Even though most of us know how bandwidth is calculated most dont and i'll feel no sympathy whatsoever when these people have ****ed off customers wanting to take their business elsewhere alongside most of use who'll drop em once this becomes standard for TWC. Oh well you cant reason with idiots who are owned by movie labels can you?.. Good day!

  21.1.2008 14:40 #19

• DXR88

  Heh with Admins permission id like to copy this page and send it to timewarner.

  21.1.2008 15:02 #20

• solarf

  time warner is making a huge mistake.... I repeat a huge mistake.

  22.1.2008 21:27 #21

• sk8flawzz

  Originally posted by solarf: time warner is making a huge mistake.... I repeat a huge mistake.Yeah they are. I do A LOT of gaming, so does my family. We also watch so many movies with that Netflix thing. and other things I'm not allowed to say. I'll take my $25/month somewhere else if they try this in my area.

  22.1.2008 21:29 #22

• RandyStar

  It's going to hurt some people now, but Capitalism will win in the end.
  Those small brains at Time-Warner should just tell us that they are sick of the business. They, like most of the cable industry, have lost the passion it takes to enter the future. Someone with a vested interest in end-users will come along and offer a better deal than we have now. Then, the small-brains will come back like vultures, but we will remember that they had small brains. Maybe then they will go back to running TV stations and distributing film, which doesn't require creative thinking.

  27.1.2008 10:57 #23

• simpsim1

  The Politically motivated bandwidth model......
  
  Capitalist: Use as much bandwidth as you like but remember that some users will have more than others. Depends how much money you have.
  
  Socialist: You use what we tell you so that others can use the same as well. If you use too much, we're gonna take some of that bandwidth and give it to the users who have less.
  
  Communist: Everyone gets the same. End of story.
  
  Liberal: Minority groups get priority over bandwidth and all usage is subject to being used for politically correct purposes only.
  
  I hate politics, but some folks think it's the answer to everything.

  27.1.2008 13:27 #24

• rrmk37

  I will not keep their service if they oppose this on me.I can't get verizon fios yet but if things go bad then hell I will just go DSL and wait till verizon fios hits my area.I play alot of online gamming and downloads and it's not that great of a service anyways we have the enternet go down at least once a day between 30mins to 4 hours and I am getting fed up now with this bs.I swear if they do the caps I will switch that very day..I am paying 46.00bucks a month for 15mbps down and 5 up and use what I pay for but I will suffer and go DSL 6mbs down for a25 bucks and wait till we get better...
  Dam Greedy big companys...............

  28.1.2008 08:13 #25

• mrturtle

  Just a another to way screw people for a big corporate buy out. The Company will change hands with it self modify the the product and raise the rate people will think its a good deal and pay more for less. The same way candy makers do business. then they hit us with all the different service fees and they own us.

  4.2.2008 08:21 #26

• borhan9

  This will not work due to the fact that people do not want excessive charges if they go over their limits. Time Warner has to think up a new method to this madness.

  17.2.2008 02:13 #27