Metered internet?
Wednesday, Jun 4, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Could this be in our future?
You’re used to paying extra if you use up your cell phone minutes, but will you be willing to pay extra if your home computer goes over its Internet allowance? Time Warner Cable Inc. customers — and, later, others — may have to, if the company’s test of metered Internet access is successful.
On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.
Metered billing is an attempt to deal fairly with Internet usage, which is very uneven among Time Warner Cable’s subscribers, said Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president of advanced technology.
Just 5 percent of the company’s subscribers take up half of the capacity on local cable lines, Leddy said. Other cable Internet service providers report a similar distribution.
* As Jeff Jarvis points out, “Time Warner could end up charging customers more for watching a movie than the service selling the movie, whether that is iTunes or Netflix.”
That’s just ridiculous.
Jarvis adds…
I happen to know that cable companies were making roughly 40 percent margins on the internet access a few years ago. Since then, bandwidth costs to them have been going down but those savings have not been passed onto customers. Meanwhile, equipment and marketing costs are being amortized. So I’m betting the margins are only getting better. Their poor-mouthing is disingenuous at best.
* Not only that, but the Intertube infrastructure has plenty of available bandwidth. It’s not like the system is hopelessly clogged, creating a shortage situation that needs to be remedied with use pricing. Also notice that Time Warner isn’t giving the 95 percent of low usage customers a price break.
This is a crock, and it could be heading our way…
Comcast Corp.is considering a cap of 250 gigs/month. The problem to date has been that cable companies have not told customers their caps or their recourse (witness the throttling of Dave Winer by cutting him off).
[Hat tip: Billy Dennis]
- Ghost - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 9:32 am:
Whats interesting about this is internet access started with various version of metering. Hrly charges; limits on UL and DL by data size. To compete they all eventually wnet to unlimted use flat rate pricing. The unlimited use flat rate pricing then put a number of small operators out of business. Now that they have the monoply back they want to re-intorduce the higher priced models.
The govt needs to step in with its magic monoply pen and stop this. Also of note, the cell companies sell cellular modems. They used to price thier plans based on amount of data UL and DL by the user. They have started going to unlimited use packages to sell their cell internet services. So cable is trying to tredn backwards to capitalize on its monoply.
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 9:41 am:
Opposition to this is one of the few things a great majority of Americans could rally around. I expect an announcement from Hillary shortly.
- Macbeth - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 9:42 am:
I just set up one of the new Roku/Netflix “watch instantly” boxes. I’m having a blast watching some of the older classic (and even silent) movies that I’ve always heard about but never felt like renting via mail or in a store.
But as Netflix (and other companies) add additional “on command” downloads, I’m sure my internet usage will skyrocket.
Metered usage seems counter-intuitive to me, although I know many in Europe and other parts of the world suffer metered usage (and hate it).
- Deep South - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 9:42 am:
The day will come when all info coming into the house will come on one line…TV…Radio…Internet, what have you. Fees will be assessed based on the amount of bits we use, similar to the way we’re charged now for electricity. Of course some info is more valuable that other info, so we may have to pay a premium for that.
- so-called "Austin Mayor" - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 9:50 am:
In 21st century America, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of association are all tied into unfettered internet access.
To say that I would violently oppose this would understate my position. If this goes forward, the response will make 2nd Amendment advocates look like a sewing circle.
Side note: This may make the long rumored “G-Net” alternative — and investment in Google Inc. — look very attractive. see eg, http://tinyurl.com/2wzv6m
– SCAM
so-called “Austin Mayor”
http://austinmayor.blogspot.com
- Little Egypt - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 10:01 am:
Well being technologically challenged, can someone tell me how much time or size a gig is? (I warned you) I used to have AOL and they, too, said my plan was for unlimited usage, but when it really got down to the rubber meeting the road, if I left my computer on 24/7, I would have exceeded my time. Can these companies tell us in hours/minutes how much usage time we would have per month and we can certainly use our internet accordingly.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 10:37 am:
Just as SPAM accounts for 90% of e-mail traffic, online video now accounts for 80% of the internet bandwidth consumed in the world today.
I hate to pick on the ever-popular Google and their YouTube subsidiary, but YouTube alone consumes as much bandwidth today as the entire Internet consumed in the year 2000.
We used to ask what would happen if everyone flushed their toilet at once, and I’m sure a parallel joke about YouTube will surface soon.
GoogleTube of course allows all of this uploading and viewing for free, which has led to skyrocketing demand, and in exchange they sell access to our brains to advertisers.
You can bet that if something doesn’t change, we WILL run out of bandwidth in the next decade. Not that the internet will completely shut down, but it will be so congested that the Hillside Strangler will look like the Autobahn.
There are only three solutions:
1. Raise taxes on everyone to subsidize internet build-out and expansion (universal Flat Tax Model).
2. Charge internet content providers who are profiting from massive production on the Internet (Income tax model);
3. Charge internet content consumers for massive consumption on the internet (Sales Tax model).
Sales taxes are inherently regressive and I doubt that taxpayers who AREN’T using the Internet want to pay the costs. I say tax Google, Blockbuster, Netflix and be done with it.
- Gish - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 10:41 am:
A ‘gig’ is a Gigabyte which is by definition a measurement of the amount or ’size’ of units of data a file is. A byte consists of 8-bits with a bit being the simplest form of data: 1 or 0 (on or off).
Internet services measure speed via bits per second so I guess you could divide the bps by the number of bytes in a file (*8 bits per byte) to determine the time to download in seconds.
The difference between what AOL was doing and the caps now faced by people is that AOL charged you a fee based on connection time regardless of the amount of data you uploaded and downloaded whereas these individuals could stay connected 24/7 yet never hit a cap.
Disclaimer: The above may all be tripe but I am trying my best.
- South of I-80 - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 11:10 am:
Verizon Wireless internet is already there. I love the service– you can have internet wherever you want, whenever you want it; as long as you have Verizon cell service. There are two different plans , depending on how much you use. If you go over they charge you. I do not see anything wrong with it.
- Plutocrat03 - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 11:18 am:
Lets keep the government out of finding a solution to this issue. They mess up anything they try to regulate.
The agreement I have with the internet provider is unlimited service, not unlimited service unless I use a lot. Through not fault of my own, I burn unwanted bandwidth. I believe that they need to contact me to change the terms of our agreement.
I get large amounts of spam which I do not want and web pages I visit stream all kinds of advertising in my direction. I do not wish to be charged for things I do not need or request.
I do not know what my monthly usage is, but the marketplace can be used to control the vendor’s behavior. So far ATT is not threatening to increase fees based on usage volume. We now have access to high speed from ATT in our area. If the cable provider raises their costs to me, I can go elsewhere for my service.
- Anon - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 11:32 am:
250gb a month as a base is massive. If you use satellite or wireless you are limited to about 5-6gb a month or they just throttle you down to sub-dialup speeds. Try that for strangulation.
- Little Egypt - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 11:35 am:
Thanks Gish, that helped.
- Little Egypt - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 11:39 am:
I believe there are a lot of other things congesting the internet highway. For instance, I used to subscribe to the SJ-R hard copy but then became a tree hugger (for a few days) and decided to drop the hard copy and go for the E copy only. However, SJ-R charged $7 or $8 a month for the E copy. No big deal for me though because that was less than half of the monthly fee for the paper. Now, they have dropped the fee for the E copy and you can get virtually everything online that you used to get in hard copy, except the Sunday supplements. If you did not subscribe to the E copy, you could access a very limited online version. So now that has surely helped to clog things up. And I’d be surprised if they were the only ones to do this. I don’t have an answer for the problem but I agree that perhaps taxing Netflix, Youtube, etc. would help and users may also have to go to a subscription service. After all, not everything on the internet is free.
- Team Sleep - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 11:47 am:
Considering that 700 minutes through Cingular - plus an extra line - costs $80+ a month after taxes, I don’t understand why people would be up in arms. The internet has become an addiction of massive proportions. Limiting bandwidth isn’t the end of the world. A surchage on extra usage is not an invasion of our rights. For most people, it’s little more than a nuisance.
Why should we be surprised Comcast has propsed doing this, anyway? They are a gigantic company who has done whatever they please for quite some time. They rode into Springfield with their rate increases and poor customer service. And the folks in the General Assembly have allowed companies like Comcast to railroad us. Surprise, surprise.
- cermak_rd - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 11:57 am:
You know, I’m not hideously outraged at this concept. If there are 5% out there that are using most of the bandwidth, what the heck are they doing? I mean, I’ll download a linux CD image (@720Meg less than a Gig), maybe download a movie (
- cermak_rd - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 12:00 pm:
Hey my post got mangled!
The point I was making:
1 ISO image for a CD less than 750M
1 entire movie less than Gig
1 Youtube video, typically less than 1 Gig
1 musical MP3 typically 3 to 6 Meg
1 text oriented website even with advertisements typically in the 100s of Ks.
1 highly graphical website maybe 1 Meg or 2.
1024 bytes = 1K 1024 K = 1 Meg, 1000 Meg = 1Gig 1000 Gig = 1 Ter
- cermak_rd - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 12:01 pm:
And that should be less than 8 Gig on the movie download.
It would take a lot to add up to greater than 250 Gig! The question is, is this the camel’s nose problem and will these maxes be dropped?
- anonymiss - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 1:48 pm:
Part of the problem too is the mentality folks have with this. They treat the internet and expect it to behave and respond like a public utility. it’s not. you’ve got private companies who built these networks and make investments to maintain and expand it, but then you also have video pirates and heavy-data users who are going to create a jam at some point when they exceed the network’s ability to accommodate the demand. why shouldn’t those folks pay, really? we’re not talking about your mom who checks her email once a day or even CapFax bloggers who have sites running in the background constantly. We’re talking about a different kind of user which the majority of us are not.
Gotta agree with YDD, and to some extent, Plutocrato.
Good post, Rich.
- Squideshi - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 3:02 pm:
ISPs have already been engaging in such “throttling” for quite some some, or as they sometimes euphemistically call it, “traffic shaping.”
- Disgusted - Wednesday, Jun 4, 08 @ 6:08 pm:
When I heard that Comcast was replacing Insight in Spfld, I got online and googled “Comcast Complaints.” 400+ pages came up. If I can do that, how come the Mensa brains at the City of Springfield couldn’t do the same before they signed on the dotted line. Try thinking ahead, folks.