I heard this on NPR last night, Time-Warner cable is testing price structure changes in some markets.
The idea is that they will start charging for broadband usage over a certain point. And this appears to be no small fees… for high consumption customers – think streaming video, movies, photo sharing and web hosting – the fees can range as high as $200 or more just for your internet portion of your cable bill.
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
In the case of Time Warner Cable, customers will be charged from $29.95 to $54.90 a month, based on data consumption and desired connection speed. Customers will be charged $1 for each gigabyte (GB) over their plan’s cap. Time Warner Cable offers four cap levels of 5, 10, 20, and 40 GB. A download of a high-definition movie typically eats up about 8 GB. A recent report from Sanford C. Bernstein suggests that a family on the 40 GB plan that streams 7.25 hours of online video a week (a fraction of the 60 hours Americans spend watching TV in a week) could end up spending $200 per month on broadband usage fees. And that’s just for video viewing, before factoring in such Internet activities as music downloads and photo sharing. “To put it mildly,” says Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett, “the decision to limit data consumption can be expected to have profound implications for [consumer] behavior.”
You can read the full article at
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090331_726397.htm
How do you think this could affect you? I know I have five computers hooked up to Time-Warner’s internet service with teen-aged boys playing online games, watching YouTube and online chatting. I, myself, host a web site, participate in social networking and genealogy research and more.
The real outrage, for me anyway, is that the technology to provide internet service is becoming less expensive all the time. Is this a case of greedy corporations looking to boost their sales numbers (and their overpriced bonuses)?
What do you think?
