ATT recently announced plans to do the same thing. I don’t have a reference, but you can google it same as me.

That means that both major internet providers in Austin TX will be doing the metered internet. I may just cancel my account with TW (both cable and internet) and drop to the $5 netflix version. Makes me mad, but in the long run I’ll save money. Besides, I have internet at work….

I’ll encourage everyone I know to do the same if they enact the ridiculous policy.

With this in mind, which of these devices can you use to buy and download video games/movies/music. Answer: All of them. High definition movies on demand tolling up to 9GB, video games upwards to the same extent, on top of that Album downloads, and the list goes on. This of course is not mentioning Netflix’s latest release of a home appliance that once hooked up to your TV and Netflix account is a few hundred thousand DVDs on-demand. Not to mention the Apples version that was released a bit earlier. You may be saying to yourself “I just use the internet to check my email and browse the web”. Guess what, those ads that pop-up all over the place and are part of those webpages aren’t text. They are graphics that can add up quick and you pay for those too just like you pay for the commericals when you’re watching TV, but there isn’t a limit on how much TV you can watch.

I feel Time Warners bandwidth cap “test market” is a lead towards monoplizing it’s grasp on on-demand video market, hindering Net Neutrality, and plain ol’ greedyness(I’ll lead into why I think this later). I know that I may be jumping ahead of myself but when was the last time any of you saw a commercial for “Unlimited bandwidth” internet usage of late? After thinking about it for a while I would have to say I haven’t seen one in quite a while, but why? That used to be the thing a few years back, terms like “bandwidth caps” and “metered usage” would get everyone laughing or making fun of you of saying, let alone thinking, of such a thing. If you think about it I just may be right and because of this I bring in the greed factor. The average broadband user pays between 30-50 bucks a month, right? Have you ever wondered where does that money go toward?

I’ve been with Time Warner for about 8 years now and I’ve never had any “big” problems but as of lately once Comcast fiasco started I got to thinking, doesn’t the fee I pay for my monthly internet access go towards not only maintaining the their network but provide funds towards upgrading it? If not, why and where does the money go? Now like I said I’ve been and loyal customer to Time Warner for eight years and never thought I would consider leaving after Ted told the RIAA and MPAA to F themselves(in so many words) when the issue of Piracy came up. Not that I’m a pirate but to have someone up high fighting for something that is blatantly right for a change, but I digress. It goes back to mutiple home appliances that can use bandwidth, for legal means, and end up screwing everyone when it comes to this cap, especially being at 40GB. So what does Time Warner say to the cap, well if you go over its $1 per 1GB. Right, so if you have company over or want to be lazy one weekend you sit in your favorite spot in the couch, grab the remote, browse one of several means of selecting on-demand videos/games, download, and let the entertainment beind but wait… you have to check your current usage, take into account well do I want to watch a couple movies or play a new video game. I don’t really want to drive to the store with gas prices but I don’t want to go over my limit. Ah screw it, I’ll download them and go over the limit this one time. The thing is it doens’t stop there, you’re over your limit for the rest of the month. What are you going to do, unplug all your bandwidth hogging devices from the internet until the month is over? No! HELL NO! Oh and do not even think about a roll over plan to where you don’t use your monthly alloted limit you’re entitled to have it roll over to the next month. Use it or lose it pal but don’t too much or you’ll owe us more. You can see where I’m going with this so I’ll stop.

From what you have read in other articles and other blogs I hope that if you are a Time Warner customer that you notify them of what you think. Voice your opinion even if you think it won’t matter. A little tenacity goes a long way.

I (and my wife) telecommute. It keeps us off the road, helps our environment (we don’t use much gas this way), BUT I do have to move large files around. Like ‘um uploading my work to the office – usually done overnight . My wife takes remote control of her office machine and works that way. We both have constant VPN connections to our respective companies networks. What is all this gonna cost in the end? Oh yeah, lets throw VOIP (Vonage) into the picture. All of this is gonna add up, yes? Don’t worry, if it doesn’t TW is gonna change the caps so it does, or make them protocol specific, so they can get their little hands on my little packets (like VOIP or VPN traffic ) and charge me for that also.

I pay a flat rate for my phone (local and long distance (ahh – the wonders of competition) – hence the reason this REALLY seems like a move backwards, a flat rate for my TV (what’s next – they gonna charge me by the show I watch – they will if this model works out), and (since we have wells) a flat rate for our water (well, (no pun intended) until they come out and put a meter on it) which is being discussed. AND, if I have to pay for all this “bandwidth” I am consuming (evidently I am one of the evil 5% that is making this change necessary), why would I NOT go back to dial up, if all I can do with my expensive broadband is check email and read the occasional news story. Once TW starts this nonsense there is no telling where it will end.

I guess I knew this was coming, but it is a bad day for the Internet.

In order to get competition and lower prices, we’ll have to dig and string cable (#90) and we don’t want that. There are regulations all over the place that make it extremely difficult and expensive.

An example in another industry is rail. I’m in Chicago and it’s been a huge rail hub for scores of years. CN wants to buy out a small railroad that has some tracks that ring the metro area to alleviate congestion. Both Senators (Durbin and Obama) and many politicians are against it. At some point, the railroads will switch traffic and the many, many jobs that go with it will go away. At a macro level, it hurts our competitiveness as a country.

It used to be that growth was more important, but that is changing as we regulate more and more things.

I think Tom Friedman had an article a few weeks ago (at least someone sent it to me a few weeks ago) about how it seems that the country is “falling behind.”

What few people will do is make the connection between how we regulate and what the effects are.

We make it hard to look for oil where we think it is, drill for oil where we know it is, and refine what we have (I think we import actual gasoline now) – and then we wonder why the prices are so high!!!

That polar bear act that came out a few weeks ago is a recipe for disaster as it adds a very powerful layer of regulation over large parts of the economy.

Who is to blame? Modern Liberals who don’t like capitalism and who want everything to be equal – equal misery.

(Talking about oil prices, Durbin and other Democrats are fighting BP’s expansion of the Whiting refinery outside Chicago. Chicago has the highest gas prices and the local media is incapable of making a connection between the ignorant Durbin’s and the other Democrat’s actions and even higher prices. So all they do is blame the oil comapnies. Arg!!!)

Anyways, our level of regulation is really hurting us. Btw, Net Neutrality will just make it worse – much worse. And most people won’t even know why.

To get 8Mega Bit Per Second (spelt out so there’s no confusion) on even a cheap ISP with over 200Giga Bytes per month “usage” you have to pay £80 – that’s about $150! It’s crazy expensive. All the UK’s big ISPs charging £15/£20 ($30/$40) give meters around 10/20Giga Bytes. Check http://www.aolb...OL.jsp?urlseq=9 for AOL’s package – $60 for 10GigaBytes a month!!

Couple that with our crippling low connections speeds (countrywide average is 4.3MegaBit – I achieve 2.1MegaBit in the second largest town in England) and you should be pleased to have what you’ve got!

for ~38$ USD, I get a download speed of 800 kbits/s and a combined up+dw cap of 2 GBs.

High speed goes for 55$, and is about 10-15 Mbits/s, with a limited dw bandwidth of 20 GBs.

Over either limits, I pay 9$ / GB, with a maximum overpay of something like 40$.

There’s an unlimited bandwidth plan, if I remember well, that goes for about 80-90$.

All these numbers are approximate, I didn’t want to remind myself in detail how crappy canadian companies are on their customers.

Therefore, you can now run up someones bill whenever you choose, and the cable company won’t be inclined to help or even believe the customer.