Time Warner Cable's Screw job. You're Next.

[Myr]

So, Time Warner Cable has decided to use Rochester, NY as a testbed for the dumbest idea on the planet. And the thing is, we're screwed. The only game in town for reliable high speed internet (outside of being in college) is TWC.

 

They have decided that they are going to CAP our Internet Usage and charge us overage fees like with your cellphone.

 

The highest cap they are talking is about 40 GB. in a Month. If you play games, get movies and music from iTunes, youtube, Hulu, Netflix, etc, use skype, use MSN Or AIM, you're going to hit that barrier really fast. After you hit that barrier they are charging $1 per GB. (remember, a decent HD movie from iTunes runs about 5 gb)

 

As they are basically a monopoly here, they can do anything they want. (we have Frontier as a phone service and they have DSL, technically. It fails for most people. It is also little better than dial-up as far as speed goes).

If, like the rest of NY, we had Verizon FIOS around, we could just switch. We can't though.

 

This will also effect you. I'll be limited to how much I can work on the server. I won't be able to download backups without costing myself $100s a month.

 

http://stopthecap.com/2009/04/02/the-busin...nternet-access/

 

I am planning on contacting every politician and business (Google for YouTube, content providers, Microsoft for Xbox Live, etc etc etc) because Time Warner Cable is trying to kill off all the interner video stuff so you keep their highly overpriced service.

 

I'm seething with rage at the moment. :mace: :mace:

[SRevol]

C

[Graeme]

Welcome to Australia....

 

I think most, if not all Australian ISP's have download limits, though the effect of exceeding the cap differs. Most accounts simply throttle the speed if you exceed the limit, but some charge extra (as I found out when I read a news article about someone with a bill of over $1000).

[Sir Galahad]

I'd hate to think how much extra would go on my bill if I had any limits. Luckily competion is so fierce for your business here it's not hard to find unlimited accounts. AOL do it for about

Edited April 3, 2009 by Sir_Galahad

[David McLeod]

Comcast has been doing this for a couple of months, at least. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) and its successors were supposed to prohibit "combinations in restraint of trade." Unfortunately, with regard to cable TV companies, the "combination" consisted of the cable companies and our local governments who granted the franchises in return for the taxes we pay and they collect in the form of "franchise fees." I really don't see our "cash-strapped" local governments tackling the "cash cows" that the cable companies represent. If anything, I expect to see them adding to our burden by taxing (or increasing the taxes on) the "overage" charges.

 

They say that people have the kind of government they deserve. So, what did we do to deserve the current mess?

Edited April 3, 2009 by David McLeod

[MikeL]

They say that people have the kind of government they deserve. So, what did we do to deserve the current mess?

We deserve the current mess because we are too little involved in our government. Since I retired, I've had time to meet with and/or write to my representatives on a variety of topics...taxes, zoning and Medicare being the most important to me. I have found my city councilman, US representative, and one of my US senators to be very responsive. I wish I had started getting involved years earlier.

 

I also have Comcast and find their cable internet service to be very good...if you consider 12 Mbps to be fast enough...but pricey. They have excess usage penalties, but I haven't been affected; I guess I don't download that much. Their HD TV signal is horrible, so I swithced to DirecTV over a year ago.

[TalonRider]

I've not gotten hit with excess usage either with Comcast. Comcast here in the Philly area now has some competition as Verizon is slowly expanding in the area.

[Jack Frost]

I pay for *unlimited* Internet service, so they can go f**k themselves. I don't think I use a lot of bandwidth, but the idea of it shivers me spine.

 

How can a MSN take up so much GB? It doesn't require loads of data to send a message. :S

 

Vid

[Myr]

My IT person at my last company pointed out to me that MSN staying connected is about 5 mb per hour or more.

[AFriendlyFace]

Oh Myr, I'm so sorry

 

This sucks big time!

 

 

 

I'm sure it's no consolation, but the issues I went through with Comcast back in January literally made me angrier and more frustrated than I've been in a good 5 or 6 years. I'm usually a very calm person, but they had me literally screaming into the phone. Like you I also had no recourse because Comcast is a monopoly in my area for cable. I did try to switch to AT&T for DSL, but after three failed installation attempts by their technicians I finally gave up. I really don't blame AT&T, apparently the wiring is just an archaic disaster and they obviously tried to do everything they could. No, Comcast is most certainly the enemy.

 

Anyway, cable monopolies suck and these companies treat consumers like crap because they know we have no alternatives.

 

I hope their little experiment fails and they drop the whole thing very soon.

 

Good luck getting through this mess and thanks for keeping us updated.

 

-Kevin

[Former Member]

i am with "Belle Marde" And yes it's total grief when you have to talk to their people who answer phones for them. Sorry Jason I've had so many problems calling them before trying to fix my aunt's Sympatico account. Especially that Outlook express email account when you have to switch that Pop3 whatever whatever and they're on the phone "P as in Peter, O as in Orange V as in Veronica" I've had 1 guy tell me i was an idiot to the guy he was sitting next too in the Customer service area lmao he kept saying O as in Zero so i was hitting Zero's was his fault the twat. And when the internet goes down it goes down hard lol. We have 1 other company for the internet here but then you have to switch your tv with them and your phone and everything. Right now we just stick with bell cuz it's easier to keep the phone in my aunts name instead of switching it to me or my moms. But were not getting charged extra for downloads. I think we have Unlimited as well. I could see MSN taking up alot of GB though cuz it's always "LETS SHARE THIS LETS SHARE THAT! You have a Camera they have a camera lets cam! OH! So and so changed there status message" I disabled so much of that crap on mine. Slowest internet sites for me to load are Youtube & Facebook. I can see us switching though come summer when we have to switch our tv's for that "Going Digital stuff" or not have any more tv service. Then switch our phone with them too for that High Tech phone stuff lol I barely watch tv anyways so yeah.

[Former Member]

Wow lowering service from unlimited to a cap is a strange move, I would have thought that was inviting the competition to move in and snatch customers away.

 

As Graeme said, in Australia 99% of plans are capped but that more due to the restrictive costs of backhaul both locally and from the US. Most ISP's here have also abandoned extra usage charges and moved to slowing you to dial-up speeds once you reach your monthly usage.

 

While $1 GB is still not good when you compare it to Australia's major telco at $150 GB it's not so bad (and they count uploads against your quota to)

 

While I have no idea how the telco industry works in the USA over here the highest quality and lowest price connections are provided by some of the smaller ISP's and certainly not by our large monopolies. Maybe you could do some digging around and possibly find a great alternative in a small company.

 

Good luck with it anyway, if you cant get away from them I hope they at least provide a good usage meter.

[wildone]

I imagine that they will try putting caps on usage up here as well soon. I know for a fact that Bell is limiting download speed for large files, so that's why Youtube is slow for you Mattie.

 

I guess the only good thing is we have pretty strict regulation up here in Canada with the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission) overseeing things. Generally they are pretty liberal when it comes to the internet and don't allow the providers to have their own way with the customers. They seem to be constantly aware of not being accused of censorship or company driven in their decisions. Bell is in a lot of crap with hearings scheduled as they did not get permission for either the CRTC or their customers to limit speeds of downloads.

 

I have to agree that the best thing to get through this would be competition. Maybe if enough people in NY changed to DSL for the short term it would be a wake up call to Time Warner.