A work associate was shocked to hear that I have DSL for my high speed internet at home in place of cable. I explained that I had problems earlier with TimeWarner Roadrunner, and so I went with DSL when I moved. Paying for a land line, so 20th century. I’ve looked at cable, but it the good monthly rates were time limited and you really need to buy a ‘bundle’ (TV, phone, Internet) together to get a really good deal. However, I don’t need the phone or TV. Well, maybe I didn’t make such a bad choice.
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Time Warner Cable Inc.’s (TWC) attempt at metering customers’ Internet use ran into a buzz saw in the blogosphere on Tuesday.
The plan, which Time Warner Cable will start testing Thursday in Beaumont, Texas, is aimed at charging users more for heavier volumes and faster service. Given the reigning orthodoxy that the Internet should be free, it’s little surprise the digital crowd objects.
Blogs, however, focused their complaints on the essentially financial argument that Time Warner Cable’s move is out of step with trends in usage and could end up costing it customers.
Bloggers questioned the size of the pricing tiers, especially in an age when downloading movies from Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iTunes store or Netflix Inc.’s ( NFLX) unlimited streaming set-top box could easily push consumers past the allotted bandwidth.
Time Warner Cable told the Associated Press that its tiers will range from $ 29.95 a month for relatively slow service and a 5-gigabyte cap to $54.90 a month for 15-megabit-per-second downloads and a 40-gigabyte cap.
Users that exceed the gigabyte caps will be charged. That’s a sore spot, as a standard movie can consume about 1.5 gigabytes, the AP reported.
Audible Smirk 