General Discussion

Gee, I wonder how this is going to effect online gaming?  I know 500 Gig is a lot, but is it really all that much when you think about all the things you do online?  I know I do a lot of things.  I email pictures to my friends, watch YouTube, play some demo's, etc.  It doesn't seem like too much to allow us, all things considered.

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All-You-Can-Eat Broadband Is Dead: Time Warner to Charge by the Byte

Reason number 149 I won't move to Texas: Time Warner confirmed it'll be testing a new pricing plan in Beaumont that's based on how much bandwidth you eat up. That's right, hard caps. Totally made-up example, since they haven't released details on the package tiers: Pay $50 a month for 500 gigs, and if you consume more, get slapped with probably obscene overage fees.

Supposedly, consumption-based billing is aimed at all you assholes downloading movies from BitTorrent—"heavy users of large downloads," the purported 5 percent that swallows "up to 50 percent of network capacity" in order to improve network performance. But this is, at least partially, BS.

Everybody is using more bandwidth than ever, and that is going to continue ramping up with services like Netflix and iTunes that keep pushing these "large downloads" into the mainstream. So, it might only hit a small percentage of users really hard right now, but soon enough it'll be hitting everybody, which is the real point.

At the same time, ISPs and telcos are lobbying hard against network neutrality, largely so they can slap the content providers themselves with higher costs for equal priority on the network with the ISP's own services. In other words, they're reaching into the cookie jar with both hands—from the top, and a hole they're trying to cut into the bottom.

For now, Time Warner's plan will only affect new users starting sometime in the next couple of months, and they actually give you tools to monitor your data diet, but if there isn't a total revolt and pillaging of their home office, expect them to roll it out nationally and other providers to follow suit. [AP/Wired]

here's the thing

They'll def do it and the competitors will def do it if Time Warner does.  The only way we can stop it is if another people bitch about it.

I'm pretty sure that can be done quite easily since us internet users are some of the biggest complainers in the world :)

Originally posted by Enigma

here's the thing

They'll def do it and the competitors will def do it if Time Warner does.  The only way we can stop it is if another people bitch about it.

I'm pretty sure that can be done quite easily since us internet users are some of the biggest complainers in the world :)

Maybe some maverick company will decide to buck the trend.

Here in Australia we have never had all-you-can-eat.

My personal Broadband plan is Cable and 12gig a month or they cap your speed down to 56KB/s.
And we pay a lot more than $50 dollars a month for it. ($80 i believe)

What smells like AOL in here?

Seriously Time Warner. . . it's dead. Leave it alone already.

Originally posted by Nasica

Here in Australia we have never had all-you-can-eat.

My personal Broadband plan is Cable and 12gig a month or they cap your speed down to 56KB/s.
And we pay a lot more than $50 dollars a month for it. ($80 i believe)

12 gig a month?  I'd use that up in a few days! 

Originally posted by Nasica

Here in Australia we have never had all-you-can-eat.

My personal Broadband plan is Cable and 12gig a month or they cap your speed down to 56KB/s.
And we pay a lot more than $50 dollars a month for it. ($80 i believe)

I have a Fileplanet account and download a lot off of there.  It's one of the reasons I enjoy broadband so much.  I like to watch the movies and play the demo's.

I've downloaded over 600gb so far this month lol, i'd be sooo screwed.

Hmm dunno about US, but in my country and I guess its so in whole EU the competition is pretty steep. In the beginning (after dial-up) we had DSL offers with similar limits, but they were dead soon as more and more net providers came with various offers and types of connection. Also we have a strong trend of people forming LAN networks in neighborhoods and renting high broadband connections of various types and good deals. Using a thing like that, 100 Mbps connection using opctical cable atm, dont think I could get a better deal anywhere for 3 PC, 2 of them online 24/7, a notebook, xbox360 and 2 PSPs in our household since while most providers allow unlimited downloads, they usually restrict the line to 1 device (and its against eula to have router, etc).