Idiocy at its Greediest.
I cant really understand how anyone would believe metered pricing is a good idea. If TWC was looking out for the interest of the customers who don’t use much bandwidth then by all means offer a less expensive plan with bandwidth cap.
The crooks did some statistics and found 80% of their customers don’t use over 20 gigs a month so that must conclude a 20% profit increase. The reasoning is it will be “fair” to the other 20% who can pay for it because TWC will not afford to expand their network. The only fallback is assuming the 20% will keep TWC and not switch to Verizon FIOS, or AT&T what seems to be their strategy since all markets they are opening up the new plans are areas who do not offer FIOS.
How about this statistic A survey of 3,600 Internet users in eight countries showed that as many as 50 percent had downloaded copyrighted content in the last year. A majority of the content were movies. What doesn’t make any sense to me at all is TWC states that only 5 percent of their customers are using large amounts of bandwidth by downloading videos, yet TWC also state that the number is rapidly increasing over the next three years. If it’s increasing so rapidly why is TWC upsetting them by capping usage and risking losing what they themselves complain is a growing number of customers? It’s a step backwards.
Do they really believe these users will pay $1 a gig if they have another flat rate unlimited plan available in their area? Families with more than one computer sharing a network will naturally prefer the plan they don’t require to limit their teenager’s Gigabytes, especially since a unlimited plan with competitors is the same plan cost of 80% of their users. Its no brainer when someone offers me a online plan $50 for 20 Gigs with TWC or $50 for unlimited bandwidth with Verizon FIOS, which is reportedly faster . Even if I don’t normally go over the 20 Gig cap I still will go with the plan where I get more for my money.
When I first purchased TWC in 2004 I wondered if they would somehow penalize users who downloaded copyrighted material, it was around the time Verizon refused Supreme Court list of users downloading music and Governor Arnold was passing law requiring email addresses to be listed with P2P services. It taken some years for TWC to monopolize but now it seems my concerns back then were valid.
I don’t think its anything to worry about in areas where I live (Southern California). If they really wanted to put metered pricing plan to the test then do it in Los Angeles. Free Wi-Fi Cafes here offer better deal then what TWC is proposing. I predict by time they are done testing it in Texas the percentage of high bandwidth users will increase signifantly, the statistics will not be the same forcing TWC to give up the metered usage plan. Witch appears to be already the case in New York, Greensboro, South Carolina, and San Antonio and Austin, Texas and the 600 blogs I’ve read to responses of articles dating a year ago when they first announced the test in Beaumont Texas. I’ll really be surprise if it expands nationwide.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
