Update from Time Warner Cable on broadband metering [Long Reply]
Time Warner Cable, the second largest cable operator nationally, is one of a first companies to test metered broadband billing. They recently expanded their test from Beaumont, TX to systems in North Carolina and Florida. The company's COO, Landel Hobbs, has posted an update on the trials. Starting in Beaumont, Texas last June, the company's metered broadband started out at a 40 GB monthly cap for the highest speed tier of 15 Mbps, with overage fees for each GB downloaded above the 40 GB.
Hobbs indicates in this update that many heavy Internet users have expressed a desire for a higher cap, and the company is working on another 100 GB monthly download tier for power users. A recent Business Week article indicates that Time Warner is planning to roll out metered broadband in several other markets this summer - including Austin and San Antonio, Texas and Rochester, New York. Depending on the subscriber's broadband speed, Time Warner Cable plans four monthly download caps from 5 GB to 40 GB, with plans for the 100 GB "super tier."
Time Warner Cable's metered broadband tiers are smaller than Comcast's 250 GB cap and are similar in size to the AT&T's metered broadband trial tiers of 20 GB to 150 GB. With the ever evolving nature of the Internet and the way that people interact with it, it's important that service providers evaluate how we can ensure all subscribers have an enjoyable broadband experience with all the bandwidth they need for their activities. These metered broadband tests provide subscribers with an opportunity to consume the amount they wish without negatively impacting their neighbors, while being billed fairly for the amount of network capacity they are consuming. It's much like the way most people pay for mobile phone service today. Subscribers choose a usage plan that matches their needs, and pay accordingly for how often the subscriber uses the mobile network to make or receive calls.
Here at Insight, we don't have any immediate plans for metered billing but we're closely watching the testing at other ISP's. Should we ever consider such a system here at Insight, we'll give our users plenty of notice and will give them a method to track their broadband usage.
I know everyone would rather be able to expand their bandwidth consumption without limitation. However, the stark reality is that the Internet is becoming more central to so many things in life and therefore is being used is ways that were unimaginable only a few years ago. For us, that means that we're provisioning for per-customer usage levels that no one every expected. And make no mistake about it -- we want you to have as much bandwidth as you want to consume. In order to do that, in the long run, ISP's will likely have to implement ways to fairly distribute the cost of provisioning for future usage patterns.
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