Time Warner Wants to Up Your Internet Bill Based on Usage
By David Walker |
January 17th, 2008 
Obviously not sensing customer resistance to increased internet usage billing, Reuters is reporting that Time Warner Cable is planning on running a trial where high-bandwidth users of their internet service will be billed more. The company is insisting that this trial (in Beaumont, TX) is intended to reduce congestion on its network, which is slowing due to heavy usage. Amazingly, Time Warner Cable – which currently has about 7.4 million residential Internet subscribers – is “…hoping the move will not confuse consumers if introduced nationwide…”. Wow, ya think?
Sadly, this trend appears to be one that other companies will be joining in on. Whereas most users won’t see a change to their pricing or service right now, one has to wonder what kind of impact this pricing structure will have in the coming months and years as online video delivery becomes more mainstream. On the flip side, as online video does become more popular it will become critical for internet providers to increase bandwidth and to make their networks more robust. Those improvements cost money, and as much as we’d like, these companies are not going to do the work for free. It would appear that the days of fixed-price billing for internet usage may be coming to an abrupt end.
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