Time Warner's Tiered Pricing Plan Singled Out Austin

It was no accident that Time Warner Cable included Austin in its plans to roll out tiered pricing plans for Internet access. In fact, the city's concentration of tech-savvy customers is the very thing that attracted the company's efforts.

Stacey Higginbotham of gigaom writes today that TWC spokesman Jeff Simmermon told her, "Austin is a passionate and tech-savvy city, and the spirit that we’re approaching this (metered broadband) test with is that if it’s going to work, it has to work in a tech-savvy market where the use patterns are different."

Last week, Time Warner Cable announced that it would begin gathering usage information from its local Internet customers in preparation for a pricing plan set to go into effect this summer. The plan would have tiers of Internet service based on how much data a household uses per month. Customers exceeding their monthly broadband limit would be charged extra.

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By Jeff Beckham in Other on April 6, 2009 4:22 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

kelsoATX

"Time Warner: Unlimited Internet for $150 Per Month"

http://www.dailytech.com/Time+Warner+Unlimited+Internet+for+150+Per+Month/article14820.htm

I was wrong, they're going to raise the cap from 40 to 60GB and pretend THAT's reasonable.

kelsoATX

It seems that Time Warner Cable is trying this as a way to manufacture new revenue growth to make up for all the people that are dropping cable subscriptions.

I think TWC is trying to push for these ridiculous 40GB caps now so that when they people raise a big stink and they bump it to to 80GB, it'll seem reasonable. Comcast caps at 250GB, AT&T is playing with the idea of 150GB caps. The company's franchise contract is up in 2011. I say run them out of town on a rail, this city is in dire need of more competition between broadband providers.

7Costanza

I just confirmed with TWC that my rates will not be going up because I did a price lock guarantee for the next 2 years. Although I had some doubts about locking myself in for a two year contract, I am grateful that I did it now.

sheeshoo

FYI - The City of Austin’s Technology and Telecommunications Commission is inviting folks angry about the TWC caps to the meeting tomorrow night at 6:30p.

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/events/city_calendar.cfm?action=EventDetail&event_id=35775

jello smello

Years ago I worked for Grande. I actually worked in the dept responsible for internet traffic. I spoke with a friend of mine who still works there and Grande has no plans to meter bandwidth. I would imagine that companies such as Grande would not even consider such a plan unless it became acceptable to the public to do so. I have only used Time Warner in the last few years because my girlfriend had an existing account with them when we moved in together. We'll be switching over to Grande now. If you do switch, make sure to tell customer service at TW why you are doing so. Hell, write them a letter as well.

YoYoMa

Does anyone know if a map exists of the service areas for Grande and AT&T in Austin? I contacted Grande to ask for one (no response yet), but I'm not sure how you can even get through to AT&T without already having an account. I have lived in at least 5 different places in Austin in various areas and they've always been Time Warner monopoly areas. It's easy to replace the cable with satellite or whatever, but I'm having a hard time with replacing internet, which is vital considering I am a web designer working from home.

tylernol

this is just another way for timewarner to gouge us even more. They see more and more customers ditch cable bills and just sign on for data, and then download their TV shows via a combination of bittorrent, itunes, hulu, and netflix, and get NBC,ABC,etc with over-the-air HD. Why pay TW $150 a month or whatever it costs for 100 channels of crap when you only watch a few shows? I have been doing this for over three years now, and I am only paying AT&T $30 a month for ADSL. So do yourself a favor, cancel your timewarner, and go with AT&T or Grande or whomever else.

Barney Noodles

Hey TWC, how about you let me order my cable a la carte in exchange for this plan? Again, though, I don't know what makes people think AT&T is not going to go to tiered service in the next year. And, yes, Grande rocks.

The Dude Abides

The ludicrous thing is that they say they're doing this because they know that we all don't use the same amount of internet...so why should we all pay the same price. Yet this is EXACTLY what they do for TV service. They bundle in a bunch of channels that most people don't want and force everyone to pay for them as part of a package. It's completely hypocritical.

I haven't used TW for television in years. I never will again. If they continue with the path they're on with their internet services I will drop it as well. I might do it anyway.

no_relation

I see a fantastic opportunity for Grande, if they can muster the capital to push into parts of Austin that were previously Time Warner-only.

davetx

Have they figured out how to NOT bill me for traffic that I don't originate? There's no such thing as an idle connection.

seth

If you are a TWC customer, switch to Grande! You get uncapped 8mb bandwidth, 300 digital cable channels, and a local land line (not VOIP) for $94 per month.

On top of the better pricing, you get excellent support. The phone techs are competent and they will dispatch someone to work on your line, etc. on the weekend. TWC NEVER sends out technicians on the weekend. If you have a problem on a Wednesday, they'll send someone out on Thursday, but if they have to escalate the issue, don't expect tier 2 to address it until Monday.

I left Time Warner 2 years ago and never looked back.

Switch to a better ISP.

Seth

Jon

Flood Time Warner with calls and letters, telling them that you will cancel your service. Maybe it will be enough for them to realize it's a terrible plan.

(even though I will probably switch no matter what, now that TW has made these first steps of moving to limited service)

MX-Man

I am pretty sure its about Vonage selling unlimited phone service for 9.99 per month or maybe its hulu.com where you can watch tv shows online. Fact is they are losing customers to other better priced services and this is a way to gouge customers for more money. They will come up with some tier plan where is you add in voice, cable and internet you get a better deal. No thanks, Obama is screwing me enough right now and the last think I need in my budget is for my internet to double in price because my kids were out of school a few days and watched a bunch of cartoons.

trick

I love how Time Warner uses the guise that this will save customers money, afterall, not everyone uses the internet the same right?

Well, if that were true, why test it in a Tech savvy market, OBVIOUSLY in a tech savvy market, everyone is utilizing broadband to its full potential.

Lets get to the true reason why this is happening. GREED, MONEY, CONTROL and the inability for AOL TIME WARNER, RIAA, and the MPAA to stop darknets and p2p file-sharing legally.

waffles

GO F*** YOURSELVES TIME WARNER. YOU ALL SHOULD BURN IN F***ING HELL!

tim

Let me save you some money Time Warner. It's not going to work. Especially if you're main competitor has not rolled out metered lines.

Here's how it's going to go down. You're going to have to hire a lot more customer service because of the complaints. You're going to lose a ton of customers to AT&T's U-verse. And ultimately you're going to have to roll back the plan.

Enjoy!