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Time Warner Cable Tests Internet Use Metering

June 9, 2008

Time Warner Cable will be testing a new billing system for their Internet customers in Beaumont, Texas. Instead of a flat rate, Web users will be billed depending on how much information they upload or download. The cable company’s metered Internet access will grant its subscribers a monthly allowance for uploaded and downloaded Web files and, if customers exceed the allowance, they will be charged a fee for each gigabyte used. The test will apply to new customers only and the additional fee for exceeding monthly caps will not be charged for the first two months of service.

Time Warner Cable Sets New Pricing Tiers for Internet Usage

The cable giant explained the reasoning behind the move saying that half of the capacity of the company’s local cable lines is used up by only five percent of their subscribers who use the Internet intensively and that the new metering method will help to deal fairly with Internet usage.

Time Warner Cable Offers Different Rates Depending on Web Use

The pricing tiers Time Warner Cable will be using are for the Internet portion in a subscription that includes phone or video service. They range from $29.95 per month for 768 kilobits per second with a monthly cap of five gigabytes per second to $54.90 per month for 15 megabits per second with a monthly cap of 40 gigabytes. Customers who go over the monthly cap will be charged one dollar per gigabyte. Both downloads and uploads will be counted in total Internet usage.

Consumers who use the Internet for email or to surf the Web will probably not be affected, but for those who download movies and television shows, the new metered system might have an impact on their monthly bill. Just one movie can use up to one and one-half gigabytes, and the same movie downloaded in high definition may use up to eight gigabytes.