Yet another way for cable companies to make me even poorer than I am now. Maybe I'll win the Big Game tomorrow and the 150 million that come with it!!!
The all-you-can-eat bandwidth buffet that cable modem users enjoy may soon come to an end.
Later this year, Time Warner Cable will begin charging users a fee for downloading more than a monthly limit. The company has yet to release specific pricing changes.
The reason behind the move? Cable modem hogs cost cable companies money. Their networks are based on a shared infrastructure with several homes or businesses sharing a local access pipe. If one home or business is using its connection to transfer large amounts of data, performance for all other homes or businesses that rely on the same access pipe is affected. Ultimately, to ensure better performance for cable modem users on that portion of the network, the cable company has to segment the network by installing new equipment.
While Comcast and Cox Communications each say they have no immediate plans to follow Time Warner's lead, now that technology that lets providers monitor network usage is available, it may be only a matter of time before they too move to a usage-based system. Another sign of things to come: Cox has begun user trials of a tiered service for which customers pay more for guaranteed 128K bit/sec symmetrical speeds, says spokeswoman Amy Cohn.
Originally posted by SuperCheetah Yet another way for cable companies to make me even poorer than I am now. Maybe I'll win the Big Game tomorrow and the 150 million that come with it!!!
How will they take my money next, by charging me for restarting Windows when it fails and I have to reboot???
