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Time Warner says there is no demand for residential gigabit Internet
Google made headlines last summer when they powered up their first self-built gigabit Internet service available exclusively to lucky Kansas City residents. While enthusiasts around the country remain envious of the 1,000 Mbps download and upload speeds that locals have enjoyed for more than six months, not everyone believes there is a market for such a connection.
During a speech at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference earlier today, Time Warner Cable chief financial officer Irene Esteves downplayed the impact that Google Fiber is having on consumers. The executive said Time Warner was in the business of delivering what consumers want as well as staying a little ahead of what they think they will want.
As of now, she said the company simply doesn’t see the need of delivering similar speeds to the average consumer. Residential customers reportedly have shown little interest in their top tier Internet package. She pointed out, however, that they are already delivering speeds of 1 gigabit to business customers – demonstrating at least that they have the capability to do so.
That’s not to say that Time Warner is totally ruling out the idea of delivering similar speeds to residential customers in the future. Esteves said that if Google finds applications that require such speeds and there’s a need for it, they would build their product base to deliver it as well.
Until then, it looks as though Time Warner customers and virtually everyone else will have to be content with existing speed grades until a real need arises – or Google decides to expand to other cities.
User Comments: 65
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For all those ppl that feel that they are trapped by lack of ISP providers in their area. GO CELLULAR!! There are MANY prepaid services that you can get that would allow you to get online w/o having to go through Time Warner. I would suggest you either check with your cell phone provider or check out Virgin Moble. Virgin has a unlimited 4G package at $55.00. Just food for thought.
Thanks for the suggestion. Virgin 4G is over the Sprint/Clearwire WiMax network in my area. I tried that about a year and a half ago; the 3G service was faster than the 4G, so I returned the USB modem for a full refund. WiMax coverage has not changed since then in my area. If I mounted an antenna outside my house, I might get better reception, however, to me, it is not worth the effort at this time. If it were not for this, I would be on their service now. At this point, my only hope is Sprint's upcoming 4G LTE - which has not yet rolled out in my area.
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"Residential customers reportedly have shown little interest in their top tier Internet package."
And there's a reason for that. It's horribly overpriced. 100 Mbps from TWC will cost you what, $100 a month? $150? Compare that to Google's ISP offering, where you can get 1,000 Mbps for $70.
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1 person liked this |Residential customers reportedly have shown little interest in their top tier Internet package.
Wow! They failed the 101 business big time! It's not because of lacking interest. It's because of the price! They have no idea how much Netflix, Youtube and other movie stream have taken up the Internet traffic? Did they take a look at how many people have jumped to Google Fiber quickly? Simple, it's because of price again and speed too.
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The joke honestly is.. we charge so much for these speeds, so we apparently can tell what people want ahead of time. If the prices were really so low, people would snap it up instantly. There's no reason to ignore likely high interest in those speeds, just would rather charge a pretty penny though.
I'd totally snap my fingers, to get faster internet if it worked. They say it can be done, but where's the actual motivation? Oh right.. their personal polls, that nobody but them can see. "They are already delivering speeds of 1 gigabit to business customers." Well it looks to them it's more interest on money in the end, then actually giving customers a worthwhile rate/price ratio.
I'm able to get a 15/10 speed at best, from my ISP and really that's about it. Sure I can jump ship to cable, but the hassle isn't worth it IMHO. Room for internet in terms of home layout, just isn't viable in terms of anything. Also the prices / rates are terrible here in Canada, making it feel like a black hole for internet sometimes.
DSL blows always has.
And what is the hassle of switching to Cable? you just plug in the modem and go.
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@cmb
Youre right!! But im betting the people they asked were from their own board of directors. "Hey guys, do you think we should spend some of our money and give consumers gigabit speeds?" Answer: "Screw them I need a new mansion!!"
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1Gbit? Pfft, give us some decent 10-20mbit coverage and I'm good.
When I first saw Rogers had 100mbit I was excited... until I saw the download cap was the same as the 10mbit option (250GB/mo). Not sure if that's how it is still being executed, but if it is, I don't want it.
*update*
Just looked and they have a 150mbit option with, you guessed it, 250GB/mo for $122cdn/mo. :|
I'm on Rogers extreme plus which is 45/4 with 150GB cap for $74.99* Have it running in bridge mode to my Dlink router and its great. I have multiple pc's in the house and quite a few wireless devices the increased upload and downloaded was felt right away from my previous 10/1 connection.
*I talked the rep into giving me a 55% discount off internet for the next two years so I'm paying less than the quoted amount above.
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And here I thought Time Warner being the only cable company in town was the reason for the barely double-digit Mbps speeds they provide. Guess I'll starting "wanting" more from now on.
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I'm all for faster internet... In my area they (charter communications) offers a 100Mbps connection (which I have and is awesome) but within a few years if the bandwidth from ISPs continues to increase as it has over the last decade we will need faster NICs... Why is 10Gbps networking not common place? 1Gbps has been the standard for a decade and its time to upgrade that or none of this is going to mean anything unless you have an enterprise class 10+Gb fiber switch on your desk.
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In other news...there is also no demand for Time Warner.
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We are Time-Warner and you are getting sleepy....plus there's no competition so we will tell you what you want or don't want. Now get outa here you crazy person, go on....get.
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Typical morons.. lets NOT do a damn thing until we think it's needed.. and then whine and cry about their network being congested etc etc..
"Build it and they will come"
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You're not the only one.. but here in Canada we are even more shafted
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JC713 said:
Well browsing the internet barely uses my 15mb/s... it goes as fast on my friends 5mb/s internet. Barely anyone even has 50 down, or even 100 down... there is just no need
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Online video streaming is where 1Gbit internet would really help. Currently I think netflix tops out at 6mb. They have also posted their numbers showing the average American can only download at 3mb on there service. If that avarge was much higher I am sure netflix would offered higher bitrate videos(maybe for a extra fee). Max blueray bitrate is somewhere around 30mb. How awesome would it be to stream full blue-ray movies in at max bitrate to two TVs in your house at the same time. That would use about 60 mb plus some overhead. Which still leaves you with a ton of bandwidth. Other people in the house could be online gaming with no interruption, watching youtube, downloading the latest game on steam without disrupting other peoples internet.
Maybe the need is somewhere around 100 - 200 mb internet right now but if more people had 1gbit internet I am sure good services would come along that would take advantage of it.
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St1ckM4n said:
Oh, everyone is also forgetting about the lag. High network speed is like a HDD. Low ping is like an SSD.
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Be great they will be sorry when google expands more and takes their buisness only then they will think of upgrading by which time will be too late....so hurry up google get building and get over here in the uk give virginmedia a little competition.
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Hi all, some of us here in Czech republic are very happy with 100/100Mbps for $22.25 per month, fiber optic (no FUP or another cap, no aggregation or other things, static IP on demand) + $19.95 per month for 72 TV programs as IPTV. I always wanted to have a fast internet. And it is not hard to full usage of connection speed - just when everyone in the household begins streaming video in 1080p HD. We also have a small home server with cloud-like services, and there is no problem to connect to it from anywhere and very quickly. Backup of server to another place in internet is also very fast.
I do not believe that there is no demand for a truly fast and high quality connection. I think that some worried about their profits elsewhere. Like fast internet services on demand.
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I also think that if all internet users know what opportunities offers a fast Internet connection, it would be hard to not want it. You know... Asynchronous speed connection by me belongs to the last century - there existed the technical limitations of telephone lines etc. Faster upload speed dramatically reduces the latency of the connection - on 100/100Mbps fiber optic connection is ping around 5ms on average for local (CZ) connections, around 25ms for EU and around 125ms for global.
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1 person liked this |I'm on Rogers extreme plus which is 45/4 with 150GB cap for $74.99* Have it running in bridge mode to my Dlink router and its great. I have multiple pc's in the house and quite a few wireless devices the increased upload and downloaded was felt right away from my previous 10/1 connection.
*I talked the rep into giving me a 55% discount off internet for the next two years so I'm paying less than the quoted amount above.
That's a sweet deal! Hold onto it!
This is what really bothers me...
Rogers High Speed Internet:
Extreme Plus $75/mo, 45mbps, 150GB/mo
Express $51/mo, 23mbps, 80GB/mo
The 150GB/mo is too low for my liking at that price ($75), and 80GB/mo is just an insult.
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That's a sweet deal! Extreme isn't so bad after looking at the 25mbps Express option for $51 and 80GB/mo limit. 80GB/mo is just pathetic. Especially at $50/mo!
Monthly traffic on my connection is averaging 2.5 TB per month, according to data from the router. 150 GB I would had exhausted in less than two days! In the case of backup data from data server once a week ~500 gigabytes of data - I'm a professional photographer and watching HD movies on the net flow data relatively quickly...
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St1ckM4n said:Monthly traffic on my connection is averaging 2.5 TB per month, according to data from the router. 150 GB I would had exhausted in less than two days! In the case of backup data from data server once a week ~500 gigabytes of data - I'm a professional photographer and watching HD movies on the net flow data relatively quickly...
You have no idea how many people here are contemplating killing you and absorbing your identity, just for that sweet sweet bandwidth.
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You have no idea how many people here are contemplating killing you and absorbing your identity, just for that sweet sweet bandwidth.
Ow, I apologies everybody here for this ^.
I would like to share my bandwith with you all, if it were technically possible. I only have a small question to think about - what is the problem when it's going without any problems here but not in your country?
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St1ckM4n said:Ow, I apologies everybody here for this ^. I would like to share my bandwith with you all, if it were technically possible.
I only have a small question to think about - what is the problem when it's going without any problems here but not in your country?
I don't know. I'd say that the size of CZ helps, a lot. Where I live, Australia, there are issues with lots and lots of nothingness.
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I don't know. I'd say that the size of CZ helps, a lot. Where I live, Australia, there are issues with lots and lots of nothingness.
You're probably right. CZ respectively the entire EU has a relatively high population density (except for a few exceptions). Some European politicians promote that every European citizen should have an internet connection speed of at least 20Mbps - but I doubt that it is negotiable to all EU states. There is also talks about the great investment in Europe's backbone.
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So uh, you don't think the market for high end internet isn't there?
This just goes to show you that executives over at Time Warner cable are totally disconnected from their consumer base. The reason why adoption is low on their top tier internet connections is because their 50mbit x 5mbit line runs for $100 a month! That 50mbit line is nice, but only 5mbit up? REALLY? You're targetting enthusiasts with these packages, and we're not content to pay you $100 for only 5mbit.
No, I'll settle for your 30mbit x 5mbit line for $62 a month, which I realistically only get between 3.5 and 4.5mbits up at any given time.
No, there's no market for faster internet speeds, keep thinking that... it just gives us all more ammunition to drop the service once someone else moves in to provide what we customers want, not what you think we want.
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