The Bandwidth Of Greed

Duplicitous bastards!

Time Warner Cable it is planning a trial to bill high-speed Internet subscribers based on their amount of usage rather than use the industry standard flat fee.

The second largest U.S. cable operator said it will test consumption-based billing with subscribers in Beaumont, Texas later this year as a part of a "strategy to help reduce congestion" of its network by a minority of consumers who pay the same monthly fee as light users. At least that's what they want you to think.

The company believes the billing system will impact only heavy users, who account for around 5 percent of all customers but typically use more than half of the total network bandwidth, according to a company spokesman. They claim network congestion due to downloading of large media files such as video is a growing problem and will worsen as it becomes more popular. Lies. All of it.

Imagine your interweb connection is a water pipe into your home. If you are using the water, you can use a small amount and fill up a glass of water, or you can let it rip and take a long shower. Regardless of how much you use, there is a maximum amount you can process because of the size of the pipe. On your computer, there are even more factors prohibiting usage. Hard disk size. Processor speed. RAM memory. Like the water, you can only get a fixed maximum amount, because bandwidth is bandwidth.

The companies would like to ignore this comparison, but like the idea that your web usage is like a utility that they can charge more for if you consume more. Except they forget you're not paying for content or raw resource material. You are paying for the size and speed of the connection. That's it and nothing more. If you have cable television, you pay for the width and range of channels, not for how much you watch or for how long. But that won't stop them from trying.

If they are having issues keeping up with the demand of users, they need to increase their resources, not penalize those who use more than others. If you pay a flat rate at a buffet, you can eat as much as you want and your consumption shouldn't be weighed against anyone else's. Fuck you Time Warner. I hope you lose millions when people leave your service because you're trying to squeeze them harder.