Comments on: It's Showtime for Tiered Broadband

By: 10 Things to Know and Hate About Metered Broadband - GigaOM

10 Things to Know and Hate About Metered Broadband - GigaOM — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:57:11 +0000

[...] Time Warner got the ball rolling back in January, and in June it announced a trial limiting folks to tiers from 5 GB per month to 40 GB per month. Billing began this month. [...]

By: Carthy

Carthy — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:27:57 +0000

It is already happening in the UK. So called “unlimited broadband” packages are likely to disappear in the future and new tariffs will be based on being able to cope with the new trends in online usage. To be realistic even the unlimited broadband packages offered have always come with a “fair usage” cap on downloads. In a report on ZDNet.co.uk it was revealed that PlusNet (an ISP who bases its packages on fixed download caps) is warning that the popularity of IP television, YouTube and the BBC’s iPlayer could meant that it will be impossible for its rivals to continue using this offer as a way of enticing customers.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:33:04 +0000

Man I really hope this internet choking does not take off.

By: Annie Trust

Annie Trust — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:51:54 +0000

It’s happened.

It looks like Time Warner Road Runner Broadband is monitoring my Youtube usage, and slowing it down so that it is nothing like a streaming TV video.

Time Warner looks to be routing my Youtube requests through a private ip address – 10.33.160.21 – with three internal hops.

Do start–>cmd –>tracert http://www.youtube.com

Here’s a portion of the trace route (starts near Los Angeles):

9 56 ms 55 ms 56 ms ae-0-0.pr0.dfw10.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.181]
10 59 ms 58 ms 55 ms 66.109.9.98
11 * 58 ms 68 ms 10.33.160.21
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 74 ms 78 ms 65 ms youtube.com [208.65.153.251]

Is this OK with the FCC in view of Comcast ruling?

(The workaround is to specify another country on Youtube – going to Youtube Australia is much faster for me, starting near Los Angeles.)

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:27:13 +0000

I wonder how many of those folks signed up for service and have no idea that there is a cap or how small 5gb really is.

By: TEDWARDS

TEDWARDS — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:40:08 +0000

These overage charges will certainly be interesting, especially for gamers. None of us know how much data Xbox live is sending back and forth over the course of a couple of hours. Likewise, how much does an online radio station like Pandora utilize?

Maybe I’m wrong, but my gut says that these caps will be easy to blow past for the YouTube generation.

By: Saurabh Minni

Saurabh Minni — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:04:13 +0000

I am sure they will be equal or worse than ISPs in India who used to employ similar tactics until Govt of India came to the rescue and the state telco and ISP BSNL introduced unlimited plans. Since then, I havn’t heard of many people going for limited plans. If this goes through in US, I am sure ripple effects would be felt in India too. Something sad for the booming Internet. Obviously telecom cos stand to gain from it and users will only loose.

By: Alan Wilensky

Alan Wilensky — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:53:03 +0000

of course, the ISP’s that are pushing this damned consumption-based tiering will never provide a free ware metering gadget so that you might monitor your usage. Nooooooo…..