Here’s some not so good news – especially for folks in Beaumont, TX. Time Warner Cable will begin trials of Internet metering for customers in the city of Beaumont TX. TWC customers will have monthly allowances that they’ve pre-paid for and anything over that limit will be charged at a rate of $1 a gigabyte. According to Time Warner Cable, metered billing is a way to handle uneven Internet usage among its customers. They claim that five percent of their company’s subscribers take up half of the capacity on local cable lines. According to this AP report, metered usage is fairly common overseas but definitely not here in the U.S. More and more cable companies are looking to see how they can bring such price structures to the U.S.

The proposed tiers will be the following:

  • $29.95 per month for 768 kbps service and 5GB monthly cap
  • $54.90 per month for 15 mbps service and a 40GB cap

That sounds like a lot huh? Not so fast. Considering that the Internet is increasingly moving towards “rich” content – 40GB of content (let alone 5 GB) will easily be surpassed. If you do the following:

  • Rent and download HD content via Xbox Live, Apple TV, etc – you’ll be affected
  • Upload and share multimedia content – you’ll be affected
  • Play online games – you’ll be affected
  • Have a home-based business that depends on the network – you’ll be affected

The list goes on. In a world where more and more limitations are being lifted from computing resources, putting restrictions around bandwidth seems like a giant step backwards.

Cable companies argue that they need to do this to reign in the abusive customers. Here’s an idea – upgrade your infrastructure instead. With the growing prices for cable bills, let’s consider putting some of that revenue back into building out an effective infrastructure. Look at the phone companies – heck… as much as I dislike Verizon at times – look at them and their FIOS network.

Should Time Warner Cable continue to expand metering to the rest of the country, you can be sure that I will leave the service immediately. DSL – I  might come back after all!

[Check it out via PC World]

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