Bad news for big downloaders who use Time Warner Cable as their ISP: you may soon face a higher bill. The nation’s #2 cable ISP is set to begin charging customers more based on the amount they download.
A spokesman for the company says that the top 5 percent of downloaders can account for up to 50 percent of network capacity, which is why they are considering the new pricing structure. According to a report from the Associated Press, Time Warner Cable would offer various tiers of pricing, versus what could become painfully expensive pay-as-you-go charges for bandwidth. However, there is no need to freak out yet if you’re currently a TWC customer – for now, the new pricing structure is only being offered as a trial in Beaumont, Texas, and will only impact new customers.
While I imagine the immediate reaction to TWC’s plan will be decidedly negative, it at least seems more reasonable than AT&T and Comcast’s filtering of traffic for users that frequent p2p download services like BitTorrent.
On the other hand, if TWC’s interest is truly to be “fair,” prices won’t only go up for big downloaders, but they’ll go down for those that consume little bandwidth (yea, right).
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