Time-Warner Cable Unveils New Bandwidth Cap Tiers

Time-Warner Cable has been trying out metered broadband for close to a year, and other ISPs are either implementing or considering caps as well. Last week TWC outlined the new tier plans it has scheduled for current and upcoming trial markets, and it ain't pretty.

• New: a 1 GB / month cap, 768KB / 128KB, $15 / month. $2 per GB overage fee. TWC says usage data show that about 30% of their customers use less than 1 GB per month.

• Bandwidth tier sizes included in all existing packages in the trial markets will increase to 10, 20, 40 and 60 GB for Road Runner Lite, Basic, Standard and Turbo packages, respectively, with package prices remaining the same (how generous). Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.

• New: a 100 GB Road Runner Turbo package for $75 per month, 10 MB / 1 MB speed, with overage charges of $1 per GB per month, but capped at $75 overage charge per month, meaning $150 will buy you unlimited usage.

And to think you use to get "unlimited usage" for, say, $25 for DSL.

Trials begin in Rochester, NY, and Greensboro, NC, in August. Then, in October, more trials in San Antonio and Austin, TX.

Interestingly, TWC also said that they will launch DOCSIS 3.0 in the trial markets, and plan to offer a 50 / 5 MB speed tier for $99 per month. No cap was mentioned, but you can bet they will have one.

Once again, I have to note that content providers, as opposed to ISPs, keep feeding us more and more data and information, wanting us to watch more video via broadband, yet ISPs are squeezing consumers with caps.

You can't have it both ways.