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[doronjosama]

Time Warner Cable to roll out metered internet billing in San Antonio.

Not an April Fool's joke, it's serious. If this is the case, we'll have to get a different provider, because we regularly deal with large files on a weekly basis. And not having broadband isn't an option, since all our business stuff pretty much relies on the web.

We currently have Time Warner's Turbo package, but if they don't put the caps on the business package, we may have to upgrade to that. There isn't any Verizon FiOS here locally (which we would get instead, if we could), Grande only serves certain areas of San Antonio that we aren't in, and AT&T is planning to use the metered bandwidth caps as well.

Why are the caps bad? Well, for one, you won't be able to know how close you are to your cap. For two, watching videos online (YouTube, Hulu) uses a ton of bandwidth. I don't even know how much bandwidth playing online games like Warcraft takes. Basically, it seems to me that it's a way for them to charge you whatever they feel like in a month and you won't know how much you've gone over till you get your bill (it's looking to be $1 per GB over the cap limit). Not cool.

When I paid our cable bill, I asked the one good employee there (the one who always knows what's going on, and who is actually intelligent) about this, and she said they hadn't received any information about it yet. (She was genuinely confused too, as all the video screens in the place were still advertising the flat rate pricing plans...) It's hit the local news already, so they're probably going to be getting a lot of calls soon.

Comments

[soror.livejournal.com]

I found this article this morning too. My god it's a pisser. I got the same response when calling TWC a few hours ago, they had no idea what's going on, and the techie I talked to was posting it to their mailing list to try and get some answers, but couldn't tell me anything.

We're considering going with Direct TV, since it's the only option on our side of town, but the customer service rep was almost 'too sure' of himself...so I'll be double checking everything he told me before signing on the dotted line. Grande might expand services, so see if you can get them to give you a firm answer on when they'll be in your area.

[doronjosama.livejournal.com]

I stole the article from you! Ha!

We actually only use Time Warner for land line phone service (at the Radio apartment) and internets. We cut out cable ages ago, and only occasionally miss it (Glenn Danzig is really going to make women compete to marry Satan on VH-1?! Why did we ditch cable?!).

Worst case scenario, we will have to upgrade to the "Business Package", which apparently has no cap limits, but I bet is more expensive. But, as we really really need the internet for Doing Business, we might just have to bite the bullet anyway.

[superhappy.livejournal.com]

I still can't believe they're going to be moving this scheme to our cities this quickly after testing it out in BEAUMONT. "Welp, the metered pricing worked just fine in this cockhole town with a population of 113,866... time to move it over to these big cities full of college students!" Talk about hubris. They probably would have included Houston if Comcast hadn't taken over that city.

The only smidge of reassurance is that they announced 40GB won't in fact be their top-level plan. They'll be offering a 100GB plan now. But they didn't name a price. They were planning to offet the 40G plan at around $55, so the 100G plan will be, what, $99 a month? And it still won't be half of what Comcast is offering on their top-tier plan.

Time to contact Grande and find out why their service won't include my house (literally, my one house seems to be outside their service area; all my neighbors can get it)

[doronjosama.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it'd be one thing if they tested it in a high internet usage city or something, but BEAUMONT?! Seriously?! Not only does San Antonio have a lot of colleges, we have a TON of military guys and you bet your ass those guys are internet savvy and online constantly. (All the military guys who shop at the comic/game store I work at have iPhones, seriously... and they love looking stuff up while they are in the store.)

This blows, so much. Austin is a really net-friendly city, I have no idea how this is going to work. I expect a lot of people will dump Time Warner in a big way, and maybe that will send them a message?

[chasecorbeau.livejournal.com]

I have Earthlink DSL. I doubt they'll be doing the metered billing thing... I hope...

[doronjosama.livejournal.com]

Oh god, Earthlink. They're who we used to have our webhosting with, and they didn't support php. XD I don't have a lot of hope for them.

We originally tried to get DSL when it was new, but literally had months of runaround from the phone company. They actually never came to install it, and we finally got the Time Warner broadband because they actually SHOWED UP when we called them. I am not thrilled with the idea of DSL, but maybe they are better about that now. (One hopes!)

[chasecorbeau.livejournal.com]

I started with a single phone line that we've had for 30 years (same number, bare basic phone service). We had dial up internet for a while, but a few years ago I ordered DSL from Earthlink. They mailed me the modem and some filters and instructions, and I set it up myself. I got some help via their Indian support staff.

But I go into things *assuming* I'm not going to get much help, so I'm used to doing the brunt of the labor for whatever it is myself or with the aid of a friend. I actually prefer things I have a chance of doing myself so I don't have to depend on someone who is never going to come.

I've never dealt with the phone company more than absolutely necessary. I keep hearing Bad Things about their DSL service (the modem they give you is crap, AND they're rude to you or ignore you), so I never bothered to switch from Earthlink, which I only ever got anyway because it was $12/mo for the first year. Now it's $30, which is kind of high.

We have Direct TV, but satellite internet is way too expensive. We don't have cable installed at all (i.e. it's never been installed in this house).

[graphicnovelist.livejournal.com]

Austin's getting hit too. I live in an area that gets U-Verse, which I don't *think* is getting capped limits yet, but Grande doesn't seem to be a damned option. And by nature of my job, i'm transferring large files on a regular basis (as well as streaming Netflix, Hulu, Xbox Live...)

I never thought I'd see the day I'd be praying for goddamn Verizon to start making inroads into Austin.

[doronjosama.livejournal.com]

I know, right? I know that being geeks, and comic book making geeks, we're considered "heavy" internet users, but I think they should have an option for people who DO want more internet. Or people who NEED more internet.

[graphicnovelist.livejournal.com]

The problem, of course is Hulu, Netflix, iTunes and any other content distribution hub that they don't directly control. I know a LOT of people who've dumped television altogether and set up media consoles and just use those for their TV viewing.

(and this doesn't get into potential future services like OnLive)

It's a very goddamn rare day when Comcast looks positively benevolent with their 250 gig cap.

[doronjosama.livejournal.com]

We dropped cable because 1) we never had time to watch it, 2) we're poor, and 3) we can watch whatever we want online when we feel like it. So yeah, I think that's really hurting Time Warner right now. We know lots of people who use the phone/internet service but don't have cable TV. Why bother?

Business isn't going to be capped

[thomaspreidy3.livejournal.com]

And most likely, if the demand is there, there will be an unlimited package. But if you go with the business rate, you get better service and TC's etc. So I would advise that since 1) no cap 2) better overall service etc.

[atomicpanda.livejournal.com]

I hope to hell Time Warner winds up boning their own butts on this one. I'd sure switch to anything other than them if I still lived in Austin. I want enough people dumping them that the jackass suit who tried to justify his job by coming up with this crap gets canned.

I know if Comcast pulls this crap here I'm gone.

[atomicpanda.livejournal.com]

And by 'pulls that crap' I mean putting in such low caps. I already know Comcast has a cap but it's 250GB, far higher than Time Warner's ridiculous 40GB. They also don't have fees if you exceed it. Apparently, they just ask you to cut back. Not sure what they do if you don't.

I'll never find out since I could listen to internet radio while watching YouTube and playing WoW (if I still played WoW) 24/7 and not hit 250GB.

[smudge-dragon.livejournal.com]

I believe Comcast does a throttle-back if you hit your limit. Mostly you only hit it if your p2p/torrenting stuff.

[ichbinkeinenazi.livejournal.com]

That blows. I wonder if they're gonna pull that up here as well... with all the porn I download and heads I cave in on Warhammer Online, I'm sure I'll pass that cap faster than the funny leaks out of a robot chicken episode!

[phil-knall.livejournal.com]

Wow hey, way to go back to the ninties eh?!

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

Grande. We had no choice.

[hecatemahadevi.livejournal.com]

You're still using cable Internet service?

[doronjosama.livejournal.com]

It's all we have here locally....? If you want decent broadband, that is. We tried to get DSL and essentially got endless runaround, though they did send us 2 modems, neither of which worked. XD

At least Time Warner actually turned on our internet, which is more than I can say for the DSL company. -_-; I can't use wireless internet service, because hello, we process people's credit cards on my computer, and no, I don't care how many firewalls you have, that isn't fully secure.

Also, with the exception of certain apartment complexes who have contracts with Grande, San Antonio is pretty much locked into the two choices of DSL from AT&T (Southwestern Bell) or cable internet from Time Warner. There are no other providers here in the middle of town.

[hecatemahadevi.livejournal.com]

What happened to Paragon Cable? I vaguely remember having cable TV service through them when we lived there. Did they get bought up by TimeWarner? That wouldn't surprise me in the least…

[doronjosama.livejournal.com]

Yep, Paragon became Time Warner a while back. They kept most of the good employees, too. Our favorite employee, Victoria (the smart one) worked there when it was Paragon Cable.

THEY CONTROL THE HORIZONTAL! XD

[chasecorbeau.livejournal.com]

Can you get Earthlink *cable* internet? Same cables as Time Warner, but different ToS and billing. Course it's Earthlink... but at least it's not TW... >.>

[soror.livejournal.com]

Here is a link to a post from the Regional Director of
Communications, Texas Region:

http://a.longreply.com/99572

Here is her contact info:

Email: melissa.sorola@twcable.com
Twitter: @melissaTWC_TX