Time Warner to Charge Extra for Over-Quota Bandwidth

duckygator writes: "I just came across this article on NetworkWorld discussing Time Warner's announcement that they will begin charging users a fee for exceeding a monthly download limit. The actual limits and associated fees aren't discussed. Guess I knew this would be coming sooner or later ... Now I guess I'll just have to guess where the threshold will be. Anything more than email? Active gamer? Graphic artist?"

Sucks, but makes sense

[mikeage (119105)]

Honestly... I wouldn't like this either, but remember when DSL companies (and cable) were dropping left and right? Bandwidth costs money, and it makes sense to charge people for usage, not just connection. In theory, it allows lower costs for light users, though I know that they'll only boost rates with this plan. But think about what the equivelent to a standard cable connection (100 - 200 K/sec) would cost if it was bought as a T1 line, and ask how their business plan would look if they provided it for $39.95/month

Re:Sucks, but makes sense

[jchawk (127686)]

Let me say that I work for a DSL company. The comparison that is always made is the one of the normal connection being the equivalent of a t-1 line. However what most people don't understand is that dsl and cable traffic is mostly burst traffic. Meaning that there are relatively quick spikes. The norm at least in my area is that you can fit 125+ users on a t-1 line all at a full 512/512 symetric. If one person is cranking away all the time, there is bandwidth to spare, however if you have three people cranking then there is a problem. You simply take care of those users, or you upgrade the line to the backbone. My dsl company is a sister company with a phone company, so for us it's no big deal to just drop a DS3 in from the hut to our main offices.

Even the smaller dsl companies have deals setup to get better pricing for bigger pipes, because remember they can get a burstable DS3, so you have 3 people cranking all the time, so what you other 120 odd users aren't.

Now, I'm all for charging those trouble users, but I think the cable companies are just simply over selling their lines and taking steps to punish everyone. We get away with 125+ users per t-1, but that's because we've looked at it, and it works. Keeps everyone happy.

The cable companys on the other hand are just over selling their cable lines, and it's hard to just up and rollout more cable lines. So for now it's mostly the cable companies fault, and I think they are just looking to further pad their wallets by punishing everyone.

Mod this as you will, I'm not so sure anyone will even see it. :-)

Maybe this is kind of a stupid comment...

[jcronen (325664)]

...but I don't really care so long as I'm not affected.

If it ends up that 5% of users end up paying extra, good. If it ends up that 95% of users end up paying extra, there's a problem.

I think the biggest thing I fear is that the latter case will become the norm. Just like those per-pound salad bars, you never know how much you've used until you check out. I'm sure the cable companies would love to use that model, and want everyone to have $200 bills at the end of the month.

What percentage of users paying "extra" is appropriate?

Re:Maybe this is kind of a stupid comment...

[letxa2000 (215841)]

I think the biggest thing I fear is that the latter case will become the norm. What percentage of users paying "extra" is appropriate?

I think that's the main problem. I wouldn't mind paying for what I consume if I had some reason to believe it was fair.

The problem is, they may be charging $44/month for some guy who only consumes 1MB or 2MB per month. The percentage of people consuming much less than 200MB is certainly very high. That's a "free ride" for Time Warner.

The other end of the spectrum is the bandwidth hogs. They consume the bandwidth that they've supposedly paid for. Is that really a "free ride?" They contracted a cable modem and they're using it. On a more macro scale, they're compensating for the large majority that don't use a fraction of what they're entitled to.

So I think it's fair to pay for the bandwidth you use as long as those that don't use it get an equivalent discount in the other direction. You can't have it both ways.

That said, isn't Time Warner one of the companies that wants to sell us all this new-fangled digital multi-media content? They'll have to analyze their pricing structure in that context. If it costs more to acquire a movie-on-demand via their link than it does to rent it at Blockbuster, they're on-demand service aint going to go far...

Re:Maybe this is kind of a stupid comment...

[slackergod (37906)]

of course you can have it both ways.
less is more, ignorance is strength.

You signed on for cable service.
They're trying as hard as they can
to pave your on-ramp to the information
superhighway. But should these poor
ISPs be made to sit quietly by, while
software pirates and terrorists
steal their resources? For the love of the
Homeguard, what are they to do? They
have to stop them from stealing _somehow_.

And yet, when they try to simply make things
fairer, by fining these evil people who
go over the speed limit of AOL's internet,
what happens? Everyone trys to take advantage
of them, and wants to be paid less for not
speeding.

Should AOL/TW just sit around, and watch
it's hard-earned potential future profit projections? I think not. The piracy on
the internet has gone to far. And what about
those who spread the vicious propaganda that ISPs
are providing a connection TO the internet,
and not the internet itself? Well, I think
every right-minded citizen would agree that
they are little better than the terrorists
themselves.

(DISCLAIMER: It's a joke, mkay? SARCASM.)

-Slackergod

Now that we have customers...

[gad_zuki! (70830)]

Sorry, but they advertised the service as faster than DSL and about the same price. Toss in quick installation and you've got yourself a customer base. Now you've got people *gasp* using the bandwidth they're paying for. It doesn't matter if you never turn your PC on or if you never shut Grokster down, you have the right to what you paid for. If their business model wasn't profitable to begin with, then they are being the disingenuous jerks that conned you into connecting into their cable network when you could be on a DSL connection instead.

This is another example of short-sighted business plans, a desperate grass at building a customer base, and then selling-short until most of the competition in the area gets finacially hurt.

Why people feel that the grokster 24/7 kid should be punished is beyond me. They sold him the service now they must deal with it. Conversely, if heavy users are going to be punished then give breaks to lightweight users. Of course that means the same pricing plan as DSL, which is who they're fighting and distancing themselves from. Sorry, but this is more corporate bullying than anything else.

Re:Ignorance is not an Excuse

[rcs1000 (462363)]

There is a difference:

What happens if you get infected by a trojan/virus?

It's unlikely someone can sneak into your house and use your electricity. It is perfectly possible someone uses your internet connection.

Also, if I decide to 'ping bomb' your box, should you be required to pay?

You can't have electricty forced down your wires if you haven't turned on the lights, you can have bits forced into your PC if you haven't powered up IE.

Thoughts, thoughts...

*r

Outrageous!!

[GeneralEmergency (240687)]

This totally sucks. I am totally sick of

[--Bandwidth Limit Exceeded by Customer. Balance of transmission cached and will be released during our nex billing period. Time Warner Cable.--]

Tread very carefully, Time Warner!

[Courageous (228506)]

In my area, a cable modem costs $40 on top of cable, but a very nice DSL feed with 5 static IP's is only $65. This is only a 25 dollar difference monthly. If the differences closes up any, I'll simply switch. 5 static IP addresses are in and of themselves worth quite a bit to me. TW only offers static IP's with their business class service, which, IIRC, is $150 monthly.

C//

I can't say I could complain...

[Chasing Amy (450778)]

As long as the threshold is at a reasonable point, I can't say I'd complain about it. It's only fair that those who use the most should pay the most, rather than having those who use the least subsidize the hogs.

And I say this as one of the hogs who'd have to pay more if I were on that cable system. I regularly transfer about 1.2 GB *a day* so, yes, I should have to pay more than the relatively small sum I pay per month now. :-) As it is, the guys who use their connections for low-traffic everyday uses like checking e-mail and websurfing are paying the same rate I do, and that just isn't fair to them.

The problem would be setting a reasonable scale of bandwidth and rates, and I somehow doubt the limits are going to be very reasonable...

Security patches may be costly

[mcwop (31034)]

Downloading security patches from a certain company could break the bank for some people.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Kinda goes against the purpose of "broadband" doesn't it. Wonder if Comcast is next.

Re:Security patches may be costly

[Waffle Iron (339739)]

Downloading security patches from a certain company could break the bank for some people.

Yeah, but maybe not the company you're thinking of. The update packages available since the latest release a certain very popular Linux distro weigh in at something like 800MB. All of the "critical updates" to update an old CD installation of Win98 are only 30MB or so.

I sure wish they'd figure out how to issue binary diffs instead of complete rpm packages. How much bandwidth was wasted having millions of people download a dozen full packages for the 10 lines of screwed up code in zlib? (No, I don't want to compile it from source. I just want binary packages signed with the disto's gpg key.)

Yeah well....they sink thier own boat.....

[Chanc_Gorkon (94133)]

Alot of times, these Cable Modem guys sink thier own boat. They KNOW they can't handle additional users, but then I see adverts all over the freaking place for Road Runner. This is like selling pepsi when you ain't got none. Why in the world would you market it if you know you can't handle it? Although I am not holding my breath on this happening either. It could happen, but my guess is they want to see how pissed people would get. The funny thing is, all of the things they advertise ARE heavy bandwidth uses. Streaming Video and all of that are high users of bandwidth.

Re:Yeah well....they sink thier own boat.....

[lpontiac (173839)]

People running various P2P/FTP/Mail services etc from a traditional 40/month broadband line is simply irresponsible

Mail? Dude, personal mail is pretty low volume, even mail for you and all your friends is pretty low volume. I don't think running your own mailserver is an unreasonable activity.

What you don't get.

[twitter (104583)]

People running various P2P/FTP/Mail services etc from a traditional 40/month broadband line is simply irresponsible and I am glad they are working to curb it. Yes, broadband is cool and all, but in all reality, the days of offering unlimited bandwidth in the days of mp3s and dvd-quality rips floating are just about over.

Streaming video, music, etc is *nothing* compared to the guy who runs a 100 gb 0-day ftp server from his cable modem. Those people send several gigs a day over the pipe, and its hurts everyone.

Wow, I almost feel angry at those theives that are stealing my bandwith, thanks for pointing out the evils lurking on my local cable net. I'll be sure to phone "r-u-shutup" if I notice any unauthorized port 21 traffic.

Now let's get real and pull apart what you said. Let's start with the purpose of the internet: to share information and computing resources. It was made for "servers". ISPs that don't let you run a server are not Internet Service Providers, but something else like a Browser Provider of Adverts. Now let's think about those 100 Gig/day ftp sites. When was the last day you made 100 Gigs of original content? I hate to admit it, but my ftp site does not see anything like that kind of creativity or traffic. People downloading Warez, movies and other comercial garbage deserve to have their line cut and will. It has NOTHING to do with what is happening here which is a pay per the minute fee for downloading adverts.

What you see is the inevitable result of the death of "broadband" competition. The local Bells feel free to crush their DSL competitors and the cable companies have municipal monopolies in most of their areas of domination. With your coices left to two or fewer providers, is it any supprise that you will pay for the minute? People once tollerated this for phone service and seem destined to put up with it again, even if they decide to re regulate the whole mess.

Attitudes like yours make the local Bell, large publishers and the government happy. None of them want you to publish, and all of them want as much of your money as they can grab. "Shut up and give it up, Bitch" is their song. Why would you want to sing it?

So Lets Recap

[danheskett (178529)]

This is entirely a good thing.

My subnet on a RR network is filled with insecure, rude, and silly Warez hosts, blasting broadcast packets, trojan attempts, and general mischief. I know of people who routinely transfer 8-10 Gb per DAY (yes, per day - they max out at around 1000 kilobits second, 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day = 88473600000 bits/per day = ~10.2 gigabytes per day!) of mp3s, warez, movies, spam, etc.

It doesnt take many of those types to *really* impact overall performance for everyone else. Even if you are on a really well managed network, all users suffer. Its really annoying to keep getting disconnected while trying to work remotely, or to get 3 kb/s downloads from legitimate high-bandwidth sites at peaks time because you *know* your peers are being hogs.

The days where $40-60 a month entitled you to transfer 1/3 of a terrabyte a month are over. I fully support. I dont mind paying a little extra for more bandwidth, better latency, etc. Give me a reasonable daily/weekly/monthly limit (I mean, come on, would the typical heavy user really need more than 1 gb or so a day?) and I will be happy.

And to the rest of you, who somehow feel entitled to gouge bandwidth with impunity, get a real dedicated high-speed line or go to hell.

Re:So Lets Recap

[Indras (515472)]

would the typical heavy user really need more than 1 gb or so a day?

If it was 30Gb per month, I'd be happy, I don't think I would exceed that in downloading (in uploading, I barely scratch a meg a day, just a couple e-mails and some simple browsing). However, if I was capped at 1Gb per day, It would take more than one day to get the latest Linux distro. I just downloaded the full Redhat Skipjack beta in six hours, 650Mb per disk, two disks for the basic Redhat install, plus three more for powertools, etc = 3,250Mb. That would annoy the crap out of me to have to wait four days to get my isos.

I don't think I'm alone here, either.

Re:Where do YOU get RR?

[danheskett (178529)]

Ocean Park, Maine. No limits, no restrictions, lots of bandwidth. For real.

And its abused every which way but left. As a test, I just maxed out the uplink on a dedicated box I have access to. That line was a 512 kilobit bad boy. I used 98% of its capacity sustained, no problem.

Other comments:

1. 'Downstream' bandwidth is cheap enough in mass, for providers. Some type of weekly/montly limit will be more than reasonable - probably you know 4-5 gigabytes a week not to exceed 25-30 a month. Thats pretty reasonable for $40-80/month. More than that I think qualifies for some type of graduated pricing.

2. 'Upstream' bandwidth is usually skimped on, because for most users, it is truly minimal. People want fast downloads because most people are net consumers of bandwidth rather than providers of content. P2P and nerds in general are changing this. Yes, they should do better at filling needs but it is not unreasonable to set prices based on usuage.

3. Scanning ports is a sad reminder of how bad most people treat their machines. Some ISPs were nearly destroyed under the latest various Windows exploits. Blocking major ports is a sad reminder that most of your fellow Internet types are morons. If you really feel the need to host somethign commerical I'd recommend a teleco line. They are cheaper than you'd expect. Plus they are truly yours. If you simply want to run your e-mail/web server I'd recommend a hosting account at professional host. If you just want remote access to your desktop/console stick with VNC/SSH and be prudent.

4. If @HOME sucks, then switch. You probably can get DSL, or Wireless, or Satellite, or other services. There is a strong chance you could get a few ISDN channels for a fairly low rate. If all else fails, find some nerds in the same situation as you (say, 8-16) and go in on a T1 and some nice wireless equipment. Works well in a nerdy apartment building/housing division. Its not as pricey as you might think and the bandwidth should be great.

5. Finally, if all else fails go back to Dial up. Its not all that bad. Take some prudent steps and all will be great. The major ISPs sell products to the masses - the 95% of computer users. When the last 5% cost as much to serve as the bottom 95%, the obvious answer is to cut otu the unprofitable 5%. Find yourself an expert ISP - someone like Speakeasy who will offer you excellent service and no-questions asked usuage policies. It really can't be beat. IF you aren't in the right area, physically relocate.

It's been tried before

[Ali Jenab (565034)]

I used to work for a large internet provider [verio.net] (which shall remain nameless) who had contracts with several small cable franchises for end-user internet services. As a network engineer I was responsible for planning and supervising the rollout of metered cable modem service in one mid-sized city, as a pilot program. Needless to say, things didn't work as well as we had hoped. Here are some of the problems we ran into:

• Fraud. Several prolific warez kiddies figured out how to change their MAC address to bill their service to their neighbors or even to our own router (!). We're still not sure exactly how that happened. Sure, we cut them off and connected their modems to a high voltage source as punishment (our contract allowed it), but how many more are there who we didn't catch?
• Billing issues. People who obviously ran up a very high bandwidth bill would call us and complain when they got their statements, asking us to lower their bills. Our position was that it wasn't our responsibility that they couldn't figure out how to close Napster or stop downloading porn. When they paid with credit card we would sometimes lose the dispute, but things were okay when they paid with cash or check.
• Expectation of quality. As you know, a cable modem is a shared medium and cable companies are not at fault for your neighbors' downloading habits. However, it was considered a potential legal liability to be providing a service of varying quality.

For these reasons and many others, metered cable modem service just won't work.

/ali

Metering Specifics?

[schwap (191462)]

I wonder if it would be possible to setup a few processes to ping a range of IP addresses to cause accounts to run over their quota. Would they distinguish real traffic from garbage such as that?

Save us the self-righteous diatribe...

[coupland (160334)]

> I'll just have to guess where the threshold will be. Anything more than email? Active gamer?

Please spare us the drama. I've done benchmarks and an active gamer who performs regular web surfing and casual file downloads does not approach the quota limits. Quotas are designed to thwart the WaReZ PuPp13z of DC, Kazaa, and WinMX fame who are not only throttling the backbone, they're the reason your cable modem drops carrier every Saturday morning. Cry "wolf!" all you want, I signed up for internet access with a quota and I can't wait until my ISP starts to impose it on me and (more importantly) my k1dd13 neighbours. Spare us the social diatribe...

Thanks elected representatives...

[Sarcasmooo! (267601)]

No one saw a problem with Time Warner owning the cable companies in places like my hometown of Charlotte, and now they have no competition, so they can pull this crap despite having already implemented bandwidth caps to supposedly avoid the need for it. Companies like Carolina Cable tried and tried to get their foot in the door, but when TW/AOL can just put off access to the pipes they control, those companies have a better chance of going bankrupt first (CC ran out of money a long time ago). Some free market this is. Uggghhhhh, fuck it all.

This will reveal the true value of mp3s/warez.

[Jason Pollock (45537)]

Now we'll see what people see as the real value of mp3s. Is it still a good idea to download it if the download is going to cost you 10c/meg? We'll find out shortly.

I already live in the world of the monthly free traffic quota. Here in New Zealand, I have a 2meg down/256k up cable connection, with 1Gb of (international) traffic free for ~US$40.

Traffic charges are tiered with national traffic (NZ) is at US$.008/meg and international traffic is at US$.08c/meg. So, downloading that image of Serious Sam SE will set you back US$52. All of a sudden, it makes sense to go out and buy the thing for ~US$40.

I can't see this as anything other than a positive development.

Before anyone starts, think about what this will do for the packaged linux software business. It might actually be cheaper to go out and buy the CD than download the ISO from Red Hat. All of a sudden RH turns a sale with a cost to them into a sale with profit! That _has_ to be a good thing.

Jason Pollock

Re:This will reveal the true value of mp3s/warez.

[TheOnlyCoolTim (264997)]

So, you should download Serious Sam off someone else in New Zealand!

Tim

Re:This will reveal the true value of mp3s/warez.

[ralian (127441)]

Before anyone starts, think about what this will do for the packaged linux software business. It might actually be cheaper to go out and buy the CD than download the ISO from Red Hat. All of a sudden RH turns a sale with a cost to them into a sale with profit! That _has_ to be a good thing.

Oh my god, what tripe you utter. One of the primary benefits, if not the primary benefit of Linux is how it is free for download, and for several very, very valid reasons.

a) It means someone (say, the 16-year-old using the familay computer)can try out a new operating system without paying $50. Seriously, how many people would have ever tried Linux, would have ever used anything besides Windows, if they had had to pay for a boxed distro instead of downloading one? (I know I sure as hell wouldn't have - let me tell you, when I started using Linux, I was in high school, and I did not have $50 lying around to test something I didn't need.) That's how Linux started - people in colleges freely downloading Slack to try out on their 386s.

b) You know Linux's vaunted stability and high bug-catching rate? Yeah? You know where that comes from? I'll tell you. People downloading betas and unfinished distros to test them. Your plan would entail causing the download a beta to cost more than buying a release version. You know where Linux's stability and security goes from there? Down the drain.

Repeat after me: Allowing people to download Linux gratis is good.

The consumer gets screwed, again.

[CleverNickName (129189)]

You know, if there was any REAL competition in broadband, I'd say that this is good, because it'd sink AOLTimeWarner, as all their subscribers flee to alternative providers.

But, since getting broadband internet is a lot like getting cable television, I think that the consumer is going to get screwed big time by this.

Seriously, has deregulation ever benefited consumers? I can't think of a time off the top of my head when it has. It seems to me that it always benefits big business at the consumer's expense, and this is yet another example of the consumer getting screwed by a deregulated conglomerate.

Re:The consumer gets screwed, again.

[by Anonymous Coward]

Back then, hackers didn't pay for long distance. Only punters like you.

~~~

I wonder what they will count as bandwidth?

[sunhou (238795)]

Will they just count what you download to your machine? I.e. will stuff downloaded from their Usenet servers count the same as stuff downloaded from outside their own network? I wonder where their bottleneck is. If the bottleneck is getting data from the rest of the world into their network, then downloading stuff from their servers wouldn't hurt too much.

Have any of the other companies that have done things like this made any distinction between the two?

Cable modem vs. DSL

[Animats (122034)]

What this reflects, I suspect, is a desire to hang too many cable modems on one segment. It's so easy to hang lots of modems on one segment, and expensive to provide a wideband link from the segment concentrator back to the head end. Segment concentrators have to go on telephone poles, which is not a great environment for electronics.

In the DSL world, you normally have a existing dedicated pair back to the central office, and bandwith from the CO usually isn't the limiting factor. And all the equipment is either at the customer or in the central office.

I live in a barn.

[Carbino (567898)]

With virus scanners and other programs set to check for updates automatically, email programs set to check for new mail every X minutes, not to mention the little leaks from programs with the potential like Kazaa, I would think it would be a little like all the electricity that trickles into all the appliances in the modern home when they are "off". How much "wasted" bandwidth would the average user lose in say a year? I guess I will have to start remebering to turn off the light/computer when I leave the room.

good filters

[oyenstikker (536040)]

If they're gonna charge by bandwidth they had better do a VERY good job filtering spam. And how much bandwidth is 5,000 hits from Nimbda?

Can I run a server now?

[vanguard (102038)]

I run a rather unpopular website with some pictures of my coral reef tank. Sadly, Time Warner doesn't want me to run a server because of the traffic it could consume.

Now that they have a per for traffic model, can I run my server?

Welcome to Australia

[purplemonkeydan (214160)]

This is the same model us here in Australia have been offered. With my cable ISP, Telstra BigPond [bigpond.com], you can download a maximum of 3GB a month before you are charged 11 cents per MB (there are different plans available with more or less data, but the 3GB one is the one most users are on, and is the best value).

All Telstra content is exempt from this, and does not count towards your quota. Telstra mirror the major Linux and *BSD distros, service packs, game demos, movie trailers as well as providing video streams (including full replays of every NRL and AFL game).

The other major cable ISP, Optusnet [optusnet.com.au], allows users to download up to 10 times the average of all customers over a 14 day period. Currently, the average user downloads 75MB a day. They have a tool called Netstats that allows users to get this information. Optus does have a fairer system, but they haven very limited availability (only selected parts of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane; nothing outside those cities), and you cannot run servers at all (Telstra allows this). There are also rumours that since SingTel bought Optus, they are looking at changing this system to a flat download limit.

I'm going to go against popular opinion and say that I don't mind this system at all. I download less than 3GB's a month, I get all the Linux distros for free, and can comfortably download whatever I like. It costs a hell of a lot to send data to and from the US, and I'd rather that my ISP is profitable and won't sink.

I also don't see why I should subsidise 12-year old warez kiddies; if they want their warez, they can damn well pay for it.

Dumb question

[dswensen (252552)]

This may seem like a really naive question (probably because it is), but can someone explain to me in layman's terms why bandwidth is so expensive?

Right and left, I see personal sites dropping like flies or going members-only because they're being hit with multi-thousand dollar bills because they suddenly got popular. Why does it cost so much? What resource is being consumed that justifies these huge amounts of money?

It's an honest question -- I really don't know how it works, and I'm curious to know.

A Technical Solution

[slyfox (100931)]

Instead of offering xxx kbits/second and charging more per bit after a certain usage threshold, the ISPs should sell a broadband connection with a "peak" and "sustained" rating (e.g., 512kb peak and 56kb sustained.) A users would receive bursts of 512kb throughput, but after an hour or two straight at full throttle the ISP's router would slowly limit throughput to the sustained rate.

One simple and well-known algorithm to implement this solution is a token-bucket. (More information from Cisco's web site) [cisco.com] The basic idea is that you have a bucket that collects token at some rate. This rate corresponds to the peak rate of transfer. The bucket also has a maximum capacity which corresponds to the size of the 'burst' you'll allow. When a packet arrives and the bucket is non-empty, the packet is forwarded and one token is removed from the bucket. When the bucket is empty the packet is queued or dropped.

Going back to the above example, consider a token-bucket where tokens arrive at 56kb/second, and the bucket can hold (60*60*512) kbits of tokens. This bucket would allow full peak allows full use for a hour or two, at which time the bucket would be close to empty and packets could only be sent the sustained rate.

This kind of setup would not effect most users at all, but would limit the worst offenders to 1/10th or 1/100th the bandwith usage.

TimeWarner! Its to protect the Film Music biz

[bstadil (7110)]

I read thru all the post and it amazes me that nobody (Maybe I missed it) has picked up on the fact its Time Warner. This is as much an attempt to protect their Music and Film biz as its a "cost of bandwidth" issue. We are just about now getting to the point where its somewhat practical to download DivX movies in addition to Mp3 music. If they can cap the bandwidth at this point they have bought themselves a few years to try and figure out how to avoid movies going the route of music.

Can they do it?

[hyrdra (260687)]

As a CMTS technician and head end operator who was around for the first rollout and one of the few who actually read the DOCSIS spec, I can testify what Time Warner is proposing is going to be difficult. Given the current state of the network, it's a wonder it even works. When I was there, we were doing things for the most part ad hoc and flying by the seat of our pants. The user database, cable modem SMS database, and interactive user content were completely separate on isolated systems, running on a variety of architectures and different places.

For example, the typical account server that manages BOOTP requests and allows modems on the network is operated by the national Road Runner, while we operate our own DHCP servers. The TFTP server that transfers configuration information to customer modems to adjust settings is hosted and operated by a 3rd party service. In the first case, the BOOTP server runs on an AIX system, the DHCP server is Win NT, and the TFTP server is run directly off of the Cisco UBR.

Currently, we have no way of knowing what users are even on the system (e.g. IP's or MAC's to names). Why? Because our user database isn't connected to the CMTS. When we have to turn off a modem for non-payment, we have to go in and add a line in the UBR's file to map specific MAC addresses to a disabled DOCSIS configuration file. So yes, it is controlled by your MAC addresses but still the config file can be forged to give you access anyway. Cable modems have voluntary network access, that is, they must restrict themselves from going on the network if the head end tells them. That doesn't mean they can't somehow still go on the network, albeit not 'authorized'. Quite literally, there are no network locks other than the customer's modem.

Things were more of a mess just a few weeks ago. The configuration files weren't even using shared secret or message integrity checks to ensure customers didn't tamper with the files to gain unauthorized service. We only found this out after our OC-192 was getting heavily saturated connected to the Road Runner backbone. Doing a dump of connected modems (which displays frequency info, signal info, etc. and is generally used for debugging), yielded over 65 modems operating in excess of 10 Mb/s up and down. Talk about getting a deal for $39 a month. I had no idea how long these users had been exploiting the system, but I suspected at least a few had done so for around 11 months based on old logs from one of our router, which keeps bandwidth info for specific IP's (we could determine it was these users because they were also using static IP's).

Currently, there are around 80 modems on the system that technically shouldn't be. The reasons for this are varied, from mistyped MAC addresses to fraud, we don't have time to investigate and the current DOCSIS version we are using doesn't offer fixes for these types of problems.

Clearly, Time Warner needs to do a lot of work if they want to do anything like bandwidth limits. This may be a franchise-only problem, but the way I see it is the combination of the very much flawed DOCSIS spec to cable operators who ARE NOT internet service providers leads to these kinds of network abuses. Just look at TR's national web site that ends in errors every turn for proof they are running are glued together operation. This leads me to wonder if that article was to scare users into using less bandwidth, thus solving the problem for them? Otherwise they need a serious investment in infrastructure in order to make it happen in real life. Personally, I haven't heard anything to the affect of bandwidth limiting. We don't even have the capability to monitor it now, as I've said all along...

No - unlimited bandwidth IS capitalism.

[Saeculorum (547931)]

Why not? If I follow the terms of the terms of service, I see it as the providers problem, not mine

I paid for the service - essentially you're telling me if I go to McDonalds and eat all of the food I ordered, I have bad manners. I draw the line at breaking the terms of service - I see it as a contract for the service rendered. "Back in the old days", the internet was an academic resource. Now it's a commercial resource. It costs money. For money, I get a service. If I don't use that service, it's my perogative. If I use the service as much as I possibly can, it's my perogative. It might be their network, but for the time I "rent it" for $40/month, I'll do the hell I want with it.

Re:No - unlimited bandwidth IS capitalism.

[Jester998 (156179)]

"for the time I "rent it" for $40/month, I'll do the hell I want with it."

Key word: 'rent'. If you rent an apartment, are you free to do whatever the hell you want? Are you free to bash in all the walls, rip up the floor and detonate pyrotechnics? Not usually.

You'll either end up losing your security deposit, or you'll end up in court if the damage is severe enough. The rental fee provides specific services (ie. permission to reside in the apartment, perhaps also usage of electricity, natural gas, etc), but it does not give you free reign. You want to do that, BUY it outright. Your fast food analogy is off the mark since you have PURCHASED, and essentially "own" the food. Not so with an apartment or your ISP's network.

"follow the terms of the terms of service"
And if their terms of service state that they will provide X gigabytes of download bandwidth, with a surcharge of $Y/GB after that? It's in the terms of service, which, by the way, usually includes a clause stating that they are allowed to change it at any time, usually with 30 days notice.

Bandwidth isn't cheap, and companies are finding this out very quickly, particularly with all the new whiz-bang "multimedia content" being pushed over our pipes (streaming video, online gaming, what-have-you).

- Jester

Re:I hope ATnT doesn't do this also

[doooras (543177)]

drop broadband because of download limits? you're kidding, right? i mean, dial-up has monthly download limits as well... they're just built in... you can't download ten gigs of bs in a month with a modem. the cost for the two is almost the same, so you can't use that argument. (assuming a second phone line) i'd rather be limited and get fast slash.

Re:i hate to say it

[sunhou (238795)]

The networks in many college dorms are imposing bandwidth limits as well, and that will likely keep increasing, for the same reason Time Warner is doing it (a few big bandwidth hogs can suck up inordinate amounts of resources and make it harder to keep the system usable for everyone else).

Just recently Cornell announced they will raise the price of network access in the dorms to about $40/month, the students are all yelling about it. They definitely don't want to pay real-world prices.

Re:i hate to say it

[zaffir (546764)]

I understand the net access limiting in college dorms - most people in college don't give a shit about bandwidth, so they just let kazaa/morpheus run unrestricted all they want - it isn't their money. They just end up fucking the people who really need the bandwidth. These people NEED bandwidth limits.

However, excedding bandwidth limits on a cable modem is not supposed to happen. That's what the 12k/sec cap on uploads is there for, right? If they want to charge me for the extra bandwidth i use, why not allow me to take all my alloted bandwidth in one lump sum? If i upload the latest release of my Linux distro once a month, i'll be using, say, 600 megs of "bandwidth" that month. What difference does it make to them if i spend 10 hours uploading it, or 2 minutes? I still use the same ammount, and still have to pay extra when i go over.

I don't think its fair that they implement upload caps to limit our bandwidth usage, and then say how much we can use what little sending speed we have. Of cours, this is corporate America, and nothing is fair from the consumer's point of view.

Re:i hate to say it

[tenman (247215)]

You'd be surprised at how much you've been ripping your provider off all these years.

I have to disagree. I haven't worked in the NOC of an ISP in years, but this is much is still true. If you own the network, you don't have to pay to use it. Also true, if you own a big enough network, other peer networks allow you to connect to them at what amounts to a reciprocal cost. (I connect to UUNet, and they connect to me. In that way we usually use the same amount of each others network, and thus we charge each other the same price for connection < the charge is a formality >)

All ISP's have to build staff, support, maintenance, and growth cost into their billing. And so while those are huge expenses, if the company is loosing money on those services it's because they made a choice to do so.

There is no additional cost to the provider if i download 1Meg/Month vs. 100Meg/Month, because they own the network. Now someone who downloads 1Mbps vs. 100Mbps is a real issue. While the company owns the network, the network is still a finite resource. There are only so many Mbps at any given second. And if you are using 80% of the company's bandwidth, then you cost them more, because all of the other customers share only 20% and then leave the service because they are unsatisfied with the speed. So in that you drive away customers by hogging the bandwidth, you cost the company more money.

That being said, let's say "47&7" company owns a network big enough to let each of their customers have 50kbps simultaneously. If I keep my 50kbps open at 100% 24/7/52, then I cost the company nothing. I am only allowed to use what I am allotted and I am not using someone else's bandwidth. There is an algorithm out there that says that between X o'clock and Y o'clock z number of people is using the network. So then if they calculate the number of people that use the network, and the average amount of time that they spend, you can lock in a bandwidth number that doesn't infringe on you bandwidth limit.

Now, The problem with what they are doing is they are going to charge you guys for using what they have already allotted me. I keep my bandwidth open as much as mechanically possible, but people like me are part of the fore mentioned algorithm. I'm way ahead of the yahoo games playing mom, or the porn-browsing dad. But I'm not new to the game. ISP have been dealing with the likes of me for years. I don't have a problem paying more than the average Joe. I would gladly pay $10/Mth more to keep my bandwidth open, but It's not fair to those who have "excessive" downloads 1 or 2 times a month.

Corporate greed it still nothing more than greed. And when you say that I have no idea how I'm stealing from my ISP, you're wrong... I do have an idea, no I have the answer. And the answer is, under the user agreement that I signed, and under the limits that they set on my connection, I'm not stealing at all, but rather, I'm taking full advantage of the service that I pay for.

</soapbox>

Re:i hate to say it

[by Anonymous Coward]

P2P piracy? Someone please just come to my house and shoot me...

I can't imagine how low we've all come since just 2 years ago.

In another 2 years will there even be an internet left? The day I see a 10 10 220 plan for paying for internet time...I'm just gonna pull the trigger.

Everything that's happening is the THE EXACT AND DIAMETRIC OPPOSITE of what was supposed to happen!

We were all expecting BETTER service, FASTER service, MORE applications, MORE companies, MORE global communication. And just look at what's been happening!

Then this asshole posts that P2P is just about 14 year old kids trading warez and pr0n!?!!? Are brainwashed chimps like this guy all we've got left in the geek community?

P2P is a godsend!

BUT WE'LL NEVER GET A CHANCE TO IMPLEMENT IT IF CONNECTING TO THE NET COSTS 10 CENTS A MINUTE!

Re:i hate to say it

[mshiltonj (220311)]

Capped bandwidth reduces the cost of the service to ordinary users by not making the rest of us pay for what is probably P2P piracy.

Which could possibly be the big reason behind this.

It's also going to kill net radio services like shoutcast [shoutcast.com].

Another thought: It's going to make people (well, me at least) even more resentful of advertising.

I have to pay for (1) simple access, then I have to pay for (2) metered usage, then I have to be bombarded with (3) advertisements to see anything of value -- which I am paying to (4) download, and I have to (5) register with the content provider to get the content and advertisements.

I've got an internal network for testing and development. But I've been spoiled by the net. Maybe I'll just switch back dial up, and use lynx to read slashdot, google groups, search.cpan.org and java.sun.com. And pine (though Evolution is pretty nice) to read email. Maybe I'll resubscribe to a print newspaper and a weekly news magazine for news again.

I'll miss having so much technical information immediately at my disposal, but I've paid for all these technical reference books on my bookshelf. And many of them come with a digital version of themselves. Maybe it's time to use them as a first resource instead of google groups.

Yet another thought: I've been lazy wasting all this "precious" bandwidth by continually accessing content that doesn't change regularly. I'll start using local copies.

I'll have to look inito creating a caching server.

I'll certainly get some junkbuster software running now.

If they want us to *really* pay attention to bandwidth, it will kill a lot of the internet. Animation Express will die. That stuff is interesting, but I'm not going to pay to see it. Even stuff like Yahoo! Games (which I haven't played in while) won't last.

Think about it. A lot of the Internet is entertainment. What sorts of entertainment are people willing to *pay* for? Movies, Music, Pr0n... what else? This is all high-bandwidth, and outside of mp3, the online quality sucks.

Dancing Hamsters? 3 minutes Flash cartoons? Are you kidding?

Quickly changing information is useful to have. Weather, stocks, news. Which can all be distilled down to text and tranferred efficiently.

Technical documation, I can have a local copy of.

This is why I cancelled cable. If they started making you pay for each tv show you watched, how much of it is really worth watching? Not a whole hell of a lot, that's for sure.

So, for me, the internet boils down to two things: one-to-one communication (email and instant messaging) and e-commerce. I shop online to save trips to the store.

Here's a good question. If you had to pay for metered access, can you name any reason at that you ever, ever go to these web sites:

Burger King [burgerking.com]

7-Eleven [7-11.com]

insert usless site here.

Lastly, one of the beautiful things about the Net was the smaller niche and fringe communities that conform without being bound by geographical boundaries. With metered access, those communities will have one more barrier. If you have to pay for acesss, people will more likely stick with the "tried and true" sites, rather that sifting through the mountains of crap to find the gems. This will undoubtedly result result in more concentration of users, content and money around the Big 10 Media Corporations [thenation.com]. Which will incredibly boring.

Maybe this internet thing was a fad after all.

Don't mind me. I'm just bitter.

It is all about PEAK

[jrp2 (458093)]

I agree, this, on the face of it, is a good thing. If your usage causes increased costs, you should pay more.

Though, the real cost is provisioning for peak usage. Having enough bandwidth to keep users happy at 6-12 pm (time varies in different environments, but this pretty much covers it for residential usage) is what drives the costs up as they need to engineer and provision for that load. The rest of the day it is (for the most part) "free".

What I think they should be doing is only metering during those peak periods and leaving it status quo the rest of the day. They would find users would start those ISO, Warez, etc. downloads before they go to bed, or setting up a cron job for 3am or whatever, turn off their P2P server during the billable time, etc.

I think this would solve the problem they are trying to solve and more accurately pass on costs. The phone company has been doing this forever, it only makes sense.

Metering is garbage.

[Ungrounded Lightning (62228)]

the real cost is provisioning for peak usage. ... What I think they should be doing is only metering during those peak periods and leaving it status quo the rest of the day.

Charging for bandwidth usage is garbage, based on models of consumable resources rather than shared instintaneous resources. Bandwidth disappears when not used. You can't save it up during low usage periods to provide extra during high usage periods.

- If they charge you when you're NOT competing with other users, they pulled money from you when the difference between you having used the bandwidth and having NOT used the bandwidth made no difference to their costs and to their other customers' experiences.

- If they charge you when you ARE competing, they're charging you when you're no more of a problem then any one of the other customers you're allegedly causing a problem for. If they charge you more then those other customers because you used bandwidth when nobody else wanted it, they're just ripping you off.

The proper thing for them to do is:

- Divide the bandwidth evenly between everybody who wants to use it on an instintaneous basis.

- Add more bandwidth if things are too slow during the peaks.

- Charge all the users for their share of the cost of the provisioned bandwidth (times a profit multiplier).

No matter how hard you suck on the pipe, you can't consume any more bandwidth than they chose to give you at any instant. No matter how many packets you blow into the pipe, it won't pass any more packets on than they chose to let it pass. If you blow in more than that it will drop them - and TCP will automatically drop rate and retransmit until you're using the available bandwidth and still getting through. If you can take an "unfair share", it's THEIR fault for using routers that can't divide the bandwidth fairly, not your fault for trying to use what's available.

And if their business model assumed broadband users wouldn't actually use the bandwidth, that's also THEIR fault, not yours.

Bandwidth usage pricing is not a way to be fair. It's a way to gouge the customers with an unpredictable price hike.

Can you imagine the consternation when an email virus, moustrap animated advertisement package, or distributed DOS client gets loaded on a bunch of their customers and runs their bills up to astronomical levels? Or when users bills skyrocket because the ISP didn't filter out spam?

Re:Another motivation for this

[acceleriter (231439)]

and the idea of shifting large files around becomes a lot less attractive.

No less attractive, just offline with CDRs or DVD-RAM or online with ad hoc wireless networks that will displace the corporate mavens if this becomes widespread. Just like the death of Napster spawned Gnutella, the death of the flat-rate Internet will spawn loosely confederated wireless networks. If the governments and corporate whores think they have a problem controlling the flow of information now, they ain't see nuthin' yet.

Re:Paying Cable Bill by Internet

[Shut the fuck up! (572058)]

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<thinks to self>Damn, still haven't got +1 funny yet. Note to self: try beowulf cluster next time.</thinks to self>

actually

[clump (60191)]

Remember, people, bandwidth isn't cheap... this isn't necessarily a grand scheme from the big mega-corporations to extort money from you; just think of Joe Q. Public's 14 year old son running the warez FTP server down the street...

My problem there is that ISPs sell you service that states 1.5Mbit down, 128Kb up, etc. In doing so, they basically sell you an amount and expect you *not* to use it. If you do use the bandwidth you paid for, you are then a hog or some other pejoritive term.

So its deceptive to sell people an amount and them charge them again when they use it. I hope people will wake up and see that.