I’ve been reading all the posts since yesterday regarding the new TWC pricing structure plans (and tests in Texas).
TWC new idea is to charge the 5% heavy downloaders (could you please define ?) more than the average 95% other users. Those 5% apparently accrue for around 50% of total bandwidth of TWC broadband access.
There is no doubt that, business wise, and according to related costs, heavy consumers of a service or product could pay more than others, that’s business logic 101. Though you usually find it in two forms, that are not presented as stated above: - free or cheap service for everyone, and upgrade options, - flat rate for everyone, discount for light users.
However, TWC finds itself in an unfair and unlegitimate situation: it’s right now for many of its subscribers the only broadband cable access provider available. For instance, I have no other choice than TWC in my area. And the prices that TWC sets are lightyears from the service it provides, in terms of quantity and quality.
As an example, the FreeBox in France provides broadband internet access (with 28Mb/s access), TV and phone for 30 EUR a month. This is compared to the $130 equivalent, more or less, for cable TV, phone and broadband internet in TWC catalog ….
So I’m a little upset to have my hands tied between TWC expensive service who’s about to get more expensive, and, well, TWC expensive service who’s about to get more expensive.
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It reminds me of what Cybercable (local French cable ISP) tried to do at the end of the 90s, putting a 125MB upload limit with their cable subscription. The additional MB was around 0,20$ if I remember well. First month, hundreds of users got an incredible bill of a few hundred dollars.
Very quickly their offer was completely outdated compared to xDSL offers that were 100% unlimited and with higher bandwidth. Give them a couple of months and they will realize how uncompetitive their offer is.
By the way, the very famous “5% users use 95% of the ressources” is just a reality for every ISP I know and they probably will never change it, unless they chose their users one by one.