Time Warner keeps a promise: Metering begins in Beaumont

We’re always the first to report when the cable guy actually keeps a promise, just as we criticize them when he behaves badly. This post is a first, as I am reporting for both reasons. The promised metering in Beaumont begins Thursday.

On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.

Metered billing is an attempt to deal fairly with Internet usage, which is very uneven among Time Warner Cable’s subscribers, said Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president of advanced technology.

Just 5 percent of the company’s subscribers take up half of the capacity on local cable lines, Leddy said. Other cable Internet service providers report a similar distribution.

“We think it’s the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure,” Leddy said. (Google)

The press release goes on to say that metering is common in other countries. This in true in places like Canada, where there is virtually no competition. It is not true in MOST western countries. Time Warner already offers several service levels that in effect establish some limit on downloads. This is supposedly aimed at the top 5%, but the Time Warner sited “average” usage of thousands of pages and emails per month are for static content, not the rich media content of today’s net. It’s a safe bet that many “average” users will be seeing a few surprises in their future bills.

Since no one is providing a better / faster / cheaper service in Beaumont, this was inevitable. The fact is that if Time Warner had any real competition in, they would be investing in a more robust pipe instead of investing in a system to count and ration each customers downloaded bits.