If you haven’t heard, Time Warner is changing their pricing structure for Internet usage. The news has been out there for a few months but the change has yet to be implemented. At a high level, Time Warner will be using a tiered pricing structure for all internet service. Use more bandwidth, pay more for it. Use less, pay less. As you might imagine, this has many people up in arms and is even causing protests.
The same article has a good description of the pricing structure:
Under the new system, customers would choose Internet usage plans that cap uploads and downloads at 10, 20, 40, and 60 gigabytes. Customers would pay $1 per GB in overage fees if they go over their caps. The pricing is similar to how consumers pay for cell phone service.
The announcement was met with outrage from customers and threats of legislation to block the change. In reaction, Time Warner postponed its tests in Austin and San Antonio, big areas for tech business.
For the Triad and Rochester, the company announced two additional tiers, including a “budget” tier allowing 1 GB of data use per month for just $15 and a “super-tier” allowing up to 100 GB of data use for $75. The company also said it would limit overage fees to no more than $75, essentially creating an “unlimited” plan for those willing to pay the fees.
You would think I would be furious about these changes, right? Well, I’m not. And I’ll tell you why. I think everything should be pay as you go. Everything. Why am I paying over $100 for cell phone service if I only use about $50 worth? Why do I pay for channels on TV that I never, ever watch? Why do I pay the same price for a ticket on an airline as they guy who weighs twice as much as I do or the guy who checks two 49 pound bags and carries on 2 more? The airline prices are all based on fuel consumption and fuel consumption is directly related to weight. We should be paying per pound on the airlines like we do with UPS and FedEx. We pay as you go for electric, gas, water, gasoline, and more. So why not pay as you go for internet as well?
My only problem with the Time Warner idea is that the prices seem too high. The concept is good, the execution of it may not be. $150 for unlimited internet usage seems excessive. I would think the cap would be lower than that. And hell, $15 for 1GB seems really high as well. Perhaps if they just went with something like a $10 per month fee for internet then $1 per GB after that, everyone would be happy. Place the cap at $110 and call it a day.
So what do you think? I know this issue has caused a lot of concern. Because of the way they are implementing these changes I can say that I don’t love the idea, but I definitely don’t hate it either.
