Three of the biggest Internet Service Providers in America are playing with the idea of turning back the clock on internet availability.
AT&T, Comcast, and Time Warner announced they are playing with a new pricing model that would take a form similar to the days of when the internet was just getting started; people would pay for the amount of amount of bandwidth they use. If a person exceeded their allotted bandwidth, you best believe they'll charge you up the ying yang.
Time Warner is already testing the model in Texas, where customers can buy plans with a 5-gigabyte cap, a 20-gigabyte cap or a 40-gigabyte cap. Prices for those plans range from $30 to $50. Above the cap, customers pay $1 a gigabyte. Plans with higher caps come with faster service.
However, this hits a snag when you actually look at how the internet is being used today.
For the majority of people just use it to check their e-mail and maybe the news, this won't really be that much a problem.
Unfortunately, it is the innovators, the people that understand what the internet is and could be, that will be essentially priced off the net.
For those that watch videos online, play multiplayer games, or download media through itunes of netflix, (pretty much all of us) these broadband caps will catch up quickly.
AT&T, Comcast, and Time Warner announced they are playing with a new pricing model that would take a form similar to the days of when the internet was just getting started; people would pay for the amount of amount of bandwidth they use. If a person exceeded their allotted bandwidth, you best believe they'll charge you up the ying yang.
Apparently, now that the internet has become a staple in ever household, along with electricity, water, and gas, the ISPs want to cash in on their investments.Internet metering is a throwback to the days of dial-up service, but at a time when video and interactive games are becoming popular, the experiments could have huge implications for the future of the Web.
Time Warner is already testing the model in Texas, where customers can buy plans with a 5-gigabyte cap, a 20-gigabyte cap or a 40-gigabyte cap. Prices for those plans range from $30 to $50. Above the cap, customers pay $1 a gigabyte. Plans with higher caps come with faster service.
However, this hits a snag when you actually look at how the internet is being used today.
For the majority of people just use it to check their e-mail and maybe the news, this won't really be that much a problem.
Unfortunately, it is the innovators, the people that understand what the internet is and could be, that will be essentially priced off the net.
For those that watch videos online, play multiplayer games, or download media through itunes of netflix, (pretty much all of us) these broadband caps will catch up quickly.
Keep your money grubbing hands off my internet. It's just fine. Leave it alone.Time Warner would not reveal how many gigabytes an average customer uses, saying only that 95 percent of customers use under 40 gigabytes each in a month.
