Via PCMag.com -
Time Warner Cable has shelved plans to test consumption-based billing until it can improve its "customer education process," the company announced Thursday.
"It is clear from the public response over the last two weeks that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about our plans to roll out additional tests on consumption based billing," Time Warner CEO Glen Britt said in a statement. "As a result, we will not proceed with implementation of additional tests until further consultation with our customers and other interested parties, ensuring that community needs are being met."
Time Warner started testing bandwidth caps last year in its Beaumont, Texas market – a test that it recently expanded to North Carolina and New York.
But while rival Comcast implemented a 250GB bandwidth cap for residential customers last year without much fanfare, and AT&T announced plans to test a 150GB cap, Time Warner took some heat because its caps were relatively low – between 5GB and 40GB.
The company eventually announced it would also offer a 100GB "super tier" and unlimited service for $150 per month, but by then, Congress was already up in arms and interest groups were circulating online petitions against the caps.
"While we continue to believe that consumption based billing may be the best pricing plan for consumers, we want to do everything we can to inform our customers of our plans and have the benefit of their views as part of our testing process," Britt said Thursday.
As part of its education process, Time Warner will provide customers with tools to help them understand how much bandwidth they consume. No mention of how long that will continue before testing resumes.
Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, was in Rochester Thursday afternoon to speak out against the proposed caps, according to stopthecap.com, a Web site set up to protest the caps.
"StoptheCap has been working with the senator's office throughout the day today to help coordinate the visit, which will take place in Irondequoit at the home of just one resident who will be directly impacted by Time Warner's plans," according to the site.
"We look forward to continuing to work with Senator Schumer, our customers, and all of the other interested parties as the process moves forward, to ensure that informed decisions are made about the best way to continue to provide our customers with the level of service that they expect and deserve from Time Warner Cable," Britt concluded.
Free Press, which set up an online petition to encourage a congressional investigation into the Time Warner caps, applauded the move.
"We're glad to see Time Warner Cable's price-gouging scheme collapse in the face of consumer opposition," Timothy Karr, campaign director of Free Press, said in a statement. "Let this be a lesson to other Internet service providers looking to head down a similar path. Consumers are not going to stand idly by as companies try to squeeze their use of the Internet. This is a major victory, but the fight for a fast, open and affordable Internet is far from over."
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) – which championed Time Warner's testing process on Wednesday – said the company's decision "is completely consistent with how they have approached this from the beginning."
"Bottom line: they have been and are engaged in exactly the kind of outreach and transparency interest groups profess to want," NCTA president and CEO Kyle McSlarrow said in a statement.
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