Time Warner testing usage-based billing

[Chernabog]

Originally Posted by Alex

I'm afraid I don't see a difference between the former and the latter.

Maybe I'm off, but (for arguments sake) say it costs TW $100 minimum to provide a service to their customer, and they charge the customer $150. Now, say the customer goes OVER the bandwidth service so far that it costs $110 for TW. It'd eat into their profit by $10, but they're still making $40.

Now let's say that the customer is total bandwidth hog. The customer goes so far over the minimal service that it costs TW $160 to provide the service. Now, TW is LOSING money every month on that customer. It's costing them $10 a month just to retain the customer. In that case, yeah, I can totally see them wanting to charge more.

Of course, things aren't quite that simple (plus I'm sure some people are using MUCH less bandwidth per month than others, so it'd even out anyway). But it costs them so little that I think scenario 1 is more likely (even though it is balanced out by people that use less bandwidth)

I guess I'm just coming from a place of having had such bad service and care from Time Warner, and have had to deal with their "we don't care we're the phone comp...er... Time Warner" attitude, that my gut instinct says they're trying to pull a fast one on the public. They're trying to say "yeah, we're going to charge you more for the same service, just because we're Time Warner and we want more money out of you. We'll tell you it's because it's costing us money, but really, we'll pass that extra $5 it costs us onto you, which will appear on your bill as $15."

And I also don't see what "fair" has to do with it. They charge on the model they want to charge. There are alternative methods of accessing the internet. Customers agree to it or they take their business elsewhere.

Of course, I personally don't have a choice (on the cable end), but okay :P

And they can charge whatever they want, of course, it's their business. I just find what they are doing is disingenuous and lousy from a customer service perspective. Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining, I think is the phrase Judge Judy uses