New customers Beaumont, Texas, will be offered a caped cable internet service from Time Warner. Ranging from 5 to 40 GB, the services will limit the amount of data traffic that users generate from their web surfing habits. If the customer goes over the capped bandwidth, then Time Warner will charge extra per gigabyte used. Time Warner defended the decision by stating that it would be “the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure.” DSL Reports believes that this will help Verizon’s uncapped FiOS product against Time Warner’s limited cable service. I tend to agree, but I am also disappointed by Time Warner’s move towards bandwidth per cost idea.

Internet service providers had the tradition of offering blazing speeds for internet access, and the amount of bandwidth use was and is still considered unlimited as part of the package. In recent years, however, big cable companies have started to boot users from their services, because these users went over the unspoken bandwidth that month. Users have been asking the exact bandwidth cap to these cable companies, but the companies would not say.

If the cable companies do announce the bandwidth cap to its users, then these companies face a backlash against competitors. The amount of bandwidth usage has always been perceived to be unlimited, so why would the public signup for a service that limits the bandwidth use? The customers would simply switch their service to the other internet service providers that have no bandwidth restrictions. (Although in many areas of the United States, there are not enough broadband choices available)

Time Warner is attempting to make this capped bandwidth a standard notion in the market. The problem is that I think other non-broadband service providers will not follow suit, because of the potential of winning over disgruntled customers over the new capped policy. I think the trial run is going to be a failure, and I do not think we are going to face an ear of capped internet service any time soon; I hope.