Time Warner
Cable has decided to hold off on a consumption-based Internet usage pricing plan.
The cable company decided to reconsider its trial of tiered usage billing after it set off a firestorm of criticism.
"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," Glenn Britt, CEO of Time Warner Cable, 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 Cable had been testing the program in five markets, offering 5 GB of downloads for about $30 a month, with other pricing plans for smaller and larger amounts, which is a deviation from its standard flat-rate fee. Exceeding that limit will cost a user $1 per GB.
But the company isn't abandoning the plan for consumption-based billing, instead choosing to engage customers in a dialog before taking the next step.
"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.
In the statement, the company said it would be "very open and transparent about any future plans that might develop as a result" of the testing it plans.
That testing process will consist of determining just how much bandwidth customers actually use on a monthly basis. Time Warner Cable plans to make measurement tools available to customers in order to educate them about how much bandwidth they actually consume.
