Time Warner Tests Download-Capped Internet

New customers in Beaumont, Texas will be offered metered Internet access plans, with monthly limits on downloads.

Heavy downloaders beware, the days of pulling down unlimited movies, music and other content through your cable connection may be numbered. According to Reuters, Time Warner will soon experiment with a new bandwidth-capped method of dispensing Internet access, in which users who exceed their monthly allotments may be hit by fees for every extra gigabyte.

The company will test the new metered Internet access in Beaumont, Texas, to gauge initial customer reaction. While a backlash has been widely predicted in Internet discussions of the plan, infrequent Internet users could actually see savings, depending on how Time Warner structures its fees, so a consumer uproar is far from guaranteed.

Time Warner claims the intent is to more fairly spread around the cost of Internet access, charging the heaviest users more for the extra bandwidth they consume. Dave Burstein, editor of DSL Prime, sees a more devious motivation. Speaking to the New York Times, Burstein asserted that Time Warner was most likely trying to protect its television networks from Internet-delivered content, not recoup costs imposed by bandwidth use. “The smart people at Time Warner are scared of people watching TV directly over the Internet,” he told the Times. “‘Lost’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’ look better over the Internet than they do on digital cable.”

The trial will begin in the first half of 2008, and will only be offered to new customers in the area. Pricing for the service has not yet been announced.