Time Warner Cable cancels plans for bandwidth caps

Time Warner Cable announced today that, due to unprecedented customer outrage, they are discontinuing their plans to limit bandwidth usage in all of their markets. This is a major victory for their customers and the internet as a whole, because it shows that users are willing to speak up and take action to prevent unfair changes to their internet service and a severe crippling of competition.

The wording of their official statement leaves open the possibility of restarting plans to limit bandwidth in the future, after better educating the customers about their bandwidth usage. Apparently Time Warner Cable still plans to roll out the bandwidth meters so that customers can view their usage, presumably so that Time Warner Cable can show users that they really don't need all of the bandwidth that they want and that limit bandwidth isn't so bad after all. It's the principle of the matter and the terrible precedent that capping bandwidth usage will set that's the main issue, though.

While the battle has been won, it seems like the war is not over. My hope is that if they ever do plan to restart their bandwidth capping trials, the outcry of their customer base is louder than it was this time and that competing services like Verizon's FiOS and AT&T's Uverse are available in more markets by then to provide upset users with alternatives.

Good job Time Warner Cable. You get kudos for listening to your customers. Don't screw this up. Keep listening.

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