Time Warner Bandwidth insights

Time Warner has done a good job of advertising their bandwidth cap, and making it sound like they are working to ensure everyone has a “good experience”. Why should you care? Simple, it is your bill that they are playing with.

Bandwidth is the problem, what is it? Just simply the root of the problem, and the smallest “particle” in the internet. Bandwidth is a bit of a misnomer, Channel Capacity is correct term. What we are describing is the data that flows through your high speed connection. It is normally measured in bits per Second, K-bits per Second, or Megabits per Second.

Any resource that you use on the internet requires your computer, and the remote service / server, to exchange data. That is what Time Warner is going to be measuring…But the main issue here is how many people watch Youtube videos, Stream Internet Radio, watch a video on Hulu, and so forth?  Do you even know how much data is being transfered watching these videos?

For example,

  • The average size of a web page – 300 – 500 kB
  • The average size of an YouTube video 2MB to 15MB
  • The average size of an MP3 / Mp4 Audio File – 5Mb to 6Mb
  • The average size of a New York Times Technology PodCast (David Pogue) – 45 Mb
  • The average size of a Hulu Television episode (Standard Def) – 300 – 400 Mb
  • The average size of a TV Episode (Legal, Standard Definition, iTunes Download) – 500 Mb – 600 Mb
  • The average size of a TV Episode (Legal, High Definition, iTunes Download) – 1.6 Gb + 600 Mb = 2.4 Gb (High Definition downloads include the Standard Definition for video iPods)

So with Time Warner’s 40 Gb Cap… How quickly will you exceed their Cap?

  • High Definition, iTunes Video Download, 16.6 Episodes, 1 episode downloaded every other day
  • Standard Definition, iTunes Video Download, 66 Episodes, 2 episodes per day
  • Video Podcasts, roughly 660+ Podcasts, 22 per day
  • Anything smaller becomes laughable….

But Time Warner is counting on this to increase their revenue, after all, bandwidth is cheap (10 cents per Gb).  Why else do this?  Take a look at what some of the competition are offering?

  • Frontier Digital Phone w/High Speed Internet – $69.99  (No Cap)
  • Verizon Fios 10 Mb / 2 Mb – $49.99  (No Cap)
  • Verizon Fios 20 Mb / 5 Mb – $59.99   (No Cap)
  • Verizon Fios 20 Mb / 20 Mb – $69.99   (No Cap)
  • Verizon Fios 50 Mb / 20 Mb – $144.95   (No Cap)

I still hate the fact that Verizon Fios isn’t available in the Rochester area, since they are the best option at this time…