Time Warner Cable Considering Billing Web Customers by Usage, CEO Says
Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC), the second- largest U.S. cable-television operator, is testing technology to measure consumption-based billing for broadband Internet use, said Chief Executive Officer Glenn Britt.
Context & Ripple Effects
Time Warner Cable had already explored tying broadband prices to consumption in a 2008 usage-linked pricing plan and a later Internet metering trial. The CEO's disclosure indicates the company is still building the measurement capability needed to revisit that model rather than treating the earlier experiments as settled policy.
The question regained importance after Comcast rejected metered pricing in 2010, leaving Time Warner Cable's testing as a potential point of differentiation among large cable broadband providers.
First-order effects
- Time Warner Cable customers could face broadband plans whose price varies with measured use if the company converts its testing into an offering, rather than paying solely for a fixed service tier.
- Time Warner Cable must validate consumption measurement before it can bill against usage, making the metering system the immediate operational prerequisite.
Second-order effects
- Comcast's earlier rejection of metered pricing gives it a flat-rate contrast should Time Warner Cable proceed, turning pricing structure into a competitive distinction.
- Usage-based billing shifts more of the cost discussion toward heavy-use customers, while reducing the certainty of a single broadband price for those households.
Third-order effects
- If large cable operators adopt reliable metering, broadband pricing would move from broadly flat monthly access toward consumption-sensitive plans, with measurement transparency becoming central to customer trust.
- The recurring experiments suggest usage caps and metering are becoming a durable response to broadband consumption growth, even as providers differ on whether to commercialize them.
The trend: U.S. cable broadband providers are repeatedly testing whether network-use measurement can support a shift from flat-rate access to consumption-based pricing.