Austin Bandwidth Hog Claims Time Warner Cut Him Off

Time Warner Cable may have publicly backed off of metered broadband, but a subscriber in Austin claims his Time Warner broadband service was cut off earlier this week, without warning, because he downloaded 44 gigabytes of data over a one-week period (hat tip Stopthecap.org). A Time Warner Cable spokesman did not return calls or emails seeking comment. Ryan Howard, a 25-year-old computer science major at the University of Texas at Austin, tells us that Time Warner Cable cut off his broadband service this past Tuesday. Howard says that when he got through to Time Warner to ask what had happened to his connection, he was transferred to several people before finally being put through to a rep in the company’s security and abuse division who told him that his use over the prior week had been “excessive.” According to Howard, the rep informed him that he had downloaded 44 GB of data during that time, and that he needed to cut his usage by one-fourth or even one-third. His service was subsequently reconnected Wednesday evening. Howard says he guesses he downloaded so much because he uses his broadband connection in lieu of subscribing to cable TV, and because he also downloaded (illegal) audiobook copies of the entire “Wheel of Time” series by Robert Jordan, on BitTorrent, which clocked in at about 16 GB. As for the impact of video files, Howard estimates he spends about 20 hours a week watching TV via his web connection on Hulu and most recently though MLB.com, which streams HD versions of the games to subscribers. Such video streams can add up quickly under GB caps. When asked how he plans to cut his usage, Howard said, “I guess I’ll stick to downloading legal content.”

Source: http://www.salon.com/tech/giga_om/tech_insider/2009/04/24/austin_bandwidth_hog_claims_time_warner_cable_cut_him_off/index.html?source=rss&aim=/tech/giga_om/tech_insider