• Ars Technica, Thursday, January 17, 2008 1 PM

According to leaked documents, Time Warner's cable distributor, Time Warner Cable, is considering changing its ISP service to so-called "metered" access. Metered access, in which consumers pay for the bandwidth they consume, is a fact of life for many Web users across the globe. A memo leaked to the Broadband Reports forum shows that Time Warner will roll out what it calls "Consumption Based Billing" on a trial basis in the Beaumont, Texas, region.

The payment lets consumers choose from a variety of plans that contain different bandwidth caps. The services provide tools to monitor online usage and would allow consumers to upgrade to higher levels of usage to avoid excess charges for exceeding their monthly bandwidth allotment. The memo also states that the experiment, if it goes well, could quickly lead to "future nationwide rollouts." The Beaumont market isn't a proper control group for the rest of the country, which will most likely be more than happy to keep their flat monthly fee unlimited usage plans.

Meanwhile, Comcast and other ISPs actually impose bandwidth limits-they just don't publicize it.

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