Time Warner bandwidth-cap trial tops out at 40GB/month

Think Comcast's proposal of a 250GB/month bandwidth limit is bad? Under Time Warner Cable's trial program, subscribers to the top-tier plan only get 40GB of data—equal to about eight HD movie downloads—per month.

Word of Time Warner's pilot program for subscribers in Beaumont, Texas first leaked back in January, and now the AP reports that the trial is set to begin this Thursday.

The details: On the low end, $29.95 a month gets you 768kbps download speeds (comparable to DSL) and a measly 5GB data cap. The high-end $54.90/month plans gets you 15MB downloads—pretty speedy—but a still-stingy 40GB bandwidth cap.

Time Warner will provide a "gas gauge" on its Web site to let users know if they've busted over the limit, according to the AP. Those who go over the limit will be charged $1 a gigabyte.

As I wrote back in January, it's one thing to penalize users who are downloading and/or uploading pirated HD movies via BitTorrent all day.

But a 40GB cap for everyone—on the high end? Given that legal HD movie downloads are about 5GB each? It makes Comcast's proposal of a 250GB/month bandwidth cap look positively magnanimous.

Now, Time Warner Cable's trial in Beaumont is, after all, just a trial. It might simple play out and die a quick, painless death.

In an event, I hope TWC learns its lesson: That in the coming age of mass-market (and legal) video downloads, a 40GB bandwidth cap is nowhere near enough, especially for a whopping $55 a month.

Indeed, if Time Warner moves ahead with its trial plan on a national basis I might just have to go back to DSL. Or move to Comcast territory.

Related:
Time Warner Cable tries metering Internet use [Yahoo! News]