Recently one piece of news that caught my eye was that of time warner's plans to introduce metered billing for broadband. Being in India, any broadband user should be pretty familiar with the ultra low data caps (for ultra low prices of course). My connection has a 1.5G cap which I just tip over every month when I am not on vacation. Its a different story when I am on vacation. But it serves the purpose for me 11 out of 12 months a year.
But its a different ball game in the US. With the likes of Apple TV, xbox, vudu and TiVO bypassing the traditional video delivery path of cable companies and telcos, there is a real threat to the age old cable digital TV or the new age IPTV services on offer. Not a real threat at the moment primarily because the content on broadcast or IPTV is still way more in demand but telcos and cable companies do certainly see the threat coming.
Seen in this context, the announcement from Time Warner gains a lot of significance. Metered billing beyond a certain data cap can make a lot of these "over the top" services way more expensive than they are today. On the other hand, the on demand content that the provider himself offers will become more attractive price-wise. We are most likely to see the hue and cry about net neutrality come up again.
While a service provider like Time Warner may have to do this to cover for all the additional network maintenance costs, doubting thomas' will not always agree that there is no anti-competitive behaviour. Will certainly be interesting to see how this develops. Exclusive content deals like the NFL Sunday Ticket in the US may get to become more significant but if every cable, telco and "over the top" service provider starts striking these deals, the end user may have to bear the brunt, either paying for multiple such services or losing out on the chance to view the content.
A related comment: http://www.shellypalmermedia.com/2008/01/23/time-warner-metered-broadband-billing-is-not-the-answer/
