Here is a bad idea (in my humble opinion) that pops up from time to time. Time Warner Cable Inc. in the U.S. is going to conduct a trial to bill it’s high-speed Internet users based on the amount of their usage, rather than a flat fee as is commonplace today.

is the second largest cable company, with 7.4 million subscribers. The company complains that a small number of heavy users, around 5 percent, in fact gobble up more than half its network bandwidth. It is looking for ways to reduce congestion on its network by conducting the usage test in Texas later this year. It seems that more and more people are downloading large media files, i.e. video, and this is eating up a lot of bandwidth.

The company expects the problem to get even worse as streaming video becomes more popular. Other companies such as and AT&T are said to be watching Time Warner closely, to see how the new plan is received by consumers.

Comcast is the largest cable company, with 13 million Internet users. It has been accused of blocking Internet traffic on its networks, and the Federal Communications Commission is going to investigate. denies the charge, and says it simply uses bandwidth management tools to improve overall performance. It admits, however, that this may slow down some file transfers.

What do you think? Would you accept a pay per use plan from your Internet Service Provider? Leave a comment if you like, and forward this post to your friends for their reaction. Personally, I see nothing wrong with the flat-rate plans we have today.

Syd Tash is a noted computer security consultant and author of How to Protect Your Computer Online. He has been keeping Internet surfers safe and secure since the last century. Find out how he does it; protect your own computer with five layers of protection right here: = > http://MyPCSecuritySite.com

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