FreePress Asks Congress to Investigate Bandwith Caps

Consumer advocacy group FreePress charged Friday that Time Warner Cable is trying to protect its cable TV business from the threat of online video with its plan to charge its broadband customers by the byte,  and it wants Congress to investigate.

After criticism from its customers and a skeptical press, Time Warner Cable edited, but did not withdraw its scheme to impose bandwidth caps and charge overage fees on its eight million customers. Time Warner currently charge by the speed of their service.

Critics like the FreePress charge that TWC is unfairly trying to protect its lucrative cable television business from customers switching over to online video. He states that charging consumers fees on top of what they are already paying to download a movie  will cripple online video. He calls for congress to  investigate these anti-competitive practices before they become a nationwide problem.

Time Warner isn’t alone in its campaign to crack down on heavy net users. AT&T announced in November that it would test monthly bandwidth caps and overage fees, while Comcast installed a 250-GB cap last August.