<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)">
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="country-region"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="place"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="State"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="City"/>
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Verdana;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Arial;
color:black;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
p
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
color:black;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</head>
<body bgcolor=white background="cid:image001.gif@01C8C589.88729060" lang=EN-US
link=blue vlink=purple>
<img src="cid:image001.gif@01C8C589.88729060"
v:src="cid:image001.gif@01C8C589.88729060" v:shapes="_x0000_Mail" width=0
height=0 class=shape style='display:none;width:0;height:0'>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> From: Good Morning Silicon Valley<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><font size=3
color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>San Jose</span></font></st1:place></st1:City>
Mercury News<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>June 3, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=5 color=black face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>The meter's running</span></font> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p><!-- byline --><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>By <a href="mailto:lsumagaysay@bayareanewsgroup.com"
title="mailto:lsumagaysay@bayareanewsgroup.com">LEVI SUMAGAYSAY</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><strong><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Raise
your hands</span></font></b></strong> if you want to sign up for Time Warner Cable's
trial of metered Internet use. Anybody? Starting Thursday, Time Warner
customers in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Beaumont</st1:City>, <st1:State
w:st="on">Texas</st1:State></st1:place>, will have to <a
href="http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_9456427"
title="http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_9456427">pay $1 per gigabyte if they
go over</a> their monthly allowance for uploads and downloads. A company
executive said the monthly caps will range from 5 GB to 40 GB. How bad of an
idea is this? Let me count the ways. It's like rationing food, water, air. Like
telling us we can only have one plateful at a <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Las Vegas</st1:place></st1:City> buffet. As TechCrunch says, Time
Warner's <a
href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/02/going-medieval-time-warner-begins-metered-bandwidth-testing/"
title="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/02/going-medieval-time-warner-begins-metered-bandwidth-testing/">going
medieval</a>. Says GigaOm: <a
href="http://gigaom.com/2008/06/02/time-warner-cable-broadband-tiers-lead-to-fears/"
title="http://gigaom.com/2008/06/02/time-warner-cable-broadband-tiers-lead-to-fears/">Is
Time Warner Cable crazy</a>? For some of us, this is akin to trying to figure
out how many minutes of the 500 we're allotted each month we've used up on our
cell phones. It's possible to find out, but it's too much trouble. Imagine
having to tiptoe around the Internet, trying to remember how much of your
allowance you've used so far, and struggling to decide whether you should read
this, download that or upload those photos. You'd think companies such as Apple
would be up in arms over this. With these caps, iTunes users would have to
limit how many songs, videos or movies they buy each month. (Or those songs
could cost way more than 99 cents each.) And the timing's just ridiculous, as
many of the cool things you can now do on the Internet -- watch movies on
Netflix, laugh at silly videos on YouTube, listen to customized radio stations
on Pandora -- require more and more bandwidth. Some think the experiment will <a
href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/6/why_time_warner_cables_pay_per_use_internet_experiment_will_fail"
title="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/6/why_time_warner_cables_pay_per_use_internet_experiment_will_fail">fail.</a>
Let's hope some good old healthy competition discourages other cable or
telephone companies from conducting their own experiments, although Comcast,
the nation's largest cable company, has said it's <a
href="http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_9183822"
title="http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_9183822">considering usage caps</a> as
well. The 250 gigabyte limit Comcast is mulling seems much more reasonable.
That is, if you're into restrictions. But isn't this <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>? Me, I don't want no
stinking limits.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>