Road Runner High Speed Online
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Road Runner High Speed Online is a US Internet service provider (ISP) which provides cable Internet service over DOCSIS-compatible modems. A division of Time Warner Cable, it also contracts its service to other cable providers, often in competition with ISPs owned by local telephone companies.
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[edit] History
Road Runner service was first launched with a 1995 market test in Elmira, NY, under the banner Southern Tier On-Line Community,[1]. Later it became known as LineRunner[2] (a moniker subsequently employed by VoIP service), before Time Warner Cable adopted the current brand name.
Road Runner employs the Road Runner character from the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoon series as its mascot, a property of its former Warner Bros. corporate parent.
[edit] Tier service
Road Runner offers four tiers of service: Data Line, Road Runner Lite, Road Runner Basic, Road Runner Residential, with Road Runner Turbo or Road Runner Turbo with Power Boost being an extra service added to Road Runner Residential.
Road Runner data rates vary by level of service and area. The averages for the services are:
- Data Line - 96Kbps/32Kbps
- Lite - 768Kbps/128Kbps
- Basic - 2Mbps/256Kbps
- Residential - 6Mbps/512Kbps
- Turbo Add-on - 15Mbps/768Kbps
- Turbo Add-on with Power Boost - 30Mbps/2Mps
Road Runner Lite competes directly with less expensive DSL service, offering a lower bandwidth for a similar cost. The specific data rate varies, but the average is 768Kbps downstream and 128Kbps upload. Road Runner Turbo with Power Boost (formerly Road Runner Premium) offers up to 22Mbps download (in 16 second bursts based on network conditions) and 768Kbps upload. Cost and speed tiers vary by area but subscribers to all-in-one packages bundling TV, Internet, and phone pay lower total fees.
[edit] Bandwidth Caps
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This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
In the summer of 2008, Time Warner Cable began testing a bandwidth cap of 40GB in Beaumont, TX. If testing was successful, they would bring the cap to additional cities.
Despite raising prices of its internet service within the last year, Time Warner Cable announced in February 2009 that it would expand its bandwidth caps and overage fees into four additional markets by the end of the year.
On April 1, 2009, the cities to have metered billing were announced. In addition to Beaumont, Texas, the cities would be Rochester, NY, Austin and San Antonio, TX and Greensboro, NC.
These metered based billing plans were canceled according to Time Warner "due to customer misunderstanding"
Caps would range from 5GB to 100GB with no unlimited option. The bandwidth will include downloads and uploads. If a user goes over, they will be charged $1 per additional gigabyte. Time Warner Cable announced they would provide a meter for users to monitor their usage. The new plan is set to begin in the summer of 2009. Currently, users have unlimited bandwidth usage. Time Warner will offer unlimited data for $150/month.[3]
CEO Glenn Britt justified the new billing plans, claiming the infrastructures had to be continuously upgraded and users would pay for how much they use. In an internal usage report, 10% of Road Runner subscribers use over 90% of the bandwidth, which leaves 90% of the other paying customers with access to increasingly burden network.[citation needed]
Facebook groups have been created in protest in addition to an online petition and a website dedicated to stop the movement, http://stoptwc.info/ Other websites have been recently following the Time Warner cap plans that were already following broadband internet providers metering and capping plans http://stopthecap.com/, and http://www.meterthis.net/ . An online petition can be found at PetitionOnline.[citation needed]
U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and congressman Eric Massa, both of whom represent portions of the Rochester, New York market that would be affected by the changes, announced their opposition to the plan and even went as far as to threaten legislation to ban such a scheme. On April 16, 2009, Time Warner abandoned the plan.[4]
[edit] Companies offering Road Runner
MediaOne was formerly the largest of Time Warner's Road Runner partners, leaving the agreement when taken over by AT&T Broadband (subsequently absorbed by Comcast).
[edit] Notes
- ^ Cable World, March 10, 2003
- ^ Time-Warner Announces High Speed Data Services
- ^ Eddy, Nathan. "Time Warner to Offer Unlimited Bandwidth for $150 a Month." eWeek. April 10, 2009. Retrieved on May 5, 2009.
- ^ Stiehl, Renata. Time Warner Cable to Shelve Consumption Billing. WENY-TV. April 16, 2009. Retrieved on May 5, 2009.
[edit] External links
- Official Site - Order information and support
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