A quick followup: As proof that the previously reported bandwith-cap program is most definitely in the testing phase, Time Warner Cable (of RoadRunner High Speed Internet fame) have already announced tweaks to the program.

In a statement issued directly to followers of TWC on micro-blogging/IM platform Twitter, chief operating officer Landel Hobbs detailed some of the changes:

• To accommodate lighter Internet users and those who need a lower priced option, we are introducing a 1 GB per month tier offering speeds of 768 KB/128 KB for $15 per month. Overage charges will be $2 per GB per month. Our usage data show that about 30% of our customers use less than 1 GB per month.

• We are increasing the bandwidth tier sizes included in all existing packages in the trial markets to 10, 20, 40 and 60 GB for Road Runner Lite, Basic, Standard and Turbo packages, respectively. Package prices will remain the same. Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.

• We will introduce a 100 GB Road Runner Turbo package for $75 per month (offering speeds of 10 MB/1 MB). Overage charges will be $1 per GB per month.

• Overage charges will be capped at $75 per month. That means that for $150 per month customers could have virtually unlimited usage at Turbo speeds.

• Once we implement this trial, we will not immediately start billing customers for overage. Rather, we will first provide two months of usage data. Then we will provide a one-month grace period in which overages will be noted on customers’ bills, but they will not be charged. So, customers will have an opportunity to assess their usage and right-size their service packages before usage charges are applied.

These are all steps in the right direction. It’ll be interesting to see if these amounts are tweaked further, and by how much.

[Read - via CrunchGear]

For internet-savvy shoppers looking for deals online, coupon aggregator RetailMeNot has been a go-to destination for quite some time. The site provides listings of online discounts and coupons for online stores in an easily searchable form, with ratings from users indicating how effective the coupons are.

Now the site has gotten that much more useful with the launch of a printable-coupon service for local businesses. You just punch in your ZIP code and, optionally, what you’re looking for coupons for, and the results are displayed in a handy map format.

The pickings around my area are fairly slim at the moment, but given that the service has just recently launched, it’s likely to improve anywhere. If you’re in a major metropolitan area, you may see better results more quickly.

The venerable Valpak and Money Mailer both offer similar services, but RetailMeNot’s thriving community leads me to believe it could eclipse both those coupon clearinghouses given enough time.

[Read - via Lifehacker]

If you use Time Warner or high-speed internet access (or perhaps you know them as Roadrunner, you need to know about this: Business Week reports that Time Warner was testing usage caps for internet service in Beaumont, Texas, and has apparently just expanded the test to four other cities: Austin, TX; Greensboro, NC; Rochester, NY; and San Antonio, TX.

Sources say the caps are priced as follows:

5 GB: $29.99/month
10 GB: $39.99/month
20 GB: $49.99/month
40 GB: $54.90/ month
100 GB: No information yet

What does this mean to you? Well, say you were subscribing to the fairly standard tier of service at $30 a month.Currently, your fee pays for a particular speed of service. Under the new plan, you’d be paying by usage, not by speed, so for $30 you’d be able to download up to 5 Gigabytes of information.

5 GB may sound like a lot of bandwidth, and for many internet users it’s no doubt plenty. But as Gamers With Jobs points out in their excellent report, watching just one movie a month online could put you well over that cap on its own, and that’s not counting the bandwith you’d use for anything else — like e-mail, instant messaging, or viewing your family’s photos online.

Here are a few things that 5GB gets you:

• Just over three episodes of Lost in HD from iTunes
• About 5 game demos on PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360
• About 14 games in the Xbox Live Arcade
• About 500 songs downloaded from iTunes
• About 550 three-and-a-half-minute videos on YouTube
• About 1000 holiday chain e-mails with multiple pictures
• About 1500 pictures from an average digital camera
• About 3000 visits to Facebook…or Roadrunner.com
• About 350,000 text-only e-mails

Of course, the real question is: What happens if you download more than what’s included in your plan? The same thing that happens if you go over your cell phone plan: You get charged for the usage. In this case, Time Warner says they’ll charge customers $1 per GB of overage.

Time Warner claims to be implementing this plan to ensure that the average user isn’t adversely impacted by a handful of high-volume users downloading and sharing huge files constantly. But interestingly, competitor Comcast took the same stance…with a cap of 250GB per month. And a warning — not a fee — for overage.

As online video becomes more common and sites like ABC.com, NBC.com, Hulu, and YouTube gain regular viewers, the average user is going to burn more and more bandwidth. At the same time, bandwidth is getting cheaper and cheaper to the provider thanks to advances in technology and economies of scale. So why is Time Warner picking now to begin squashing bandwidth hogs? Your guess is as good as mine.

[Read]