While The Iron Is Hot

Immediately on the heels of Apple's unveiling of their new movie download program comes word that Time Warner Cable is planning to test a new pricing model that charges broadband users based on the amount of data they download in a given month.

Under the experiment, TWC will offer customers four tiers of service starting with an introductory level that allows users to download 5 gigabytes of data per month, and steps up to 10, 20 and 40-gigabyte plans, a source said.

Connection speeds rise with the size of plan. Users who exceed their allotted data plan would be charged a still undetermined metered rate. A company rep said the average user will see no meaningful change in the speed of their connection or the amount of data they download per month. The heaviest downloaders are said to represent 5 percent of the company's user base, but can hog as much as half of the available bandwidth.

Time Warner will begin testing the new billing plan in Texas. Last year Comcast admitted to throttling the broadband signal of its users that were transferring large amounts of data.