Time Warner Cable has shelved its plans for a consumption-based Internet pricing structure, but the company said it may return to the idea in the future.

The Triad was to be one of four test markets for the plan, which was to start this fall. The announcement of the plan was met with complaints from consumers and government officials, who said that it would stifle creative growth on the Internet. Some bloggers also speculated that the plan was part of a scheme to discourage people from watching streaming videos online rather than watching Time Warner Cable on television, which Time Warner officials denied.

The plan would have established several tiers based on how much consumers use the Internet. Time Warner Cable had said at the time that it believed that consumers who download the most content need to pay more to cover infrastructure upgrades. The plan was first announced two weeks ago, then modified with higher download caps last week. In a press release yesterday, Glenn Britt, the chief executive of Time Warner Cable, said, "We will not proceed with implementation of additional tests until further consultation with our customers and other interested parties, ensuring that community needs are being met."

John Oglesby, a Winston-Salem resident, has been following grass-roots efforts to stop the plan, and said he talked with Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th, about his concerns. He said that he was "cautiously optimistic" about Time Warner Cable's announcement. He first heard about the announcement in a Web release on the protest site, stopthecap.com.

"It's very exciting," he said. "I'm glad they responded to community pressure, and I'm glad the community stepped up and put pressure on them."

The cable company is still working on making measurement tools available online to let customers know how much they are downloading.

One of the final straws may have come when Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., got involved, stating on Wednesday his opposition to the tiered-pricing plan in Rochester, N.Y., which was also going to be part of the test.

Yesterday, he issued a press release in which he said, "By responding to public outrage and opposition from community and elected officials, Time Warner Cable made the right decision today."

Another factor in Time Warner's decision might have been competitor Frontier Communications' announcement that it was canceling its own plans for metered billing.
Protests had been planned in front of cable company offices in Rochester and Greensboro.

Jonathan Hall, a media-studies student at UNC Greensboro, organized the Greensboro rally and had already heard from more than 200 people who planned to attend. He said that he expected that the rally will still take place.

"As far as I see, it's still going to happen," he said. "Time Warner's language is pretty vague about the tier plan. They said they are going to delay it until they do more research. I'm all for that. They should do more research, and probably should have done more research to begin with.

"I don't want people to think the war, so to speak, is over. They need to stay informed and stay abreast of Time Warner's plans."