Speaking publicly on the issue for the first time since Time Warner Cable's PR disaster, CEO Glenn Britt admitted to attendees of a Sanford Berstein investor conference that efforts to hoist per-byte billing upon unwilling customers didn't uh, go very well. Time Warner Cable temporarily shelved their metered billing ambitions after consumer backlash, though the company has consistently asserted that the problem wasn't their low caps and high overages, but "confused" customers who needed "education."

"Clearly we did not handle the public-relations side of it very well," Britt admits in a bit of an understatement. "We had a bit of a debacle, to be honest. So we pulled back from that," says Britt.

Despite company claims, consumption-based pricing is aimed at monetizing the growing explosion in video delivery over the Internet, protecting TV revenues, and pleasing investors. "If, at an extreme, you could get all of the programming you get over cable for free on the Internet, over time people will stop buying (TV)," Britt told investors in a bit of candor that wasn't apparent in the company's communication with its customers.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Time-Warner-Cable-Acknowledges-Debacle-102670