Cable provider mulls byte-size packages.

• Position: Triad

Gone but not forgotten. That's what Time Warner Cable Inc. and its opponents are saying about the company's plan to test tiered charges for residential broadband Internet service in Greensboro and three other cities. The New York-based cable-television and Internet-service provider announced the tests in April, then canceled them two weeks later in the face of heavy criticism, including that of U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. Under the plan for Greensboro, customers would have signed up for different monthly usage levels--1, 10, 20, 40, 60 or 100 gigabytes of service, with rates ranging from $15 to $75. Under most of the plans, they would pay $1 per gigabyte for exceeding their caps. Customers now pay a flat rate of $20 to $60 a month, depending on speed, for unlimited use.

Time Warner spokeswoman Melissa Buscher says the company proposed the tests--which wouldn't have begun until later this year--for two reasons. "Internet providers as a whole are seeing about a 50% increase in usage, mainly because of large downloads. We want to prevent service from coming to a complete crawl." She says unlimited plans also result in light Internet users subsidizing heavier users--those customers who download movies and music and trade photos and video.

Nevertheless, the plan hit a brick wall. Many customers complained that they would have no way of knowing when they were nearing their caps. Eli Abrams, who owns Utopia's Edge Consulting LLC, a Greens-boro-based information-technology business...