David Lazarus: Time Warner’s painful pricing plan

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L.A. Times consumer columnist David Lazarus warns that some Time Warner Cable customers soon could be charged as much as $150 a month for online access.

The big price tag will hit what Time Warner considers to be heavy Internet users in a test this summer in New York and North Carolina, with other states to follow. The new ‘consumption-based billing’ system is supposed to address the looming problem of capacity shortages because of ever-growing Internet use. AT&T and Comcast are exploring similar moves.

But some experts see tiered pricing as a money grab by the gatekeepers to the Net. Movie downloaders and other heavy users should pay more than people who surf lightly, but $150 a month seems pretty steep.