Good news for Time Warner internet customers. The company is dropping a plan to charge for how much you use the internet. It may signal a move away by internet providers to offer metered service, which would have high bandwidth users pay more.

Faced with rising consumer protest and calls from members of Congress for new regulations, Time Warner Cable backed down last week from a plan to impose new fees on heavy users of its Road Runner Internet service.

The debate over the price of Internet use is far from over. Critics say cable and phone companies are already charging far more than Internet providers in other countries. Some also wonder whether the new price plans are meant to prevent online video sites from cutting into the lucrative revenue from cable TV service.

The news that Time Warner Cable suspended plans to expand the practice of metered billing for Internet usage doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, given the vast amount of criticism the plans generated. TWC would have been perfectly content to proceed with the metered usage plan had it only been consumers and competitors criticizing the company about it. Once a legislator–Sen. Charles Schumer, (D.-N.Y.)–got involved, a pull-back seemed much more likely.

Late last year, TWC had also dropped Usenet Newsgroups access to its customers after another New York District Attorney Cuomo had raised debate.

As stated earlier, Time Warner’s tiered payment plan would force its customers, who currently enjoy unlimited bandwidth access, to choose a payment plan dependent on their bandwidth usage per month. A 5-gigabyte bandwidth limit per month would cost $29.95, while 40 gigabytes would cost $54.90. Customers would be charged $1 for every gigabyte they used over their allotted amount. Plans for 100 gigabytes or more had yet to be determined.