The old cap scheme was pretty limited, only going up to a max of 40GB. Now they've got a whole Skittles bag of caps. Here's how Time Warner Cable's COO Landel Hobbs breaks it down, all while breaking out the familiar warning that the internet is about to die if you don't limit your porn consumption to two times a day—MAX:

Internet demand is rising at a rate that could outpace capacity within a few years. According to industry analysts, the infrastructure may not be able to accommodate the explosion of online content by 2012. This could result in Internet brownouts.

• 1GB with 768kbps downstream for $15/month with $2/GB overcharges
• 10, 20, 40 and 60GB will go with Roadrunner Lite, Basic, Standard and Turbo packages, respectively, and maintain the same pricing. Overage is $1/GB.
• 100GB will be the new Road Runner...Turbo (I'm not sure why there are two Turbo packages) which is 10Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream for $75/month. This is still an order of magnitude more restrictive than AT&T and Comcast, who have caps of 150GB and 250GB, respectively.
• A 50Mbps/5Mbps down/up speed tier is coming for $100/month when they launch DOCSIS 3.0. I'd expect this in FiOS-competitive markets first.

Overages are capped at $75 a month, meaning $150 a month gets you unlimited internet with the Turbo package—or really, you could just get a lower package and use as much as you want and pay less. The only real consideration is speed. GigaOM astutely notes that $150/month for unlimited internet is the exact amount Time Warner would need to pull in to make the same amount of money if you killed the cable box and switched to watching all of your video online—as we've long crowed that much of this is about their fear of internet video.

It's notable that Time Warner's not rolling this out anywhere Verizon has FiOS deployed—where in certain markets, for under $150 a month, you can get 50Mbps downstream and 20Mbps upstream (yes, that's more upstream than downstream in any of Time Warner's packages) and it's totally unlimited. Oh, competition, why can't you be everywhere and save the internet? I'd like to hope we don't have to rely on legislators like Eric Massa in NY to do it, since more bad than good would probably come out of the government getting involved. [Long Reply via Business Insider]

Austin, San Antonio, Rochester, NY, and Greensboro, North Carolina are the next cities to suffer Time Warner's comparatively draconian 40GB caps at the high-end—Comcast's is 250GB, AT&T's is 150GB, and all of them suck.

Every gig you overshoot your cap costs a dollar, meaning an HD movie download from iTunes could end up costing another $5 on top the $20 you're paying for the movie. Just four HD movies (assuming a conservative 5GB per flick) would swallow half of your allowed data for the month. You might wanna lay off the high def YouTube and Hulu too. Oh yes, the squeeze on high def video that doesn't come direct from your cable box is here. Actually, can I just say the internet is dead? OK. The internet is dead. [BusinessWeek - Thanks Joshua!]

AT&T says they're not doing any of the actual spotting—the RIAA is handling that part—they're just "forwarding notices from content providers to our customers" to edumacate them. Cnet's Greg Sandoval reports that a Comcast executive said that they've sent customers two million warning notices about infringement. [A Comcast spokesperson later added that these letters weren't part of any new campaign, see below.]

What happens if you ignore AT&T's notices? Will they disconnect you? Here is their lovely wishy-washy answer that really doesn't say anything at all: "We are not suspending or terminating our customers' service. With that said, we do refer customers to our Acceptable Use Policy, which governs use of our service." Just keep in mind, it's the same AT&T that was plotting a massive, intelligent anti-piracy dragnet that would sweep their entire network for pirated content.

Update: Comcast adds via spokesperson that nothing's changed:

"Comcast, like other major ISPs, forwards notices of alleged infringement that we receive from music, movie, videogame, and other content owners to our customers. This is the same process we've had in place for years - nothing has changed. While we have always supported copyright holders in their efforts to reduce piracy under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and continue to do so, we have no plans to test a so-called 'three-strikes-and-you're-out' policy."

Probably not a distinction they want, but since they're the only major ISP that's not seriously clamping down on bandwidth usage and hanging out with the RIAA at bars—the RIAA's new buddy group reportedly includes AT&T, Comcast and Cox—Verizon still looks like the best ISP around for people moving around less-than-legally shiny material (i.e., everyone on the internet), especially if you get FiOS. [Cnet via CrunchGear]

As a bonus, a local filter would defeat encrypted torrents, since you've gotta decrypt 'em, at which point the filter would kick in. Sherman is a smart cookie though, and knows people aren't just gonna sign up to have their machine lojacked:

"Why would somebody put that on their machine? They wouldn't likely want to do that, they'd do that when it benefits them such as for viruses and so on and so forth...it could be enforced at the modem or put in by the ISP."

The setup would work a lot like GooTube's—the networks would hand over a bank of material that AT&T/Vobile would run traffic on the network against, looking for positive IDs. If it matches the "video DNA" on file, it gets the hammer. Supposedly Vobile's ID tech is tops, at least among "a dozen or so other systems" tested by the MPAA. AT&T's reportedly been testing it since spring, though it'd launch until late 2008 at the earliest.

In order to keep consumers and net neutrality advocates from flipping out, one marketing strategy AT&T might use is to emphasize the filter as a way to catch child porn, since no one can really argue against stopping predators. On the flip side, an effective monitoring program is loaded with business propositions, from helping them net content distribution rights to being able to "offer far more detailed information on [customers'] likes and dislikes, in turn enabling AT&T and its partners to land lucrative deals with advertisers hungry for such data."

I could act all shocked and appalled like Wilson about AT&T being so disinterested in customers' privacy (to put it lightly), but it wouldn't be genuine, and I'd feel dirty in the morning for lying to you. [BusinessWeek via Broadband Reports]