After all the aggravation with limiting traffic and heavy users affecting other users’ experience, cable service operators, including Comcast, found a solution to the problem: slow down Internet speed for heavy users, and make them pay more if they want additional bandwidth.

However, despite rumors that if the testing period Comcast and Time Warner will institute proves successful, other providers will adhere to the idea, consumer groups criticized the new plan, saying it will affect consumers who pay for unlimited service, and would discourage data usage.

Comcast and Time Warner want to test two methods that target heavy users, although both seem to aim at the same thing: take a different approach on traffic management. The tests will begin this week, the two companies unveiled.

Time Warner Cable plans to begin testing on Thursday, by changing the pricing structure for users: the more bandwidth they use, the more they will be charged for it. Subscribers in Beaumont, Texas will be changed $1 per gigabyte above their monthly fee, depending on bandwidth usage.

Comcast on the other hand plans to solve traffic problems by slowing file transfer speeds for individual heavy users during congestion periods. The tests will begin on Friday in Chambersburg, Pa., and Warrenton, Va.

According to a Comcast spokesperson, Comcast might also be looking into a consumption billing plan, and a monthly 250-gigabyte limit for heavy users, but a final decision is yet to be made, Reuters reported.

Although Comcast is trying to leave the story of bad traffic management behind (the Federal Communications Commission is still investigating the matter), critics believe that there’s not much of a difference between what they did then and what they’re planning to do now.

Comcast is currently the subject of a pending investigation for abusively limiting P2P traffic, whose results are expected to be announced by the end of June by the Federal Communications Commission.