Time Warner Cable's new billing scheme, a test to charge users by bandwidth consumption, could crush Steve Jobs's hopes and dreams for Apple TV.

Up north, they're already charging by the bit. According to Bits, under Bell Canada's bandwidth pricing plan — one which Time Warner it is looking to as a potential model for its own — customers would pay $30 each time they rented an HD movie from Apple TV, on top of Apple's $3.99 rental fee. Even with gas prices where they are, driving to Blockbuster suddenly looks much more appealing.

And DSL Prime editor Dave Burstein told Bits the effect such a surcharge would have on Apple's new movie rental business is every bit intentional. "The smart people at Time Warner are scared of people watching TV directly over the Internet," he told the Times. "'Lost' and 'Desperate Housewives' look better over the Internet than they do on digital cable."

A Time Warner spokesperson denied the charge. "This is not targeted at people who download movies from Apple," Time Warner PR flack Alexander Dudley told the Times. "This is aimed at people who use peer-to-peer networks and download terabytes."

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