Fussing Over Broadband Usage Caps

I do not understand the fuss and outrage over broadband usage caps that Comcast, 3G mobile networks, and perhaps soon Bell Canada are implementing. The cost of providing service does scale with the instantaneous peak traffic. It is much like the electrical power grid. Since these ISPs (correctly, I believe) are being increasing restricted by regulators to prevent their application-based throttling efforts, it is understandable they would take this step. That being said, I do have a problem with how they are going about it.

As much as we all love to criticize large, quasi-monopolistic corporations, they nevertheless have the right to expect a profit from each line of business. Users have no right to unlimited consumption and should not expect it. While usage caps were not an issue in the age of dial-up since, at 56 kbps, the traffic carriage costs were a managable percentage of the total cost of providing service, this is increasingly less true due to broadband.

If ISPs are forbidden by regulation to throttle applications or to charge for data usage, their increased variable costs will have to be accounted for elsewhere. This would most likely mean higher average prices to all users. Like with electricity consumption there is sense in increasing charges for users who create high traffic loads during peak hours. That's what Ottawa Hydro and the rest are planning, and it is a good policy. No one wants to pay the cost, financial and environmental, for new power generating stations, nor do we want brown-outs.

The puzzle over ISP usage charges is the indiscriminate caps, such as 250 GB/month Comcast plans. It would be far better, and more justifiable, to charge differentially in tune with overall traffic load by time of day and day of week. This is what is being planned with the smart meters the electricity providers are now deploying. It is even easier for ISPs to implement this scheme since it is a software upgrade rather than a wide-scale deployment of metering hardware. For example, my previous ISP, Magma, did this. Large downloaders were given free rein after midnight while the bulk of their customers slept.

So while I can concur with the broad objective of usage caps, I do not agree with how it is being done. Undiscriminating monthly caps reek of the old bugaboo of protecting their own media properties while giving the appearance of implementing a cost-justified data management protocol. It's getting better, but I still don't buy it.