It doesn't have to work that way. Internode, an ISP in Australia (for consumer connections) will monitor your usage, send you notices on how close to the cap you are, and then shape you back to slightly faster than dial-up speeds. YOu then have the option of checking your email (slowly) and maybe chatting, or purchasing a datablock and becoming unshaped within the hour. (I semi-regularly purchase blocks during months of high usage when getting close to 90% of the cap to avoid slowness). It's fair, and everyone pays for what they use.
Internode is a bad example, they are the best of the lot in Australia/NZ, as I know from personal experience :)
I suspect how it will work out if it happens in the US is rather more like how Telecom NZ or Vodafone operate (Telecom used to be mainly owned by SBC/AT&T).
Where either you don't have the option of a data block past a certain upper bound, and get shaped to 64kbits for the rest of the month (Vodafone).
Or you have the option to remain full speed but the overage charge is out-of-this-world insane, something like 2c/MB. That's right, per MB. 10GB over cap is $200 added to your bill. Ouch.
Is their line running at near capacity at all times? If not it seems not only not fair, but silly to have their network lines sitting mostly idle for the last week of every month.
Rules and pricing needs to be simple and consistent. Even if it was possible to implement QoS to broadband, it would be awfully confusing for both the consumer and the telco. Why should someone in a busy area be capped when they reach the limit, while someone somewhere else can keep going? It might make sense from a technical perspective, but not at a consumer level.
If the telcos are not price gouging, there shouldn't be a problem with data caps. Stop being a cheapskate!
>Even if it was possible to implement QoS to broadband
It most certainly is possible.
>Why should someone in a busy area be capped when they reach the limit
What limit? I'm arguing that there shouldn't be a limit. You just provide a guaranteed minimum bandwidth. When the line is under-utilized the connected clients can use as much as they can. When utilization goes up traffic is shaped down as far as needed to handle it.
With data caps then people in your less busy areas will find themselves completely offline toward the end of the month while the line sits idle. Why?
You would have to ask them that question to get the full answer, however I have never experienced bandwidth issues in the 5 years+ I have been connected.re. Idle pipes at the end of the month, this is likely mitigated by each customers billing cycle starting when they first use the service.
