Will Streaming Bring Metered Net? By Mark Fleischmann October 28, 2009 — Netflix, Blockbuster, and other online program providers are cutting deals left and right to get their services into various devices. But many of these scenarios hinge on an important assumption—that consumers have fixed-price internet service to bring all those audiovisual bits into the home. This assumption may not be viable indefinitely, as internet service providers are now threatening to shift from all-you-can-eat plans to metered, usage-based pricing.

This is a response to two different things. One of course is the increasing popularity of online video. The other is the federal government's move toward net neutrality regulation which would prohibit ISPs from choking back on high-bandwidth applications such as a/v streaming, HD video downloading, and file sharing. The Federal Communications Commission last year sanctioned Comcast for limiting the use of file sharing software on the grounds that it violated net neutrality.

So the ISPs are eyeing metered usage as a new tactic. Time Warner got as far as running an experiment in Texas and was considering expanding it to other cities until it was beaten back by consumer advocates and Congress, where a bill banning metered usage was introduced. But AT&T has implemented usage-based pricing in Texas and Nevada, Verizon is threatening to do the same, and Comcast has imposed a usage cap.

See The Wall Street Journal.

And for a vision of life without net neutrality, see Gizmodo.