Usage caps are coming. Like it or not, broadband providers, mobile or fixed, cannot continue to expand their networks and invest in doubling capacity every 12-18 months. With service plans ranging from $20-100 per month across fixed and mobile networks, the runaway train needs to be slowed at least enough to allow the network backhaul and core to catch up to access network advances from the last five years.

From a consumer point of view, this feels like a very bad thing. Just as consumers are moving more and more data into the cloud as access to the cloud has dramatically increased, their ability to leverage that data is threatened by limits that many of them do not understand. What exactly is 5GB? What is 100GB? Many consumer devices like the iPod, refer to their capacity by the number of songs or movies that they can hold. However, there is no such guidance on how much bandwidth your email takes up or what usage will occur when you stream the latest Netflix video, or even access Spotify or iTunes Cloud from your phone/PC/iPad. And if you watch two movies on Netflix, how many Windows Updates or iTunes store downloads does that equal? Read more [+]