Online bandwidth hogs to be cut off at trough?

The era of carefree, unlimited Internet browsing and downloading might be coming to an end. Industry leaders Comcast and Time Warner Cable have started testing traffic-metering and management techniques that seek to rein in heavy usage, and AT&T says such limits are inevitable for the most extreme users of its network. That means that for the first time since the era of dial-up access, Internet providers are looking to count how many bytes a customer uses, potentially ending or significantly altering the practice of all-you-can-eat broadband consumption. The providers say the initiatives - which are only tests at this point - are aimed at a certain subset of heavy users who consume an inordinate amount of bandwidth, threatening the performance of the network for other customers. Time Warner said the top 5 percent of users, largely peer-to-peer file sharers, consume more than half its capacity. Likewise, AT&T said 5 percent of its users consume about 46 percent of its bandwidth. But critics are worried that the limits may eventually stifle Internet consumption and frustrate technology innovations that have created an Internet economy upon which many have come to rely. "The message is we're maintaining a scarcity and we'll charge you for this scarce resource, but that's not a good model for infrastructure," said Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, a media advocacy group.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/23/BU9V11CIVA.D...