Should We Pay for Broadband by the Byte?

By announcing that it would cap residential broadband users to 250 GB in downloads per month, Comcast last week made a tacit admission that it can charge users $0.17 per gigabyte ( $43/month for the service), cover its operating costs, and still make a profit. If Comcast is happy to charge these rates to its heaviest users, the people who put the biggest strain on its residential broadband infrastructure, why shouldn’t the regular users enjoy the same benefit? The answer is that US broadband service is akin to a Chinese Buffet - the heavier users, who scarf down everything they can, are subsidized by lighter users, who pay more in exchange for consuming orders of magnitude less. The restaurant owners (and broadband providers), who scream “ you eat like killer whale! ” while a miniscule percentage of their users exceed some arbitrary limit , continue to pull in the same amount from everyone, making a killing on those who don’t eat ve...