A silly tweet: “it’s funny how all these ISPs claim it’s a capacity issue but if you pay them more money they magically have more capacity” demonstrates the lack of understanding of the core issue in the usage based billing discussion.
Everyone seems to agree that the best way to deal with congestion is to add more capacity. Even the oft-reviled CRTC said this clearly in its landmark internet traffic management policy (2009-657). Of course that is the right answer.
The issue is how to fund that capital investment. Do you spread it across the entire base of customers or do you charge more to people who are using more resources?
So my reply to the tweet – “When you pay ISPs, they can invest in more capacity. Not magic, just network engineering.” Of course, my network engineering friends like to make everyone believe they are magicians.
Shouldn’t they be using the money we pay them each month for service to upgrade and develop the system they use to offer/provide said service?