Speaking at an investor conference this week in Florida, Comcast Chief Financial Officer Michael Angelakis informed investors that broadband pricing will "evolve" as broadband use grows. According to this Dow Jones Newswire report, Angelakis wouldn't get specific about what he meant, only stating that this change would occur as broadband "eclipses pay-television as the cable industry's core product." According to Angelakis, this vague broadband pricing evolution "will end up being positive for the company."

We asked Comcast for a clearer definition of what Angelakis was hinting at, but have yet to hear back (we'll of course update this post if/when we do).

Angelakis could be referring to the desire among broadband executives to migrate the U.S. broadband market from flat-rate pricing to a system of caps and per gigabyte overages. That's a model that's become very common in other countries like Canada, but hasn't taken root yet here in the States due to backlash from consumers, most of whom (correctly) believe they already pay a premium for bandwidth.

The model is usually presented under the guise of "fairness," but its real benefit is that it allows carriers to retain control in the face of Internet evolution, charging a premium for bandwidth to help counter losses elsewhere. You'll notice that as smartphones evolve and mobile VoIP and push IM clients begin to erode SMS and mobile voice minutes, wireless carriers are looking to constrict and more heavily monetize each mobile bit. It seems more than likely that as Internet video nibbles away at TV revenues, you'll see terrestrial carriers embrace this same concept under pressure from sector investors (which is what Angelakis appears to be hinting at).

Several carriers have conducted trials (including AT&T and Time Warner Cable), but they've found the effort to be an expensive one to implement and support. It's also an extremely unpopular concept among U.S. consumers, who've grown used to the simplicity of flat-rate pricing. Some carriers, such as Cablevision, have acknowledged that the metered billing model confuses customers, and creates a paradigm where the carrier may even be discouraging use of their product.

While Comcast has yet to implement an overage system and have made no official statement indicating they would like to, they did impose a 250 GB monthly cap on all residential user tiers last October. They're also slowly pushing out a bandwidth measuring tool on a market-by-market basis. Comcast has gone through the trouble of having this tool independently tested for accuracy, so if the time comes where Comcast wants to impose metered billing -- they're certainly in a position to.