By now most people are familiar with Time Warner Cable's failed efforts to implement low caps and high overages, and AT&T's continuing trials of a similar idea in two markets. It's only a matter of time before such models, which are loved by investors because they involve consumers paying more money for the same (or in some instances less) product, see another industry-wide push. We know that Republican FCC Commissioners are loyally beating the metered billing drum for carriers, but what about the President? Based on a Q&A session this week on YouTube, he's not a fan: So is that a hard line "no" to metered billing then? Or a Presidential, telecom immunity kind of no? Or is he simply talking about the fear that major carriers would charge companies that already pay for bandwidth extra money for prioritization (which you'll recall is what got this whole neutrality ball rolling in 2005 in the first place). Whether policy makers are aware of it or not, the push toward metered billing is a big part of network neutrality, given restrictive per gigabyte pricing models can be used to direct consumers to select content (for instance a carrier's own uncapped TV services instead of cheaper Internet video alternatives).

The FCC's Democratic Commissioners remain murky on whether they support such billing models, and where they stand on the issue will be important to discern ahead of the telecom industry's next attempt to wean consumers off of the flat-rate pricing model they've grown used to. Again, many people confuse what carriers want to do (low caps and high per gigabyte overages) with what they might like to see (a pure per-byte billing model where you only pay for what you use), and the former frequently fails to offer real consumer value.