While ISPs (and the investors who love them) would like the public to believe that metered billing is inevitable, not everybody in the industry agrees. Ed Gubbins over at Telephony Online takes an interesting detour from the traditional pro-metered position of most loyal trade magazines, talking to industry vendors who don't see per-byte billing as the end all be all of broadband. Arbor Networks network scientist Craig Labovitz, for one, sees the industry settling on flat-rate pricing because of "simplicity":Some operators already see this -- Cablevision recently noting how they weren't keen on metered billing because it confuses users, and they want customers to use more of their product, not less. Despite inferences to the contrary, carriers make more than enough money off of flat-rate pricing to fund network upgrades. Indeed, Gubbins goes on to cite a recent scientific study that notes the high cost and complexity (ask Canadian cable operator Cogeco) of metering your users only really makes sense if you want people using less of your product:A lot of people who buy the idea that per-byte billing is the obvious, fair evolution of broadband pricing (like Slate did this week) haven't usually thought about how per-byte billing is expensive (for carriers and users), confusing, technically annoying, leads to potential anti-competitive abuses, and when envisioned by most carriers -- not particularly centered toward delivering value to consumers. While there's a lot of rhetoric coming from carriers, lobbyists and investors claiming a shift to per-byte billing is both necessary and inevitable. It's neither.