Back in September we noted how it seems like only a matter of time before Verizon engaged in metered broadband billing. After Time Warner Cable's PR implosion, most ISPs are in a holding pattern on the idea until they can sell consumers on it, something they haven't done a good job of so far. Verizon also continues to face competition from Cablevision, who has publicly stated they think metered billing confuses customers and they "think broadband is a pretty powerful drug and we want people to consume more of it." But Verizon continues to dream, telling Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOM they still dream of a metered future:Again though, the kind of metered billing models carriers propose have nothing to do with fairness. If it was about fairness, Verizon would impose a pricing model where users who checked their e-mail twice a month would pay $5 or less for bandwidth. "Fairness" would involve all customers actually paying only for what they use under a pure per-byte billing model. But this model isn't want carriers are pushing for, because 90% of their customer base would wind up paying less money.

No, what ISP executives and investors dream of is charging everyone between $30-$60 for bandwidth, and then piling overage charges on top of that. That has nothing to do with fairness, and has everything to do with raising prices ahead of a video explosion, and protecting ISP TV revenues from Internet video. The model would also cushion the consistent erosion of Verizon's landline business, and help incumbent carriers retain power in an evolving market in which they, left unaided, organically become dumb pipe operators.

Verizon's Brian Whitton's claim that such a push is about managing excessive users in order to fund the network is however, false. While these users do consume more than their "fair share" of bandwidth, they make up only a tiny portion of the ISP customer base. They can easily be managed with some kind of delineating usage cap that separates a carrier's regular users from your true bandwidth gluttons. The latter, should they repeatedly cross the cap, can be nudged to more expensive business tiers. There's also a growing number of intelligent network management technologies that specifically target only these users.

The continuing ISP hints that network upgrades can't be funded by revenues made under the current flat-rate pricing model are also demonstrably false. Verizon, AT&T and Comcast's earnings reports and 10-K tax forms are easily viewable for anyone who doubts otherwise. Everyone likes to make more money of course, but by pretending this desire is about altruism, "fairness" or financial necessity (when your tax records prove otherwise) -- insults your customers' intelligence.

Meanwhile as Higginbotham astutely notes, the lack of competition in many markets means that if consumers accept a move to the kind of overage fees ISPs dream of, they'd better be ready to pay more money for less broadband service. In an uncompetitive market if you think an ISP that starts charging $2 per gigabyte in 2009 will ever lower that price point (despite the ever-decreasing cost of bandwidth and network hardware), you're kidding yourself.