Heavy traffic on 'visual Internet' could lead to broadband caps

Sometimes it's necessary to recognize there is an elephant in the room. Few do this better than Karl Bode of Broadband Reports, who has recently shone a naked spotlight on the "relentless drum beat" by service providers to initiate low cap, high per-gig pricing similar to what's being done by our neighbors in Canada.

This would, Bode suggests, have an immediate and punishing impact on a seemingly oblivious Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX), which plans to make its living via what Level 3 Communications (Nasdaq: LVLT) is now calling the "visual Internet."

"Given that Netflix HD streaming potentially eats bandwidth like popcorn shrimp and Canadian ISPs like Cogeco and Rogers (NYSE: RCI) currently charge up to $5 per extra gigabyte of usage, it seems inevitable that Netflix users and low caps won't get along as usage ramps up," Bode wrote.

For more:
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