At this rate, we’re guessing that there are visions of a “tiered” Internet dancing in the heads of senior executives at ISPs like Comcast and Time Warner. By 2012 “Internet video will be nearly 400 times the U.S. Internet backbone,” according to Cisco (per eMarketer). As David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer, puts it: “To be sure, the Internet is not about to collapse due to the video boom…however, additional costs. In response to this stupendous traffic growth, various ISPs are looking to limit their customers’ bandwidth usage through techniques such as monthly download caps (often called throttling) and differentiated service tiers.” Call it fuel for the ongoing debate about the electronic haves versus the electronic have-nots.
