Faster Speeds, Greater Consumption

If new Suddenlink Communications caps on fixed network data consumption bear a reasonable relationship to user behavior, faster access speeds access providers will offer in the future are going to lead to greater consumption. In other words, giving people faster speeds is expected to lead to increased consumption.

The company's new pricing caps consumption at 150 Gbytes for access at advertised maximum speeds of 10 Mbps, with typical monthly consumption said to be 12 Gbytes for consumers buying that tier. For access between 10 Mbps and 20 Mbps, the monthly cap will be 250 Gbytes, with average consumption of about 22 Gbytes.

Services running faster than 20 Mbps will have a cap of 350 Gbytes, with expected average consumption of 95 Gbytes.

Those plans suggest it would be reasonable to expect monthly caps set at higher levels when services are available for very-fast access, and you can make your own guesses about what user behavior might be if services at 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps are made available.

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