40-Gb Usage Cap for U.K. High Speed Access?

If you had to make a prediction today, based on just a couple of data points, you might argue that high speed access services in the U.K. market are headed for something like a 40-Gb usage cap per month, even if at the moment there still are several providers offering "unlimited" plans. 


Usage caps are blunt instruments, to be sure. Purists might argue that what matters are incentives for users to be careful at peak hours, when the danger of congestion is highest. 

That might argue for congestion pricing. But data caps seem right now to be a reasonable service provider compromise between usage-based pricing and unlimited-usage pricing, for most consumers. 

Consumers dislike usage pricing and service providers dislike the liability of virtually unlimited usage. Usage buckets are more blunt methods than perhaps using congestion pricing. But they are simpler and introduce some element of end user choice without unduly irritating customers or bearing unlimited liability.