When 5% of your users are taking up 40% the bandwidth being used, and traffic is increasing 60% a year while revenue is not, carriers like AT&T are forced to evaluate how they distribute their bandwidth.

Which is why to battle BitTorrent and video heavy users, the carrier is going to began experimenting with usage based pricing this fall.

For AT&T it's a slippery slope, because while as a consumer I don't want to have to subsidize some one else downloading the last 18 seasons of The Simpsons on his cell phone, AT&T's featured device is the internet friendly iPhone, and they need to make AT&T seem as internet friendly as possible.

The best solution I think is to forget about bandwidth caps or punitive pricing structures and offer a couple of additional bandwidth options that peak with unlimited bandwidth being an additional $19.99 a month. Sure there is a pocket of users who would still take advantage of that, but it seems like the idea that carriers can make money on, and still not put off customers and potential customers.

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