Capping broadband data rates

Much has been made of the 250-gigabyte download cap imposed by a major cable television company during late 2008. Ostensibly, this was done to stop a handful of downloaders from hogging enormous amounts of bandwidth and slowing the network for other users. This explanation makes perfect sense.

I believe that the future of television is television-on-demand delivered over the Internet. The success of Hulu, Fancast, network television sites, etc. has created an environment in which viewers can view enormous amounts of content on demand. This means that individuals could, conceivably, replace their cable television service with broadband and save $50 or more per month in the process. If we assume a DVD-quality data rate of 4.8 megabits-per-second delivered over broadband, 250 gigabytes per month works out to 3h 57m of television viewing per day -- Americans watch an average of four hours of television per day.

Is it possible that caps on Internet traffic are focused primarily on preventing broadband from cannibalizing cable television service and only secondarily on maintaining good network performance? After all, US cable television subscribers are expected to fall slightly in 2009 to 66.2 million and cable companies will logically want to protect this very lucrative market from further erosion. While satellite represents a significant threat to cable, broadband could make the satellite threat look tame.

Just a thought...