[nj2112]

I've been thinking how people might alter their net habits with a hard cap in place and I think we might see a new phenomena.

Users may fall into two catagories (broadly speaking).

Type A
Use bandwidth freely at the start of a capping period until a certain proportion of the allowance is used then moderate usage for the rest of the period.

Type B
Moderate useage at the start of a capping period then as the end of the period approaches increase usage, a use it or lose scenario.

I speculate that there may be increased utilisation of network capacity around the end/start of capping periods. I wonder how well the infrastructure will cope and will we soon see regular end/start of capping period slowdowns.

Also with the soft cap there was/is some incentive to "fly under the radar" by downloading in off peak periods, if you exceed the usage guideline but don't impact on other users maybe you wont get a letter.
Conversely with a hard cap you have a set limit so there is no real incentive to use at off peak times, usage will be when most convenient, probably resulting in higher peak time usage.

I'm just speculating but couple the end/start increase and the peak time increase and maybe we'll see some quite bad times around the end/start of the month.

Just a couple of thoughts.