[elvistheprince]

I wonder if the experience (apocrathal or not) when the 30mph limit in towns was first introduced will be repeated when the (hard) caps are introduced
When the speed limit was intorduced the minor accident rate actualy went UP because where as before people just drove at the speed the felt appropriate once the 30mph limit came in they all drove at that speed.

What I can see happening is that where as before people just "used" the net without any thought to total downloaded, once the cap is introduced people will start looking for excuses to download things so as not to "waste" their available downloads a month (e.g. "well I'm not realy interested in it but I many as well download it now whilst I've got some doenload capacity spare").
Therefore whilst the top say 10% of downloaders will download less because everyone else is downloading up to their limit the average usage per user will actual go up.

I know this certainly occurs with the "free" minutes on mobiles phones etc. oft times people make calls just to "use them up".

Of course even if this does come to pass and NTL scrabble to ditch the cap the genie will already be out of the bottle in all likelyhood people will continue with their (new) old habits.

I wonder if NTL "customer research" addressed this (probably not as almost certainly the people in charge of commisioning the research were also behind the hard cap idea and therefore had too much capital invested in the idea to get the "wrong" result from the research, or am I just being cynical).

Stephen