Comcast Ruling Means Web Usage Fees

From an investment angle, a shift to usage-based pricing might end up being the best thing that ever to happen to network operators, even if some consider the move a regression to the charge-by-the-hour models employed by the earliest Internet service providers, like America Online, Prodigy and CompuServe.

For consumers, though, "it might be the worst thing that ever happened to applications and content," Moffett says.