YouTube Will Kill Flat-rate Mobile Broadband Pricing Forever

Video is driving the projected increase in both mobile and wired broadband — but it's not the proliferation of video that's the problem for mobile operators so much as the relative ease with which consumers can now access it.

Indeed, while mobile operators have long faced traffic congestion at cell sites thanks to peer-to-peer traffic, the widespread availability of video in formats that the average consumer can watch has changed the industry. And that's causing mobile operators to rethink their pricing plans. In short, YouTube may be the death of unlimited mobile broadband on handsets.

Given that mobile resources are constrained by a variety of things, including the spectrum allotted to carriers, it's likely that mobile broadband providers will eliminate flat-rate pricing for mobile broadband as a way to keep profits and network quality up while data use expands. When that happens should we blame YouTube — or profiteering mobile operators?