'AUB' Lessons From Canada

Is the broadband consumer with a monthly usage tab of 8 Terabytes a heavy user, or your greatest customer ever? On the one hand, it's hard not to love customers who love your bandwidth that much. On the other hand, and from a network management perspective, traditional "all-you-can-eat" pricing structures make it difficult for broadband service providers to love heavy users. That's why some broadband providers in Canada chose to slowly, gently shift consumers to what they call "AUB," or "Additional Usage Billing."