Nate Anderson, writing for Ars Technica in Data caps a “crude and unfair tool” for easing online congestion

Internet providers argue that they need to impose monthly data caps on their users in order to slay the “bandwidth hogs” running wild and free through their networks, goring ordinary users with their tusks when all those users want to do is view some funny cat pictures online after a tough day at the office. The idea is that a monthly quota can reduce the amount of network congestion during peak hours throughout the month. Fact or fiction?

One piece of new research argues that it’s fiction. “Our analysis confirms that data consumption is at best a poor proxy for bandwidth usage,”…

Felten clearly finds that the heavy data users are actually not the cause of congestion, whether peak or off peak, and that data caps do nothing to help.