Use too much bandwidth and you might end up with a surcharge, courtesy of AT&T.

"Usage-based pricing is one way to deal fairly with Internet usage, which is very uneven among broadband users," he says.

The company's analysis of broadband users shows that a small percentage of customers use a large percentage of total bandwidth. The top 5% of consumer DSL subscribers use 46% of the total bandwidth, while the top 1% of subscribers are using 21% of bandwidth.