I'm not sure that's even true. I'd expect power consumption as well as 'wear and tear' to be less, and possibly significantly so, at idle versus continuous use.
> Data caps are a measure invented to extract money, not serve customers or packets.
Some people will definitely test the limits of anything that's supposedly unlimited. I imagine you're partially correct but I suspect data caps are the most comprehensible product attribute for ISPs to limit the relevant costs.
> If the cable companies were worried about fairness, they'd really be speaking in terms of bandwidth reservations at peak times and encouraging use during off-peak hours, and similar things.
I'd imagine that'd be an even harder sell than congestion pricing for motor vehicle traffic. It is mostly just a 'fact' of the world that almost everyone is going to want bandwidth at the same times. The costs of transitioning to any other arrangement are considerable. And Netflix is probably the player most able to adjust. I'm not sure if they still do, but they did at one time host a lot of their content in ISP data centers.
Data caps are a poor tool for handling congestion. They're a great tool for frightening people into keeping their load low(and costs for the provider down), or for sucking more money out of people. They don't do a damn thing for immediate load.
Me? I have Comcast business class -- they guarantee me a specific bit rate and I can nail it up at that rate all month long and they don't care. For folks not paying for this service class, Comcast has bandwidth reservation and all the anti-congestion tools they need, they just don't use them -- they get more money out of people's behavior towards data caps.
The real world of data is generally billed at the 95th percentile of traffic consumption, usually with a commit to buy a certain amount of traffic. So you pay for a specific rate of data, the vendor provisions equipment to handle the agreed upon rate, and then you can do traffic at that rate forever. If you go over your rate, you talk to your vendor.
I don't know of any equipment whose natural operation is to handle a certain amount of traffic, then shut down until the next billing cycle comes around. Data caps are a measure invented to extract money, not serve customers or packets.
If the cable companies were worried about fairness, they'd really be speaking in terms of bandwidth reservations at peak times and encouraging use during off-peak hours, and similar things. They're not, it's just a money grab.