Usage-based bandwidth pricing is inevitable. Try getting your electric or water utilities to quote you a rate for "unlimited" use of their product. The only question is setting reasonable rates and tiers. For current-generation iPhones these may be adequate (less so for iPads given their better suitability for mobile video), but bandwidth costs decline constantly which means that the limits should be increasing over time as well. As mobile video-chat becomes more popular the current limits will need to move up considerably to be useful.
Indeed, metered usage is inevitable.
Problem with the analogy is that you don’t have someone else turning your water on without your knowledge.
“Usage-based bandwidth pricing is inevitable. Try getting your electric or water utilities to quote you a rate for “unlimited” use of their product.”
Electric and water are poor comparisons. A better comparison is cable TV or satellite TV. Just like 3G and 4G, the network is there whether you are using it or not and it costs the carrier nothing when you have it tuned in 24/7 for a fixed cost. Cable modem broadband internet is also unlimited for a fixed cost, and so is DSL. To have metered usage simply makes 3G and 4G uncompetitive for home use. Especially considering that it takes much less installation, equipment, and maintenance costs per given metro area to operate a 3G or 4G network than it does to maintain a cable plant covering the same metro area.