Doing my research for this article I found something in common with all of the broadband providers - they don't advertise their monthly bandwidth caps. You have to dig deep to find those caps and that is one reason I wanted to bring it to the reader's attention in a table. They want it both ways. They want to hide the limitations but enforce, in some cases, draconian measures for violators. This behavior is at the very least, unethical, but ISPs having been hiding and getting away with such behavior for years.

Honestly, AT&T should include a warning in bold letters about their $10 fee for second and continuing bandwidth violations.

There are horror stories of users having their Internet shut down for violating caps they knew nothing about:

http://www.komonews.com/news/tech/125614378.html
http://www.ozymandias.com/the-day-comcast%E2%80%99s-data-cap-policy-killed-my-internet-for-1-year

If Comcast, AT&T, et al. want to limit monthly data usage they should be up-front about it and advertise it with their fancy graphics and uber-fast data speeds.

Caveat emptor! Always read the fine print!