US Democratic Congressman Eric Massa on Wednesday introduced the Broadband Internet Fairness Act, a measure to monitor and regulate capped, tiered Internet services. The bill would require any provider switching from a typically unlimited plan to a usage-based system to be scrutinized by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and would ban any service plans that the FTC deems "unreasonable or discriminatory." Providers that ignored any imposed bans would be subject to unspecified punishment.

The limits would only apply to mid-size or larger carriers with 2 million or more subscribers and would require public hearings to take input from those more likely to be affected by plan changes.

BIFA appears a direct response to Time Warner's currently in-testing tiered Internet plans, which meter previously unlimited service and would more than double the price of truly unlimited access due to overage fees. Widespread public resistance forced the company to put a halt to further expansion of metering trials, though in retaliation it froze DOCSIS 3.0 expansion plans.

While Time Warner has maintained that the growth of online video and other bandwidth-heavy services is about to make Internet service prohibitively expensive to maintain at current rates, critics have pointed out that bandwidth costs have actually been dropping at least in proportion to usage and that technologies like DOCSIS 3.0 make increased speeds more affordable for carriers.

They also point out that caps and metering come just as full-length TV shows and movies are becoming readily available online either in pay-per-download services like iTunes or free streaming services like Hulu, any of which reduces the need for cable TV service. [via GigaOM]