As he explains it, the telecoms are almost solely interested in
> creating billable events. If this is correct, then as you
> hypothesize, they want to set any number of arbitrary limits so that
> they can bill you when you exceed the limits.
That has always been their greedy mind-set. An example is name delivery on Caller ID. The FCC mandate on Caller ID (1994 or 95) was only to deliver the number. So, all the telephone entities fought and fought over a per transaction fee for name deivery. Thus, name delivery over LEC boundaries is the exception rather than the norm.
They also want to destroy the VOIP carriers, so they can in turn drop their flat-rate long distance plans, thus seeing heavy users of long distance return to $2,000 per month phone bills.