Well, if customers are stupid enough to break through their data cap every month, yes. Then network traffic is higher, but also the revenue they can reinvest in the network.
If customers are aware of both their data cap and FaceTime data consumption, the overall FaceTime traffic should be evently distributed over the month, because there is a limited amount of time you can spend using FaceTime and I don't see why everyone would be FaceTiming at the same time (except for maybe Christmas and New Years, but that is already an issue). This is even more likely when customers have different bill dates on which their monthly data cap is reset.
My point wasn't related to data use over the span of a week/month/year compared to your data cap. It was related to the network's moment-to-moment capacity. Just like the electrical grid, a data network has vast capacity over long periods of time, but limited capacity over very short periods of time.
To bring it down to a smaller, easier to grasp, scale, let's pretend I've got a portable 5Kw generator. As long as I keep it fed with fuel, I have essentially unlimited energy over the long term. Over the short-term, however, I can only utilize 5Kw at once. My computer uses 85w, my lights use 500w, my TV uses 90w, etc. (numbers pulled out of my
). I can keep adding things that run off that generator well beyond the 5Kw it can provide at once, and everything is good so long as I keep the moment-to-moment draw *below* 5Kw. I can run *hundreds* of low-draw devices at the same time with no problem all off this one generator.
If, on the other hand, I try to run eleven 500w appliances at the same time, I'm going to have problems.
