It is a packet-switched technology, and only consumes network resources when data is being transmitted, so it is widely expected that customers will be charged for the amount of data they exchange, rather than the time they spend logged on to the network.

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To me it smells of a nice backdoor ruse to get around the principle of network neutrality where every packet is equal.

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Packet switching got its name thanks to late British scientist Donald Davies who was creating a network that used this technique at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL).

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Why did the phone companies cling to expensive switched network standards even as packet-switched voice grew robust enough to deliver acceptable fidelity at a much lower cost per connection?

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