The world’s congested mobile airwaves are being divided in a lopsided manner, with 1 percent of consumers generating half of all traffic. The top 10 percent of users, meanwhile, are consuming 90 percent of wireless bandwidth. . . .

The gap between extreme users and the rest of the population is widening, according to Arieso. In 2009, the top 3 percent of heavy users generated 40 percent of network traffic. Now, Arieso said, these users pump out 70 percent of the traffic.

I’m fairly certain that I fall into this esteemed group. I have been streaming media on my smartphone since 2003! At the time I was an intern at Verizon Wireless’s data services division. I told a manager what I was doing. He looked at me, aghast, and said we will have to cap data if there are more people like you. And so they did.