I agree completely. But your power meter doesn't know what device in your house is using electricity, it just knows you're using X amount of electricity. Yes

I agree completely. But your power meter doesn't know what device in your house is using electricity, it just knows you're using X amount of electricity. Yes it would be difficult to make a data meter that's intentionally blind to where the packets are going to and from, but it's not as though the data isn't available for intercept a dozen other places on a telco's network. If they want to spy on you and your data is on their network there's little you can do. The point of this independently certified metering device is that it'd be expensive. Hopefully nobody would sell them, only rent them. So if a carrier wants to charge overages they're more than welcome to, but the people supplying the meters are going to get a huge cut of their business. And once a telco is on the receiving end of a racket instead of on the giving end, perhaps they'd change their tune about data caps and spend that money and energy upgrading their network instead of using it to clamp down on their "customers" who have little to no alternatives.