You are watching a lot more video on the Internet, and you may start to pay your Internet provider more for it. That was one of the conclusions I walked away with after spending Friday at the annual seminar of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at the business school of Columbia University. The theme was “The Dawning of the Ultra-Broadband Era,” and it explored the implications of Internet service that is far faster than the current offerings over phone wires, cable and wireless connections.

One theme from the academics, telecom executives and regulators from around the world in attendance was that demand for data over broadband is rising fast. Less clear is whether the supply of bandwidth is rising as fast as demand, and thus whether prices will go up or down for consumers.

Here are some of the more interesting exchanges:

File sharing has been usurped by legitimate video services.

Peer-to-peer networks, which are often used to trade illegal copies of music and movies, no longer generate the largest share of Internet traffic in the United States. In a busy hour on AT&T’s network, 31 percent of the bandwidth is used by streaming audio and video, said David Belanger, the chief scientist of AT&T Labs. Other sorts of Web pages represent an even greater share. (The slide he displayed didn’t have a caption, but it looked like the Web traffic was about 40 percent of the pie chart, and the P2P segment about 20 percent. I’ve e-mailed AT&T and I’ll update with the exact numbers if they give them to me.)

“Four years ago, peer-to-peer traffic would have been the largest slice of the pie,” Mr. Belanger said. “The Web has overwhelmed P2P,” he said, and audio and video streams are now larger as well.

Web pages and video are increasing at a pace of 76 percent a year, far faster than the overall 30 percent growth in bandwidth use per household served by AT&T.

In Germany, the trend is similar, but not quite as advanced, according to data presented by Matthias Kurth, the president of the Bundesnetzagentur, the German utility regulator. This year, peer-to-peer file trading is the largest component of Internet traffic. But by 2012, if current trends continue, Internet-delivered video will use more than half of the bandwidth to homes.

The very heaviest users drive up network costs.

This surging use of bandwidth is requiring networks to expand their capacity. In the days of Ma Bell, the cost of the phone network was determined by how many lines were needed to handle the calls on Mother’s Day. And in broadband networks, the biggest costs come from building the various network nodes and connections to handle peak usage.

This is even more true in wireless networks. In New York City, for example, T-Mobile has had to add more than 1,000 cell sites, at a cost of $200,000 each, simply because its existing sites reached capacity, said Joe Mallahan, its vice president of corporate strategy.

And on data networks, a very small number of users account for a disproportionate amount of the bandwidth consumption. Robert Pepper, a senior managing director of Cisco for technology policy, presented figures that cited statistics from Japan, which has much faster broadband service than the United States. The top 1 percent of users consumed 225 gigabytes of data a month, compared to the bottom 50 percent of users who used 1 gigabyte of data or less.

Unlimited data plans may have a limited life.

Several executives from telecommunications companies argued that that this surge in data use, and the disproportionate nature of who uses it, would require an end to plans that offer unlimited data use.

“We have light users subsidizing heavy users,” said Maggie Wilderotter, the chief executive of Frontier Communications, a regional phone company. “We have to move to a model of consumption-based pricing.”

In an interview after her talk, Ms. Wilderotter said Frontier was going to start displaying to customers a gauge that shows how much bandwidth they are using. Then it will start imposing an additional fee for customers who use more than 5 gigabytes of data a month.

T-Mobile’s wireless operation in the United States is looking to do the same thing, said Mr. Mallahan.

“It’s crazy,” he said. “People who want moderate usage have to pay way too high prices.”

Right now he said, wireless carriers don’t really offer truly unlimited plans because they cancel the accounts of the very heaviest users.

“Every one of the wireless carriers fires high-use data customers,” Mr. Mallahan said. He suggested that wireless data services offer a certain amount of bandwidth, with a “moderate” charge for additional use.

“In voice, our overage charges are exorbitant,” he said. “It’s a legacy thing we’re addicted to.”

It’s cheaper in Europe.

Broadband products and prices differ wildly around the world. The conference didn’t have anyone speaking from Asia, which is enjoying a flood of bandwidth. But several people from Europe discussed the broadband services available there at price points that are far better than those in the United States.

In Germany, for example, a bundle of voice and high-speed data service can cost 30 euros ($38), said Mr. Kurth, the German regulator. In many countries the relative savings is even more for people who use pay-television services delivered over their Internet connections.

Deutche Telekom, for example, offers a bundle that includes 150 channels of pay TV, video on demand, data service and voice calling. The cost is 60 euros ($76) a month. (Cable and phone companies are offering teaser rates of about $99 a month for this bundle in the United States, but the regular price is often $130 a month or more.)