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A global Internet industry forecast released Tuesday contains a subtle message for the many Canadian Internet subscribers who’ve been billed “overage” fees after they unwittingly exceeded their monthly data allotment — get used to it.

‘The average Canadian broadband subscriber paid 3.9% more in 2011 than the average U.S. subscriber’

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Canadian providers generally sell plans with lower bandwidth caps than their American peers, which drove percentage revenue gains higher here last year and widened a gap that has opened between Internet plans in the two countries, according to a new study from PwC.

And it is a trend expected to continue.

The international professional services firm said Internet access revenues generated by companies like Rogers Communications Inc. and BCE Inc, which include consumer wireline and wireless services, leapt by 17.5% in 2011. Much of the gain stemmed from fast-growing consumption through mobile devices.Yet PricewaterhouseCoopers noted that moves by Rogers, Bell and others to introduce “tiers” that segment residential Internet plans into smaller and smaller buckets of bandwidth in recent years helped fuel overall higher revenue growth than in the United States.