A recent Viacom study shows that 15% of all television viewing is on a tablet. That’s how I’m watching TV these days. Just watched a TV series on a tablet this morning. How about you?

In the coming years, the shift from fixed television viewing to on-the-go, or at least on-a-tablet, will only increase. That means wi-fi usage of tablets will rise. Which means that the cable and phone companies providing your home internet, feeding that television signal through the lines and out your router, will see increased traffic. And along with the TV programming being watched, video on Netflix, iTunes and other services, along with a mushrooming market of TV apps, will grow in popularity. Those will require more bandwidth than today’s pipeline demands.

All that means…higher prices. We’ll see the cable and phone companies which have spent significant dollars on the  internet delivery infrastructure requiring more cash for the use of their lines. It is inevitable that prices will increase.

Just how high will our monthly ISP charges be in five years? According to one recent story, AT&T has increased one level of  Internet service rate 150 percent in just three years. By way of comparison, the inflation rate rose 7.3 percent over the same period. Do the math…and I think you’ll agree that we’d better prepare for significantly higher cable and DSL costs for internet use at home.

I won’t project a dollar amount, but my guess is that in five years we’ll have ISP bills roughly double the amount that we’re paying today.

And most of us won’t even blink.