Comment Re:Figures this guy is a cable shill (Score 1) 365
Corollary to my previous comment:
The back-haul internet backbone connections that connect "last mile" ISP's to the greater Internet are massively oversubscribed. The bandwidth they've deployed to their subscribers is similarly oversubscribed. Their entire business model is predicated on customers using only a tiny fraction of their advertised bandwidth, when averaged over time. Worked fine when people just used the Internet for email and web browsing; these apps consumed bandwidth only in brief, infrequent bursts. Netflix, Hulu et al blows a gaping hole in the ISP's cost structure, as customers are now using a much greater percentage of their advertised bandwidth.
The TELCO's went through a similar phase in the 90's. Prior to dial-up Internet, the average residential phone was in use for perhaps 20 minutes per day, spread across multiple calls, a decent percentage of which were of the extra-cost, long-distance variety. AOL came along, and all of a sudden people were making local phone calls that lasted 2 or 3 hours at a stretch, and they weren't making any lucrative long distance calls because the PC was tying up the phone line.