I estimate that strategies one and two probably have around 200,000 customers, and the remaining 20 million lines are with the liars :-)

The average joe sees that unlimited broadband for cheap offer and plumps for that- he's typically He's got no way of telling he isn't getting what he's paying for. He isn't going to plump for another offer that costs more or has a cap- since that's clearly worse, comparing spec-for-spec. He'll go for the cheap stuff, and get stuck in their traffic shaping software, and he won't know anything about it. So any ISP that moves away from the lying business model will rapidly lose it's customers.

I'm not sure why you want to read this comment, but it makes me feel much better having told you all :-(