The difference is that now there is a single commercial player, with the ability of filling up whatever bandwidth the ISPs allocate for their customer base, wit

The difference is that now there is a single commercial player, with the ability of filling up whatever bandwidth the ISPs allocate for their customer base, with a single switch, and a commercial interest in increasing bandwidth (to improve quality to its subscribers). If Verizon tripled its total bandwidth today, how long before Netflix begins raising the bitrate because "the Internet has evolved and we can now deliver bluray-quality streaming at the same $9/mo?". And then they fill up pipes again. The whole issue here is cause by the impedance between the cost structure (pay by the gig transferred) and the price structure (pay by the peak speed, and I approximate the average gig transferred). In a perfect utopic world where everybody was willing to pay by the gig transferred as that is the real cost factor, we wouldn't be here having this discussion. > moving bits is really cheap. Moving bits is cheap WITHIN the ISP network, but once you go outside they have a cost (depending on the peering agreements).