[gregmac]

That's not actually what bandwidth costs. The cost to the ISP is based on the connection speed (eg, bits per second) not on how much is transferred.

The ISP needs to size for peak usage, and they over-subscribe because that's the only way to be profitable. This is why your speed will often be slower at night than during the day. It also means when you pay for data transferred at non-peak times, you're not actually costing anything since the bandwidth was sitting there unused anyway.

[thomastjeffery]

> your speed will often be faster at night

Fixed that for you

[gregmac]

Sorry, poor wording on my part. I meant slower in the evening (peak time), and you're right: late at night is typically the least busy and thus fastest time.