[Hikikomori]

There's simply no way for any ISP to allow all customers to use their full bandwidth, that just doesn't work, both technically and with the prices consumers pay. When building (and replacing parts to add capacity) the network ISPs look at current usage, average usage of each customer, account for future growth, etc, results in some cost that ends up as part of what customers has to pay. If traffic increases much more than expected then the upgrade/investment made that was expected to last X years would last years less, so a new upgrade is done which results in increased price for the end customer.

If the new investment was paid in part by Netflix and others like them, as they drive most of the increase in bandwidth, then the cost would be pushed to Netflix customers through Netflix.

Either way, end consumers pay what is needed to upgrade the network, otherwise the network is congested or the ISP goes out of business.

I would argue that ISPs should not have these massive profits, if they do then they are overcharging their customers. And the fix for that is to have actual competition, consumers must have multiple choices, which for the most part the US does not have in the ISP market as you have no sharing of last mile access and block municipal infrastructure at many levels.

[throw0101a]

> There's simply no way for any ISP to allow all customers to use their full bandwidth, that just doesn't work, both technically and with the prices consumers pay.

I know how over-subscription works.

But tough shit. As an ISP customer I'm paying for $x/month for x bps. I've cut a cheque now provide me with what you advertised.

> If the new investment was paid in part by Netflix and others like them, as they drive most of the increase in bandwidth, then the cost would be pushed to Netflix customers through Netflix.

The streaming services are paying for their Internet connection, and ISP's customers are paying for their Internet connection, and it is the job of the ISP to connect the two.

[Hikikomori]

Do you think its feasible to build a network that is not oversubscribed? Do you think the current cost of Internet subscriptions could pay for a network that is not oversubscribed?

Netflix and others for sure do not pay a lot for their Internet connection, they do not really have one in this context. Most of the traffic comes from their CDN nodes, these are place directly inside ISPs own network (a server with multiple 10Gbit connections), they do not pay the ISPs a lot for this as its also a large benefit for the ISP since otherwise this traffic would come over peering instead and would have to travel further as CDN nodes can be geographically distributed.

The TCO of the ISPs network investments and operation is paid by their end customers, the current low cost is only possible if their network is oversubscribed.

All these things are simply solved by having a competitive market, countries that have that pay much less in Internet subscription costs. Competition is enabled by municipal networks (the ones here do not offer their own Internet service, they put down fiber when other stuff needs to be put in the ground, then let ISPs connect to their network), or by forcing ISPs to share last mile connections to other ISPs.

[throw0101a]

If the ISP has over-subscribed their network that is not the ISP customer's problem, and that is not the problem of the (e.g.) streaming service.

The ISP either has to reduce their service speed or charge more.