[philxor]

There is always an oversubscription ratio at pretty much every hop in the network, at least in a commercial service provider network. That doesn't mean packet loss is occurring all the time, for the most part providers monitor and plan their networks so that doesn't happen, at least during steady-state non-failure.

Utilization patterns can also vary quite a bit based on geography and the type of users being served.

US cable providers do keep track of users who consume their last mile bandwidth all the time. It's typically against their terms of use, so if you are nailing up 300Gbps 24/7, you will get a letter from them and may get your connection turned off.