Agreed, Chris. If the ISPs have a problem with how much bandwidth people are using, it is a problem they created themselves. If you tell me I’m paying for “4 megabits per second unlimited use”, I assume that’s what I’m getting: not “0-4 megabits per second, and no more than 5 gigabytes a month / 500 seconds of actual use, whichever is less”.

The ISPs do what they call “overcommitting”, which as you say is pretty much exactly what those airlines you are referring to do. 500 seats on the airplane, sell 750 of them because usually that many don’t show up. Except with bandwidth it is more like 10 megabits per second available, sell 250 gigabits per second because most of the time people don’t use what they bought. Now people are starting to use that 10 megabits per second (out of the 250 gigabits the ISP actually sold), and the ISPs are seeing that at some point their high profit margin might actually shrink a bit.

Hopefully the service providers won’t be given the ability to sell one thing, provide much less, and get away with it. Unfortunately, as has been shown by the copyright lobbyists, our politicians are suckers for big donations and fancy dinners.