> Alas, "isn't so developed" applies to the US

Wow, I knew that was generally true, didn't know it was true for internet access in the US too, how backwards...

> A common term is "data cap": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_cap

I think most are familiar with throttling because most (all?) phone plans have some data cap at one point, but I don't think I've heard of any broadband connections here with data caps, that wouldn't make any sense.

I have 5 Gbps symmetric at home. I and my fiancee both work from home, so our backup fiber connection from another provider is 2 Gbps. We can also both tether to cell phones if necessary. We can get 5G home wireless Internet here, too, and we might ditch our 2 Gbps line in favor of that as a backup. We moved from Texas back home to Illinois last year, and one of the biggest considerations was who had service at what tiers due to remote work. Some of the houses we looked at in the same three-county area in the Chicago suburbs didn’t even have 5G home available (not from AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile anyway).

My parents have 5G wireless home as their primary connection, and that was only introduced in their area a couple of years ago. Before that, they could get dial-up, 512 kbps wireless with about a $1000 startup cost, ISDN (although the phone company really didn’t want to sell it to them), Starlink, or HughesNet. The folks across the asphalt road from them had 20 Mbps Ethernet over power lines years ago, and that’s now I think 250 Mbps. It’s a different power company, though, so they aren’t eligible.

Around 80% of the US population lives in large urban areas. The other 20% of the population range from smaller towns to living many kilometers from any town at all. There’s a lot of land in the US.

Our ISPs conspire to avoid competition (AKA "overbuilding") and so stuff like this just festers. It's truly a shame.