Here in Florida, 15Mbps Download, 7Mbps Upload. $44.95/month unlimited.

I've not once had to worry about my bandwidth usage, and like Nic would never have even THOUGHT about it if this wasn't brought to my attention.

I had no idea other countries limited customers' bandwidth. Guess I should ask more questions, huh?

In many countries, including the UK, most of the communications infrastructure is owned and maintained by just one company - or one company has a monopoly over the hardware.

Here, it's British Telecom.

BT then lease the hardware to third parties - who can charge what they like.

However, we have industry watchdogs and regulators - independant bodies that regulate the industries and have the power to fine and start legal proceedings against companies that breech certain regulations.

This means BT can't charge £100/month and get away with it, or force their competition (who lease their hardware) to pay ridiculous prices.

These third parties will lease packages from BT like wholesale broadband. BT will charge them based on bandwidth, download speeds, etc. So these costs get passed on to the end user.

Things are changing.

More companies are getting a share of hardware ownership.

Cable/fibreoptic providers are springing up; completely separate from DSL lines.

Sky (satellite TV) is able to offer large download speeds, but upload is limited to the telephone.

I'm guessing the US has choice - and although the UK is following suit, the small size of our country has allowed a monopoly. I'm guessing that countries like SA and OZ may have similar operating procedures shortly...

Also, i'm guessing that in OZ there just isn't the physical wires between remote places to carry the data.

Netherlands - 8mb connection - running at 5- 6 mb ( not so far from the exchange 250 meters thought it would have been faster 700 kbs upload )

We pay 25 euros per month for 8 gb and then 1.5 euro per gb after that  - its expensive here