The weird one to me is the recurring claim that there's no incentive for companies to invest, as if it's just a given that there's all sorts of greedy companies out there somehow coming up with free bandwidth they aren't paying anything for to anyone. Can someone point me to this free bandwidth? I'd like to get in on this action.

Well, obviously everyone can't download at full speed at once and expect any kind of performance from the shared network, so some kind of sharing arrangement is needed. The usual method is to price the scarce resource somehow. The spectre of usage-based billing was already motivating third-party ISPs to investigate building their own routing infrastructure. Seems like the market will sort it out, no?

Billing by total bytes transferred over the month has got to be the worst way to get a "sharing arrangement". Given the prices for exceeding the limit (a couple dollars per GB), we can sort of rule this out as just an idea to help avoid congestion.

The issue, AFAIK, with the market "sorting things out", is that there are few companies that have gotten government permission to build out end networks. I'd guess it's near impossible for a new company to get access to actually lay out copper everywhere.

Bell will sell you extra usage for $0.125/GB if you buy it in advance.

But there's nothing to prevent everyone from using the bandwidth they've purchased at the same time.

I believe the majority of the problem exists in "the last mile", or three or five.

Eventually, the last stretch will get (yet) fatter. In the meantime, I've not seen discussion of possible interim workarounds. Such as e.g. Netflix enabling, on devices having sufficient storage, time-shifted, queued downloading. For example, during the work/school day, when residential usage is low, they could pump down the next film or three in your queue.

Similar to electrical power generation, efficiencies are gained by leveling demand.

Perhaps we're too impulsive in our choices. Also, it would place entire (DRM-ed?) movies at once onto local media -- possibly a concern. But it seems to me to be one approach, if "last mile" really is a problem and the different parties could actually cooperate instead of simply hoarding the pie.

Side benefit: No congestion interruptions and artifacts.

But it's not a scarce resource. When you get more clients you have more money and can build more interwebs.