My wife worked for the first public ISP for several years. My first job, still in college, was for a local ISP, eventually becoming the head of all technical operations. And my next job was at a major commercial ISP, one which leased POPs to AOL among other businesses.

Here’s how they worked, at a technical and business level:

We've had a nominal gigabit fiber connection for more than a year now. Let's take a look at how much of it we've been using.

Luckily, my firewall keeps track for me.