250 GB is probably rather more DVDs (particularly if lossy compression is used) that most people watch in 2 months.
If you're sticking with strictly DVD-quality video, then yes. However, if you're streaming High-Definition full 1080p video, it doesn't take very many before you start hitting that cap. No one offers that sort of video quality on a large scale yet, but with those sorts of bandwidth caps, no one is likely to.
What shocks me most of all is the fact that in many other industrialized countries outside of the U.S., the speed and available bandwidth even for basic internet service leaves America in shame;
For example,
Japanese Fiber: 100mbps
Japanaese Cable:30 mbps
American Fiber: 5mbps
Amerian DSL: 3mbps
American Cable: 8 mbps
We are far, far, slower than S.Korea, Finland, Sweden, and even Canada, who's average slowest connection is 8mbps.
The problem with this is 1) it's wrong; and 2) it's an apples-and-oranges comparison.
1) American ADSL2 fiber is available in an increasing number of urban areas, with speeds ranging up to 16 Mbps. Not as impressive as Japan, but there's nothing out there right now that can really take advantage of that kind of bandwidth on a user level (these lines are targetted at business users); and the fibre itself is capable of much higher throughput. Speed is currently limited only by server capacity.
2) High-speed data connections require close proximity to CO and CoLo node facilities. European countries, and small Asian countries like Japan and Korea have the majority of their population clustered around urban areas. Distances are very short, and it's much cheaper to upgrade older lines to handle larger amounts of information.
By contrast, the US has a much more dispersed population, with smaller centers and greater distances between them. Broadband uptake in much of the country is greatly limited by the distances involved.
Increasing the number of nodes isn't feasible, since it's not economical to install a new node, and the necessary backbone line and equipment, until a fairly substantial minimum number of users is reached. In some areas, local "mini-COs" are being set up for DSL use. But again, these require a minimum number of users; and are typically set up in new apartment/condo clusters, or large planned communities. Cable has a greater reach, and is less sensitive to line quality issues; but has shared-line traffic issues that DSL doesn't; and still requires a minimum user base in order ot be finacially feasible. Many of these same regions are also unable to receive cable broadband, for similar reasons; and rely on satellite television and Internet services, which are notorious for their high latency, variable quality of service, and low upstream speeds.
In the US, a lot of the lines are also very old, and of insufficient quality to carry high-speed DSL; particularly in the aforementioned non-urban regions. Many are also running through multiplexers, allowing the use of fewer backbones and longer distances from CO nodes. Upgrading the lines to higher-quality copper, or to fiber, and increasing the number of nodes is prohibitively expensive. Again, similar limitations apply to cable; and digital cable service is still not available in many areas due to the logistics issue.
Canada is an unusual situation: their geography is similar to the US; but their population is clustered around major uban centers as in Europe. Their high-speed broadband uptake in non-urban areas is as low, or lower than, the US; for similar reasons.
