The Promise of Streaming Video Broadband Ain’t No Promise At All

I’m in NYC right now and missed the episode of Lost last night. I think, “Hey, no problem! Abc.com is streaming all their shows.”
I click through to launch last night’s episode of Lost…legally since abc.com is allowing this…and start to watch. Everything works pretty well until…bandwidth is lost.
What?
I close that window, wait a few minutes, then launch it again. This time it makes it further in the video, and then bandwidth is lost again.
WTF?
It is obvious to me. Verizon Broadband is cutting off my bandwidth. They see me streaming a high bandwidth video on their network, figure it out at various times, and then shut me off. The same thing happened with SBC on the West Coast. I was streaming the Ironman Championships from Kona all day, and finally after 9 hours, SBC decides to cut me off.
This sucks. When are the internet providers going to just allow me to do this whenever I want? They need to upgrade their networks so each of us can stream that much all the time, 24/7. It’s the way the world is going and they have to live with that.