All the recent articles mention the price drop of an E1 link by 90% or so.

After reading information about E1 it seems that the bandwidth that can be transmitted across the wire is a mere 2Mbps. Is this the only way ISPs get there Internet? Why aren't there better types of E links deployed? What's the benefit of someone paying 300$ for an E1 link as a consumer as opposed to getting a service from an ISP?
E1 has a dedicated bandwidth, 2 Mbps means 2 Mbps and Not ~2.
Actually ISPs share one of these lines to up to 80 subscribers of 128 kpbs, or maybe more.