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One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

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Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#71

Post by thefz »

Nextgrid wrote: post #48
nologic01 wrote: post #42

Exactly the opposite of what should be happening. Homes should be connected with permanent, reliable, high capacity fiber optic networks. Mobile connectivity plays an important role but it should be complementary, an add-on to the backbone not a substitute. Given how the costs of digital technology are generally on a collapsing trend this suggests significant dysfunction. Reducing the computing experience of the enti…

> Homes should be connected with permanent, reliable, high capacity fiber optic networks. UK solved that problem by allowing DSL to be sold as "fiber".

> Exactly the opposite of what should be happening. Homes should be connected with permanent, reliable, high capacity fiber optic networks.

> Mobile connectivity plays an important role but it should be complementary, an add-on to the backbone not a substitute.

I desire fiber everywhere as much as any other guy, but for some, 4-5G and a cellular phone is enough. They don't even know or perceive the difference between mobile broadband and landline.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#72

Post by [deleted] »

beardyw wrote: post #33
0xDEF wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The uncompetitiveness of Britain has been obvious for decades. For a highly developed English-speaking country it is very underrepresented in software tech. Britain should unironically learn to code.

If there is a high demand for coders in the UK it suggests that the tech environment is strong. Otherwise what are those coders going to do? I think the issue is more to do with business than technical competence.

[deleted]

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#73

Post by bnastic »

Nextgrid wrote: post #39
chrisbolt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? I would like to comprehend.

Recently had to look at the property market again and the rents have increased significantly, in addition to the usual high cost of living increase and inflation/shrinkflation which doesn't show any signs of slowing down. I very much wonder how they expect "normal" people to survive. It looks like you need to fall quite far into the highest tax brackets just to be able to rent something decent in London, and buying i…

> There is no reason to pay the money I am paying here if I can get better food, climate and general quality of life for the same (or even less!) money elsewhere in Europe

Sure. And you should probably do that. But then a lot of other people are of the opinion that they can ignore food and weather and come to Britain. Net migration numbers in recent decades have not gone in favour of your line of thinking?

UK high street is being attacked from multiple sides, from apparent lack of labour satisfied/pressured into low wages, to having their access being cut by the latest LTN measures around the country. Rental market is getting squeezed hard by the latest measures that will only make the situation worse, esp for London (I'm lucky I've escaped that place when I could). Current/incoming gov't is drunk on high taxation and more and more regulation of every facet of your life and business. But I'm still unsure my business/work would fare better in any other european country (forget Brexit, it doesn't have much to do with any of this). The malaise is everywhere.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#74

Post by Symbiote »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #67
tpmx wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Pay rises are around 0% for most people I know." Some data: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwor... Growth in employees' average total pay (including bonuses) was 5.8% and growth in regular pay (excluding bonuses) was 6.7% in January to March 2023. (That appears to be on an annual basis.)

I don't know those people. I think averages that include London and other cities don't represent most of the country. Average salary for where I live is £10,000 less than the UK average (I just looked it up)

Average weekly earnings by selected region, £:

  UK:            747
  
  Wales:         600
  North East:    625
  East Midlands: 700
  South East:    841
  London:        904
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwor...

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#75

Post by rektide »

rlpb wrote: post #52
Nextgrid wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you have multiple companies each running their own physical network (through the same ducts, no less!) is absolutely wasteful - imagine if we did the same for the electric grid, water or gas. The physical network should be government-managed and any providers can pay for layer-2 access between any 2 points. This will prevent wasteful, redundant infrastructure.

What you have is already the case - that's "OpenReach", owned by the incumbent and required to provide wholesale access to ISPs for the "last mile". Independent ISPs then provide the Internet connectivity. But they have to provide nationwide coverage at uniform pricing. So private companies can provide parallel service in dense urban areas for less.

Here in the US, the courts piece by piece courts took apart Section 271 of Telecommunications Act of 1996 that guarantees unbundled network elements (UNE)/local loop unbundling (LLU).

By 2003, the FCC basically gave up. They ignored Congress & said, yeah, fine, broadband is exempt, because it's kind of expensive. Their Trienniel review dismantled UNE/LLU. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-03-36A1.pdf

So now America has nearly no competitive access to broadband.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#76

Post by Symbiote »

makeitdouble wrote: post #32
Popcorn3865 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although if "cost of living" continues to rise, cancelling mobile contracts may be next. Many less well off folk have annual or multiyear deals (which include handsets) so the cancellations would come at end of term for most. I suspect the issue at hand is that a fast growing number of people simply can't afford non-essentials, and in the process of deciding what's absolutely necessary and optional, access to the Int…

As counterintuitive as it might be, I think the cellphone and mobile contract come last (thought switching to a lower plan or a MVNO is an option). There is a saying that if you don't have money you need connections, so as it gets tougher, communication becomes critical. In particular missing a message from your bank alerting you of a operation that could get rejected, getting mail from social service of paperwork yo…

Those things don't need contracts, just a phone with prepaid service. Top up £5 and be careful to make it last a couple of months, or potentially a lot longer (6+ months) if you can use WiFi and mostly receive calls and texts.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#77

Post by _0w8t »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #58
drumhead wrote: post #16

If you only ever use your phone then there's no point in paying for broadband. I think a lot of people have been taking a look at their subscriptions and cancelling things which they seldom use. Do you really need a sub for a 500mbit connection when you use you phone? You can always cancel it and switch to a much cheaper slower connection or just use you allowance. I had a Disney+ sub which I hardly used so I cancell…

I'm surprised more people aren't doing the opposite. There are pay as you go phone plans that cost hardly anything. Meanwhile there is free WiFi almost everywhere, including at home. If you have broadband. So pay the cable company for fast internet and pay half that or less for mobile service, then connect your mobile to WiFi 97% of the time so you hardly use any mobile data. The math gets even more dramatic if you h…

It all depends on price details. In Norway one needs to pay about 20 Euro/month for a phone subscription with amount of data that allows, for example, watch YouTube or do video calls occasionally outside WiFi. Yet for 35 Euro/month one can get a mobile subscription with 1 TB of traffic with 10 MBit/s speed. That is enough to watch movies and do many kinds of remote work.

Yet the fiber costs at least 50 Euro/month. So it only makes sense to get broadband if it is shared by 4 people.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#79

Post by el_oni »

blitzar wrote: post #56
el_oni wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

House prices are awful, and with the current mortgage rates it makes it even harder. Last July when we first started looking at what sort of deposit we would need and how much mortgage payments would be it looked like we would be spending an additional £400 a month (which is fine, I wouldn't have to save for a house after all). But since the catastrophic economic policies of our shortest term prime minisiter we would…

> £80k about 20 years ago - asking for £300k. 7% a year assuming they spent £0 (hint: they didnt)

And that's fine if the median salary increased by 7% a year (hint: it hasn't)

The houses here used to be affordable for a middle income person or family. Now they aren't, that's the issue, not the sticker price.

edit tldr:

At the same time houses have gone up in price, wages have stagnated, rent has increased and inflation has increased. So we earn the same, pay more for rent, utilities and food, and have to save more (10% deposit is usually the minimum).

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#80

Post by drumhead »

ttlsa wrote: post #54
drumhead wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not that bad at all. There's a lot of fud. The whole world is struggling at the moment, you won't find a single country that isn't affected by high interest rates or inflation or some other crisis or issue. We're real doomers in the UK so everything is the end of the world.

I think the rise in food bank usage over the last decade and a half has been quite alarming[0]. You can find supporting statistics elsewhere too[2][3]. I know that plenty of people are doing alright and, in my opinion, this group is vastly over-represented on HN. The food bank usage stats suggest that the living conditions of people across this country have been getting worse for a while now, and while the pandemic a…

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