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One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

bbc.com

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Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#141

Post by mywittyname »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #123
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…

This assumes that people don't live outside of areas of major population density where cellular coverage is spotty and where there's not much work. This also assumes that people don't need to transfer significant quantities of data on a regular basis for whatever reason.

The people canceling their subs probably live in areas with good mobile coverage.

This article is about people living UK, which a much smaller country that has much better mobile coverage.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#142

Post by rcme »

omginternets wrote: post #126
rcme wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ADSL is too slow for most modern internet usage.

I emphatically disagree. If you live in a city, it's quite sufficient for IPTV, a bit of youtube, spotify, etc.

Sure, you might get away with consuming a single video stream. But you shouldn't be surprised that there is very little demand for this.

A single HD video stream (1080p) can require 8 mbps. Trying to consume multiple of these, especially with a realtime protocol like WebRTC, is impossible on an ADSL connection.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#143

Post by ta1243 »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #115
ta1243 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three will give me unlimited data on 4g/5g for £25 a month. Between line rental and dsl costs you'd struggle to get it that cheap through a landline, even ignoring the fact you still need mobile data.

I pay Three £7.32/month for 12GB. Because I'm near wifi most of the time, I only actually use about 1GB of it per month

And how much do you pay for your landline wifi?

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#144

Post by hammyhavoc »

mywittyname wrote: post #141
hammyhavoc wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes that people don't live outside of areas of major population density where cellular coverage is spotty and where there's not much work. This also assumes that people don't need to transfer significant quantities of data on a regular basis for whatever reason.

The people canceling their subs probably live in areas with good mobile coverage. This article is about people living UK, which a much smaller country that has much better mobile coverage.

I live in the UK. Cellular coverage is hit-and-miss up North where there's not much work outside of areas of high population density.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#145

Post by andy_ppp »

omginternets wrote: post #117

Just yesterday I was trying to sign up with Verizon for my new address. Fiber is not available in my building, so they offer "5G Home Internet" for $60-$80/mo, which is crazy expensive for what it is. I asked whether there were ADSL lines available, since these were recently available for as cheap as $15/mo. It seems this is no longer the case. Maybe there's a market here? EDIT: I am in the US, and I've just realized…

It’s still always interesting to see how vested interests and rent seeking seems to be a big part of US business culture. I wonder if the US would be more or less successful without these uncompetitive business practices.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#146

Post by celsoazevedo »

ta1243 wrote: post #89
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Three will give me unlimited data on 4g/5g for £25 a month. Between line rental and dsl costs you'd struggle to get it that cheap through a landline, even ignoring the fact you still need mobile data.

Three's own MVNO (Smarty) gives you unlimited for £18 without long term contracts. It's £16 if you get it via uSwitch.

The problem with Three's network is that their 4G can be really bad in some areas (eg: parts London). I can't use them inside my flat because it's almost unusable during peak hours. On the other hand, if their 5G is available, speeds can be really good. It's common for me to get 100-900Mbps when near one of their cell towers.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#147

Post by omginternets »

rcme wrote: post #142
omginternets wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I emphatically disagree. If you live in a city, it's quite sufficient for IPTV, a bit of youtube, spotify, etc.

Sure, you might get away with consuming a single video stream. But you shouldn't be surprised that there is very little demand for this. A single HD video stream (1080p) can require 8 mbps. Trying to consume multiple of these, especially with a realtime protocol like WebRTC, is impossible on an ADSL connection.

I suspect there may be a fair few people in my position who would be happy to scale down. Whether or not that is actually the case is, indeed, a question for market research.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#148

Post by toomuchtodo »

swimorsinka wrote: post #138
pitaj wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the latency for these 5G home internet services?

Some of the people on my team had to switch back to Comcast after trying it for a few months. Video calls were laggy and would drop packets constantly. This was in Colorado fwiw.

Your experience is highly dependent on how close you are to the nearest mobile base station and its utilization profile. If it's distant or highly utilized, you will have degraded performance vs being closer or less utilized.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#149

Post by omginternets »

syntaxing wrote: post #131
omginternets wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You’ll see congestion during peak usage times Yeah, that's kind of the issue. That, and latency.

Not OP, but I used tmobile ISP for over two years during the whole Covid era. Worked pretty good for what it is, managed to get about 200 Mbps down and 20 up. I hit 500 Mbps but moved away from that area at one point. I only just switched to fiber recently because a 1G fiber line was installed and only cost $60 a month.

>Worked pretty good for what it is,

Sure. The "for what it is" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, though. See also: it's rather expensive for what it is.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#150

Post by lotsofpulp »

rcarr wrote: post #133
bscphil wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I pay > you can watch HD video I wonder... do you primarily watch HD video over this wireless connection, or are you watching it via a more traditional broadband connection? In the US, I pay ~$10 a month for wireless data (across two phones), but these phones are on WiFi 90% of the time and we never watch video on wireless. Even if you have an unusual plan that allows unlimited streaming at that price (without limi…

Data is ridiculously overpriced in the US. In the UK, I'm currently on a 12GB plan which costs £7.99 month. But you can get completely unlimited data including tethering for £20/month or less from lots of different providers. Never heard of unlimited for less than £15 though (unless its a temporary offer).

“Unlimited” data is not comparable because different subscriber’s data gets assigned different priorities at times of congestion.

In the US, you can get “unlimited” data for as low as $25 per month, or as high as $90 per month, depending on what level priority you want (which you assume might make a difference at peak times).

And then there is a lot of bundling going on like Netflix and Disney or international. For example, I pay ATT $45 per line for 4 lines including all taxes, but they include phone calls and data for almost all of North and South America, minus the Caribbean Islands.

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