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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

#171

Post by rcarr »

Applejinx wrote: post #109
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK was already creaking at the seems in the 2000's. I left in 2011 and have spent the last 5 years crawling up a sewer pipe of regulations trying to get my post brexit immigration sorted. Brexit was just a fantasy of better days to come that was actually pretext for a right wing power grab. And what do right wingers ultimately want? A world of red in tooth and claw capitalism with themselves as the permanent winners,…

Harsh but fair. It's not significantly different in the US. You know, it's not different in ANY of the empires, past or present. Look at Russia and it's just a couple decades of further decline, but the same thing. If hackers and nerd idealists are worth anything, it's for trying to solve all this against a background of constant push-back. I sometimes wonder if the most important thing I could possibly do is try to…

> If hackers and nerd idealists are worth anything, it's for trying to solve all this against a background of constant push-back. I sometimes wonder if the most important thing I could possibly do is try to depict this larger picture in such a way that people got it.

Thinking about this, it actually reminds me of season 2 of Clarkson's Farm. He might not be what you think of when you think of a prototypical hacker, but Clarkson actually is one. In the series he constantly found loopholes to evade the tyrannical council although they sadly ended up winning in the end. Although it makes you think that if someone with his influence and resources can't find a way through the bureaucratic minefield to open a restaurant in an disused barn in the middle of a field on his own property what hope do the rest of us have.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#172

Post by clnq »

> Watchdog Ofcom has warned 4.3 million eligible people are missing the deals.

> These were available in 99% of the UK and started from £10 per month, it added.

This language sounds a bit more like advertisement than what I'd expect from a national regulator.

Also, almost of the social tariff plans (plans for people receiving significant poverty-related benefits in the UK) are at £10 per month - https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice....

Also, broadband in the UK is not very expensive. 130 Mbps from Virgin Media is £26 a month with no set-up or rental fees. The £10 difference between the avg social tariff and what you can get on the high street is inconsequential in the context of the cost of living crisis. Heating is several hundred pounds each month for a typical apartment, food is another several hundred for a couple of people, unless they eat very low quality food, and renting a room is another several hundred in most cities, can go up to a £1.5k in London. If you have a family, you probably won't feel right living in a room, so your housing expenses will be much higher.

I mean... there is value in jumping through some hoops to save £10 a month. But it's not really anything to write home about. I can understand why people would rather save £25 and cancel if they struggle to make ends meet and don't use broadband besides what they can get on their phone + hotspot. Or share a WiFi password between rooms/flats.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#173

Post by tristor »

_0w8t wrote: post #77
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…

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…

Sounds like it makes sense to get fiber as soon as 2+ people are sharing it, since it's faster and less than 70 EUR/mo.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#174

Post by rcarr »

zpeti wrote: post #53
monk_e_boy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than london and a couple of other cities, most of the country was already ranked as most deprived in Europe. Throw in Brexit, cost of living and most normal people are fucked. I'm a lecturer (5 yrs) and I'm struggling to pay my bills. We've been out on strike and nothing happened. NHS is struggling. Pay rises are around 0% for most people I know. Food inflation is around 16%. Foodbanks are struggling to feed fa…

I think you are right on the symptoms, and some of the causes, but let me add some from the other side, as I think left and right both make good points and you have to be intellectually honest if you want to move forward. There are some multinationals who escape taxation, but even if that were perfectly addressed it wouldn't solve the UK's issues. Tax receipts are already close to 40% of GDP, these are record highs,…

> eastern europe has tonnes of catching up to do which grows the economy.

Most of Eastern Europe is expected to overtake the UK in terms of living standards in the middle of this decade. Parts of it already has.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#175

Post by jdofaz »

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.

My DSL is 15/1, it's fast enough to stream 4k. The upload stinks but its cheap and reliable.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#176

Post by pavon »

rcme wrote: post #121
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…

ADSL is too slow for most modern internet usage.

Do you specifically mean ADSL to exclude ADSL2 and ADSL2+? Through the entire pandemic I had a 20Mbps ADSL2+ line, and we had no problems with two of us remoting into work or one of us remoting in while the other streamed Netflix.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#177

Post by pivo »

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…

I tried Verizon 5G for several months. It could be very fast (600Mbps down, maybe 100Mbps up) but it wasn't very reliable. We had some days where it just didn't work (maybe two days out of six months.)

It's $50/mo (IIRC) if you have mobile phone service with them. For me, the worst part was that they want you to mount their 5G device on your window, and I'm in the city and have only a few windows. It's not an ugly device really, but I don't want to glue a big device to my living room window.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#178

Post by mrguyorama »

thr-nrg wrote: post #169
rabuse wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All by design. Kill all small businesses by shutting them down, and get purchased by giant megacorps when they're worth nothing.

[flagged]

Clearly a conspiracy, which is why all the assassins were objectively incompetent, only succeeded by sheer stupid luck, and both Germany and Austro-Hungary were itching and planning to start a war regardless.

Ferdinand's death didn't cause WW1, it just started it.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#179

Post by mdasen »

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…

I'm surprised they're quoting you $60-80/mo. Verizon's 5G home internet is $50/mo (or $25/mo bundled with one of their premium wireless plans or $40/mo bundled with Visible's $35/mo Visible+ wireless plan).

Why would you want DSL? In my area, Verizon's DSL is 3.1Mbps which really isn't good for much and costs $75/mo ($40 for the DSL and $35 for the required home phone service with it). You also have to pay $3.50/mo for the router or buy it for $100.

Verizon stopped expanding Fiber for the most part which is a shame. AT&T is doubling its fiber deployment in their markets.

Do you have a cable provider that's your broadband provider? Verizon is generally only offering 5G Home Internet in areas where there are other broadband options so it seems curious that you'd be interested in DSL over a cable connection offering 100x the speed.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#180

Post by slig »

rabuse wrote: post #152
andy_ppp wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t worry, everyone is suffering - we’re all in this together… For example we’re set to have the highest private jet sales on record this year https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/01/private-jet-sa... Almost as if COVID caused a huge redistribution of money from the poor to the wealthy.

All by design. Kill all small businesses by shutting them down, and get purchased by giant megacorps when they're worth nothing.

Don't forget the money printing machine at maximum speed.
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