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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

#231

Post by lotsofpulp »

rcarr wrote: post #227
lotsofpulp wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“QCI” was the industry term I was looking for. Here is some unsubstantiated, but true sounding information about the US mobile networks: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_pri... I would be surprised if UK/EU did not also have it. Surely, it exists for certain levels of politicians/government/emergency services. Seems like a short throw to then extending that implementation to capture as much re…

Yeah its illegal to offer plans based on throttling/prioritisation in the EU. > Under these rules, blocking, throttling and discrimination of internet traffic by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) is not allowed in the EU. There are 3 exceptions: compliance with legal obligations; integrity of the network; congestion management in exceptional and temporary situations. > All traffic has to be treated equally. For examp…

Interesting, but I wonder if this exception would not allow the same:

> congestion management in exceptional and temporary situations.

I presume the US mobile networks are primarily selling higher priority that applies (since it only needs to be applied) in exceptional and temporary situations.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#232

Post by HDThoreaun »

EddieEngineers wrote: post #190
jameshush wrote: post #153

Visiting family in the UK for the first time in about five years. Costs here are _way_ higher than I remember. I bought three hamburgers, three drinks, and two large pops at a burger shop here, the total was 48 GBP (about $60 USD). This was at Five Guys. I couldn't believe it. I visited my co-worker in the UK, and over some beers, he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this. Also 20% VAT on regular shopp…

Five Guys has always been that price, but I agree with your point. As a Brit, the US is pretty crazy too though. I just saw a single broccoli for $7 at a grocery store in Palo Alto. On my $172k salary I pay $59k in taxes which is roughly $1k more than I'd pay in the UK but in the UK that includes national insurance while in the US I pay health insurance on top. So while taxes sound crazy in the UK it's not actually d…

California's tax rate is much higher than the rest of the country. The bay area's brocoli prices are much higher than anywhere except times square. The vast majority of the country is not facing prices like these.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#233

Post by [deleted] »

jameshush wrote: post #153

Visiting family in the UK for the first time in about five years. Costs here are _way_ higher than I remember. I bought three hamburgers, three drinks, and two large pops at a burger shop here, the total was 48 GBP (about $60 USD). This was at Five Guys. I couldn't believe it. I visited my co-worker in the UK, and over some beers, he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this. Also 20% VAT on regular shopp…

[deleted]

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#234

Post by CydeWeys »

EddieEngineers wrote: post #217
CydeWeys wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't be making nearly that much in the UK though.

Two years ago I was making $160k in Oxford with 7 years work experience and no degree - contracting in London for > $500 per day or working remotely for startups in the Bay Area are both easily accessible if you have a couple years under your belt. I'm moving back to Europe this summer and talking to companies at 550+ a day.

This sounds like an outlier though, no? The overall averages there are much lower.

Also everyone I know in tech over here is making much more than that still.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#235

Post by jldugger »

gavin_gee wrote: post #212
jameshush wrote: post #153

Visiting family in the UK for the first time in about five years. Costs here are _way_ higher than I remember. I bought three hamburgers, three drinks, and two large pops at a burger shop here, the total was 48 GBP (about $60 USD). This was at Five Guys. I couldn't believe it. I visited my co-worker in the UK, and over some beers, he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this. Also 20% VAT on regular shopp…

My unscientific burger comparison I think calls BS on the UK prices. Everywhere is expensive now. The problem with the UK is Brexit and a country that went from being very supportive to small business and entrepreneurs to a high tax wasteland of averageness. The UK is the deepest into its decline of any western empire. They are shuffling deck chairs on the titanic. the coronation was the canary for living in the past…

> America is the King of burgers and Beef production so would expect to see cheaper options.

There are, in McDonalds, Burger King, In-n-out etc. What you are paying for is labor and the fast food places are optimized to reduce that specific cost. The drive thru, for example, increases demand per hour and thus lets kitchens specialize more, and invest in more machinery. Ray Kroc, a salesman, loved the 8 at a time milkshake mixer he was pitching so much he bought a burger chain to put them to use.

But inflation, and labor cost increases in the low end especially, mean prices are up now versus a decade ago.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#236

Post by adventured »

EddieEngineers wrote: post #190
jameshush wrote: post #153

Visiting family in the UK for the first time in about five years. Costs here are _way_ higher than I remember. I bought three hamburgers, three drinks, and two large pops at a burger shop here, the total was 48 GBP (about $60 USD). This was at Five Guys. I couldn't believe it. I visited my co-worker in the UK, and over some beers, he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this. Also 20% VAT on regular shopp…

Five Guys has always been that price, but I agree with your point. As a Brit, the US is pretty crazy too though. I just saw a single broccoli for $7 at a grocery store in Palo Alto. On my $172k salary I pay $59k in taxes which is roughly $1k more than I'd pay in the UK but in the UK that includes national insurance while in the US I pay health insurance on top. So while taxes sound crazy in the UK it's not actually d…

If you're capable of earning $172,000 in salary in the US, you can trivially get an employer that covers essentially all the cost of your health insurance (if that's an important arrangement wherever you're at in life; ie if you want that packaged into your total compensation vs taxes calculation). That's the typical situation for someone with a salary that high in the US. Your scenario is pretending that people earning so much are commonly having to cover the cost of their health insurance, which is not the case.

Which is simultaneously in no way defending the mess that is US healthcare.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#237

Post by amiga386 »

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".

FTTC are FTTH are both fibre. I'd rather they _did_ upgrade everything to to FTTC, which they can afford, and let those that can fund FTTH pay for it, than leave it as copper wire all the way to the exchange because someone said "FTTH or nothing!" With full FTTC coverage, you're 90% of the way there for a tiny fraction of the cost of full FTTH coverage.

DSL is not being sold as "fiber". People are being sold FTTC with a description of exactly what is is and what speed they can expect. Weetabix is being sold as fiber?

https://www.bt.com/broadband/fibre/

> Also known as fibre optic broadband, it’s our most widespread broadband. It uses powerful fibre cables to transmit signals to a cabinet on your street, before copper cables connect your home. That’s why you might have heard it called FTTC (fibre to the cabinet).

> The result is strong, reliable, superfast broadband, with average speeds up to 80Mb.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#238

Post by abawany »

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…

Verizon 5G Home Internet is also typically $50/mo - were you ordering through the building, which might be taking a cut?

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#239

Post by vkou »

dragonwriter wrote: post #230
vkou wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, someone earning $155,000 USD (Equivalent to 125k GBP) will also be paying 6.2% in social security taxes, 1.45% in medicare taxes, and then another 6.2% in social security taxes (employer's portion)[1], and 1.45% in medicare taxes (employer's portion). Added to the rest of their marginal tax rate, they'd be seeing a rate of 22 + 15.3 = 37.3%. Of course, they won't actually get health insurance for it, which…

> In the US, someone earning $155,000 USD (Equivalent to 125 GBP) will also be paying 6.2% in social security taxes, 1.45% in medicare taxes, and then another 6.2% in social security taxes (employer’s portion), and 1.45% in medicare taxes (employer’s portion). In the UK, there is also National Insurance tax on top of income tax, which works similarly (but is a bit more complicated.) The employer share is 13.8%, which…

The overwhelming majority of a person's expenditures (Housing, education, medical, most of the food you buy at the grocery, many forms of transportation) are not covered by VAT. Many forms of energy (residential electricity, gas) are covered at a vastly reduced VAT.

And, again, the giant bugbear that is health insurance rears its ugly head on the US side. See the overall 'Taxes as a % of GDP' comparisons.

Edit: I stand corrected about taxes as % of GDP. You are right, that the UK is at 33.5%. [1] Unfortunately, again, that doesn't include the percentage of US spending on healthcare - which is 17.8% of its GDP, with much of it coming out of after-tax dollars, instead of pre-tax ones. (Medicaid and Medicare make up about a third of that - and are, obviously, financed by taxes.)

[1] https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-united-kingdom.p...

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#240

Post by rcarr »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #231
rcarr wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah its illegal to offer plans based on throttling/prioritisation in the EU. > Under these rules, blocking, throttling and discrimination of internet traffic by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) is not allowed in the EU. There are 3 exceptions: compliance with legal obligations; integrity of the network; congestion management in exceptional and temporary situations. > All traffic has to be treated equally. For examp…

Interesting, but I wonder if this exception would not allow the same: > congestion management in exceptional and temporary situations. I presume the US mobile networks are primarily selling higher priority that applies (since it only needs to be applied) in exceptional and temporary situations.

I'd say the EU are generally less tolerant of loophole based exploitation of the law than the US (see for example the potential Apple USB-C speed throttling in the news recently). Anyone who tried this kind of thing would get sanctioned pretty quick.
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