11–20 of 26 posts
> Thee in ten (29%) will have no choice but to cut back on data to save money What is the marginal cost of 1 MB of cellular data? If the government outlawed usurious data caps/excess fees/throttling, I think that would go a long way to helping more people stay online.
1MB is really too small a unit to be useful today. 1GB/month might be enough for some things. No video though.
And I suspect communityfibre will be more of the same generally honest proposition (or better). Plus they're promising last mile fibre and 3gbps. So I have high hopes for these guys.
I can't help but notice the disconnect between that commercial proposition and this article's tone. I've been primarily been receiving 3gbps ads from these guys. Not quite on the same mental wavelength as connect the poor so rather surprised to see this...let alone on hn
edit: One area where community fibre will need to up their game is static IP. Hyper has static ipv4 at ~6USD and you get a ipv6 block by default. When you consider that the 1gbps is symetric that static ip starts looking pretty good
Is there a term from economics where a portion of the population do less and less because they can't afford to travel, properly eat or heat their homes? And who have no chance of educating themselves due to their circumstances? People talk about the UK productivity gap and I wonder when society realises that people who can't afford to eat are not going make great workers.
Is there a term from economics where a portion of the population do less and less because they can't afford to travel, properly eat or heat their homes? And who have no chance of educating themselves due to their circumstances? People talk about the UK productivity gap and I wonder when society realises that people who can't afford to eat are not going make great workers.
Society knows and has always known. This government does not care.
I’m quite well off (at least relative to the area I live) and yet I genuinely despair because it feels as though every form of social good is at breaking point.
They don’t specify what the headline means and I can’t see a link to the survey questions or data. Feels like an ad rather than true research.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/itandinterne....
92% of adults in the UK were recent internet users in 2020, up from 91% in 2019.
Almost all adults aged 16 to 44 years in the UK were recent internet users (99%), compared with 54% of adults aged 75 years and over.
> Thee in ten (29%) will have no choice but to cut back on data to save money What is the marginal cost of 1 MB of cellular data? If the government outlawed usurious data caps/excess fees/throttling, I think that would go a long way to helping more people stay online.
Why is the marginal cost important? Cellular networks have enormous upfront costs. They also aren't particularly profitable (at least by GAAP standards with how they do depreciation). It's almost like asking what the marginal cost of wind power is, and asking why poor people don't get free electricity. It doesn't matter. You're mostly paying for the windmill...
Cell companies are just using it to take easy profits, which ultimately impacts the poorest. Similar to how some banks in the US were using overdraft fees as a profit taking exercise, even structuring transactions to increase overdraft fees.
[0] All numbers are real, and from BT's sim only plan:
https://www.bt.com/products/mobile/sim-only-deals
https://www.bt.com/help/mobile/manage-service/how-can-i-mana...
I also like how, on the second link, they tell you you can "order extra data and minutes" to bridge the gap. You're paying 11.47p/MB, but if you just fill out a form instantaneously the price drops substantially, which is even more evidence that this is usury far above and beyond the reasonable economics of running the network. And finally, the best part, the link for actually filling out that form is broken.
> Thee in ten (29%) will have no choice but to cut back on data to save money What is the marginal cost of 1 MB of cellular data? If the government outlawed usurious data caps/excess fees/throttling, I think that would go a long way to helping more people stay online.
Why is the marginal cost important? Cellular networks have enormous upfront costs. They also aren't particularly profitable (at least by GAAP standards with how they do depreciation). It's almost like asking what the marginal cost of wind power is, and asking why poor people don't get free electricity. It doesn't matter. You're mostly paying for the windmill...
Not to mention, the billing model of charging per GB per month is predatory and doesn't actually address congestion very well. Charging for allocated bandwidth would reduce congestion much better while still giving people unlimited data in non-congested areas (making good use of the radio equipment & airtime since it's already there & paid for regardless of whether it's being used or not) which would open up plenty of new & innovative use-cases.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is the marginal cost important? Cellular networks have enormous upfront costs. They also aren't particularly profitable (at least by GAAP standards with how they do depreciation). It's almost like asking what the marginal cost of wind power is, and asking why poor people don't get free electricity. It doesn't matter. You're mostly paying for the windmill...
Marginal costs are important because that is what is in play when I run out of 4GB and want a little bit more data. As a user I'm paying, say, £13/mo for 4GB (£3.25/GB) as part of my base plan, but if I go over it, I'm all of the sudden paying £117/GB[0], and it costs no where near £117/GB to build out that network. If it actually was expensive to deliver an extra GB to the user, so 5 instead of 4 per month, then tha…
Absolutely agree with you, but the reason for that predatory price is to scare people into signing up for a base plan with more data than they need thus paying for more than what they'd actually use. This is coupled with contracts so they can't downgrade once they realize they use nowhere near that, even though it's a fully automated service that has no set-up nor termination costs that would otherwise justify a long-term contract.
> Thee in ten (29%) will have no choice but to cut back on data to save money What is the marginal cost of 1 MB of cellular data? If the government outlawed usurious data caps/excess fees/throttling, I think that would go a long way to helping more people stay online.