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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

#111

Post by bscphil »

lucb1e wrote: post #90
aaomidi wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s expensive to maintain. It’s slow. It doesn’t scale. It depends heavily on weather. It can be interfered with by a bad party pretty easily.

Expensive to maintain: dunno, but I pay Slow: you can watch HD video ever since 3G came out, and 4G reduced latency a lot Doesn't scale: that's also a thing 4G apparently addressed. I've never run into capacity issues, just range issues Depends heavily on weather: never noticed it depending even slightly on weather. I've tested this in heavy rain because I indeed heard that 'straalverbindingen' have issues with this…

> 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 limiting the video bitrate), it seems like it would probably not scale to most people switching to a wireless plan without a price increase.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#112

Post by Nextgrid »

justrealist wrote: post #84
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…

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

Wireless spectrum is limited and thus should be used for stuff that can't be wired such as mobile phones. Using it for static connections that can use wires is a waste.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#113

Post by vidarh »

leoedin wrote: post #64
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.

It's interesting - I follow various UK and Canadian subreddits, and you get almost the same rhetoric in both. "This country is much worse than it used to be, I'm going to emigrate soon" Except in the UK, they're going to emigrate to Canada. The UK does have some uniquely local problems to deal with, but they're overlayed with a global downturn as well. It's easy to attribute the whole thing to local problems, when in…

Both Australia and the US has larger populations of UK migrants than Canada (Australia alone more than twice as many), and while no individual EU country has as many UK migrants as Canada does, the EU as a whole (yes, unsurprisingly given the population size) also has far more despite the bigger language barriers.

I do agree that many of the problems are the same, but the UK is facing both the global issues and a case of repeated political footguns.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#114

Post by Applejinx »

cudgy wrote: post #82
rektide wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The new 5G wireless providers are changing this some, at least in urban areas. I’m currently using one and get around 500mbits download rate. Cost is about $25 per month.

I pay seven times that. Because I'm on a creaking old DSL line the provider doesn't want to maintain, at 12mbits or so. Consistent. SYMMETRICAL.

I don't give a crap about download. I work publically and support my work using YouTube. Every week I'm uploading 20 gigs or so of video, MINIMUM, and if it dropped I'd have to start over. I'm uploading 4k ProRes because my competition is at that quality level or better, and I won't stand out if I look like crud, and what I upload is going to be recompressed no matter what.

Don't tell me about download. I'll just sit reading Hacker News if download's a problem (evidently!). I depend on upload, not download, and I rarely even see it referred to much less touted.

I abandoned a brief dabbling with Starlink before even getting an actual dish, because it didn't look like I was going to be able to trust upload bandwidth to beat what I've got with my symmetrical, reliable 12M. It matters.

Stayed at an AirBnB once that had fiber. I had >100m upload. It would make stuff possible for me that I just can't do currently. Granted, taking advantage of that requires thousands in investment, but what real business doesn't?

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#115

Post by mike-cardwell »

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.

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

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#116

Post by soperj »

Nextgrid wrote: post #110
uoaei wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employment metrics make less sense now that poorly-paid gig work is ubiquitous. Just because you "have a job" doesn't mean you'll be able to afford basic necessities.

Potential counterpoint: most gig work is on a contract/self-employed basis and may not be included in "employment" metrics.

If they're not looking for a job, then they would be.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#117

Post by omginternets »

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 this is a UK-oriented article. Nevertheless, the point might still stand.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#118

Post by bombcar »

leoedin wrote: post #64
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.

It's interesting - I follow various UK and Canadian subreddits, and you get almost the same rhetoric in both. "This country is much worse than it used to be, I'm going to emigrate soon" Except in the UK, they're going to emigrate to Canada. The UK does have some uniquely local problems to deal with, but they're overlayed with a global downturn as well. It's easy to attribute the whole thing to local problems, when in…

The grass is always greener on the other side of the border.

Everyone knows the issues of their home country pretty well - but it's harder to get a real "feel" for issues of other countries without living there.

The best indicator you can find is net migration flows (those people who move from the UK to Canada/USA, and have the opportunity to return, do they?).

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#119

Post by toomuchtodo »

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…

T-Mobile 5G Home Internet is $50/month. They’re using spare 5G capacity because they overbuilt their network. You’ll see congestion during peak usage times, but it’s fine otherwise.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#120

Post by rcarr »

thefz wrote: post #71
Nextgrid wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Exactly, unless you're a heavy gaming household I don't think you'd notice much difference. My mobile internet is more reliable than my fibre wifi.
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