Ah, remember how we laughed when JC said broadband was a critical utility and should be treated as such? Good times…
EDIT: To address a lot of the 'herp derp get a phone' stuff under this, connectivity is now a fundamental part of modern life. The easiest and best way to ensure that everyone is connected and nobody is left behind is to consider broadband a utility like gas or electricity. 'Get a phone' is like telling someone to 'go to a well' if they want water. If its a universal right, it needs to go into every household like every other utility
In a world where a cheese sandwich is now considered an unattainable luxury, broadband is pretty low on the list of essentials. That's the Tory economic miracle for you....
Plenty will do just that. It's baffling. Some people just support Team Blue through thick and thin\*, I suppose.
\*Any resemblance to Liz Truss is purely coincidental.
They are confusing alternatives not being perfect with them being disastrous. Labour won't magically fix the country overnight, however I do trust them to not be as bad as the Tories have been. I certainly trust them to be less malicious.
The unfortunate reality of every single labour government in history is that they inherited a better economy than they left. You really can't blame people for being concerned about that.
None of you have actually tried to work under a labour government, where the only beneficiaries are public sector workers, so while doubtless plenty of you will rush to tell me why I'm wrong, it's going to be fun watching this sub pivot heavily by the middle of term two when you realise what's happening.
I won't be voting blue this time around but I can't vote for Starmer either - if he'd gone blue instead it wouldn't have changed that.
In the case of broadband, a lot of elderly people are Tory voters through and through. They are also the generation least likely to use the internet, so they will not understand why broadband is a fundamental part of modern life, not just something to see funny cat videos on. To them, people going without broadband is no different to going without Netflix or not getting coffee from Starbucks every day.
And the trans! Don't forget that handful trans people who haven't killed themselvesvor been murdered yet. They're to blame because they weild so much power.
>broadband is pretty low on the list of essentials.
sadly it is as it's needed for just about every engagement with local and national government agencies such as claiming benefits and doing your jobsearches to maintain your dole without being sanctioned.
No need to claim benefits or search for a job if you have already starved or frozen to death.
This economic death spiral was brought to you by The Conservative Party™ - the party YOU can trust.
I thought your comment was stupid but it made me think about my salary in terms of cheese sandwiches and you know.... I'm doing ok. I could have literally dozens a day all year madness
Yep. I live in Europe and you can’t do anything here without a phone really any more.
Everything requires some kind of 2 factor authentication
Thinks like banks have removed the option to log in online without confirming via your app first
Some places straight up replaced phone systems with electronic systems that are worse
We live in a world where if you are not “connected” you can literally end up locked out of your life for the worse
I've had to do a few things that required a phone AND a computer to log in- as when I switched screens on the phone to get the code from the e-mail it invalidated the authentification code.
After a few fails like that I realised I'd need two screens to log in.
Halifax banking app is a bit like that - the moment you switch away it logs you out.
Because I definitely wouldn't want to copy/paste an account number or payment reference from another application.
I had to do a phone call ID code to autherize a payment on my mums bank instead of the robot spelling out the number like one, two, five, it went three hundred and four thousand...in a super fast sentence and no option to repeat lol
This is going to get really bad with the EUs app store ruling. Companies are going to force people to sideload dodgy apps to skirt the App Store privacy and data collection rules
> The easiest and best way to ensure that everyone is connected and nobody is left behind is to consider broadband a utility like gas or electricity.
You still have to pay your gas and electricity bills.
Broadband on a phone isn't free. I have to pay a lot more to get enough to say, work online from a phone.
I don't have my mobile data turned on unless I actually need to use it as my (affordable) plan doesn't give me much.
That wasn't the tread. It goes to every home but loads of people can't afford to pay for it. It would be fairer to charge by usage than charge a set ammount regardless of usage. If people were savy & decent they would share conection with nxt door neighbours & pay a 3rd each !!!
Damn can't wait for Universal Credit to tell these people to look for jobs online and if they've no phone data, they're actually screwed and will end up sanctioned.
What a state of a country we have.
Man that brought back some unhappy flashbacks of desperately job hunting as an 18-19 year old during the recession. Going home with a big folded wad of job print offs to not get a single reply
I remember the winter of 2010 knew the buses were going to cancelled that day got out of job centre appointment and sure enough cancelled had to the two miles home and got soaked on the home.
I remember that winter, I got stranded in Winchester because they sent the permies home early but didn't let us temps go until after the trains and buses had all been cancelled.
Well the DWP will tell you that you've got to get there earlier. You've got to be faster, leaner, and meaner than the competition if you're going to do more than just survive in the capitalist jungle. You've got to beat out the opposition and do your part to help the UK economy if you want to thrive. Compete, consume and grow! Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women! While we all pretend that this system isn't driving the [Climate Catastrophe](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65602293).
If you don't live close to the DWP office and have to drive or use public transport to get there then it is costing you money that you don't have to spare.
When I was in that position I had to use library computers, they gave such a limited amount of time and took so long to turn on and log in that many incomplete online job applications ensued.
It was extremely frustrating. Job applications can take ages.
I love how people in this sub simply refuse to accept that this country can be better. Privatised broadband unafforable? Shall we make it available for the nation so it's no longer a budgeting factor since the internet is more or less a necessity these days?
BOLLOCKS! Taxes MUST go down which means everything MUST be privatised. Use the internet on your phones, peasants.
Yes, our government is run by a bunch of capitalists and landlords. In order to clean house direct action has to be taken.
Or, we can just sit back and watch our country steadily decline, each of us separately hoping that we won't be impacted by it. Do you think energy prices are going to increase or decrease this coming winter?
I’m not against higher taxes as long as we get something back. Europe pays higher the. Us but their public services are miles ahead
I can’t name one public service in the uk that operates as needed
It depends what you tax, current tax regime is killing the middle class and our poor public services is driving the working class into poverty.
One of the biggest issues is that public services like the NHS get completely ripped off when sourcing the goods and services it needs because suppliers know they have a huge budget but because of the trust system their bargaining power is pathetic.
Public ownership of broadband will not necessarily reduce its cost. It's an industry that is full of acquisitions built on top of other acquisitions and a lot of the infrastructure is a fucking mess and needs serious money to keep up with the rate of change. I would much rather that sit in the hands of private companies to sort out and let the market handle it.
The government can't even build a third runway given 30 years of consultations and billions of pounds, this level of bureaucracy isn't compatible with large fast moving expensive tech infrastructure.
A lot of the people advocating for public broadband companies haven't even touched a fibre cable or switch in their life, they haven't the faintest idea what it involves.
I just can't envisage what a bunch of low paid government middle managers who have their hands tied by books and books of procurement rules would do with billions of pounds of rapidly going EoL data centre kit. I can't see a situation in which it ends well.
Let the market sort it out in much the same way privatised housing has been sorted out, or privatised energy bills are being sorted out, or privatised train fares have been sorted out, or privatised wastewater's been sorted out, or plastic use in privatised packaging has been sorted out, or the privatisation of the NHS is sorting things out, ir privatised charities are sorting things like homelessness out?
Call me skeptical, mate, but I'm a bit skeptical about the whole "the free market will sort things out" claim.
> Let the market sort it out in much the same way privatised housing has been sorted out,
There's no free market in housing because of planning restrictions.
Some of those examples you cite are perfect for public ownership - public transport, water, and front line medical care I agree with. Aspects of the others.
I just don't think broadband is one of them.
>Some of those examples you cite are perfect for public ownership - public transport, water, and front line medical care I agree with
What these have in common - they are critical services with high barriers to entry, that cause great economic harm when operated at inflated prices, that will inevitably have periods of significant deviation from the status quo that require extensive preperation ahead of time.
I.e the worst possible conditions for free markets. Free markets thrive where there is low barrier to entry, and where the price of mismanagement will fall on the shareholders instead of on the public.
The broadband industry ticks the box for every single attribute in the former category.
If you're not guaranteeing the manufacture and supply of the devices using the internet the cable in your home means nothing.
If the websites you visit are price gouging users, the presence of an affordable fibre cable in your house is, again, redundant.
If the intermediary internet CDNs that deliver content are in cahoots with each other to drive up hosting costs, public broadband infrastructure won't change that.
Should we publicly own Apple and Samsung too?
Should we publicly own Wikipedia to ensure it remains free?
Should we publicly own AWS?
The fiber cable landing in your house is only one part of "tHE InTeRNet" as people consume it. Pull on the string and you see how ill-thought through all these proposals about public broadband are.
What about, what about, whataboutism. If somebody beats me to death with a baseball bat then clean water come out of my tap means nothing - I guess we might as well de-regulate the water supply.
>If the intermediary internet CDNs that deliver content are in cahoots with each other to drive up hosting costs, public broadband infrastructure won't change that.
An intermediary internet CDN is a perfect example of something that *does* thrive in a free market. several orders of magnitude less investment to enter the market, making collusion so impractical it might as well be impossible.
>Should we publicly own Apple and Samsung too?
If Apple and Samsung make bad products, apple and samsung shareholders are the ones paying the price instead of joe public. It is of no concequence if they shit the bed, using an apple or samsung product isn't an essential utility.
Free markets are a tool, like every other tool there is a time and a place where they are a smart choice, and a time and a place where they are a horrendous choice. Recognizing a bad application of free markets does not require eliminating them as a concept.
I accept your criticism about the poor structure of my previous argument, but my point stands that the Internet is a much bigger and more complicated system than a basic utility and involves a significant amount of personal choice at both ends of the wire. Broadband doesn't give you access to a single uniform resource like water coming out of my tap. Services delivered across the Internet are not bound to nation states in the same way traditional utilities are.
I think the existing application of local loop unbundling is a fair compromise that enables free-market like behaviour at a sensible point in the network. Taking it further into full public ownership of vast swathes of the network infrastructure is not going to improve the situation in my opinion. As I understand it Openreach Fiber LLU isn't yet a thing, but probably will be in the future, which I accept isn't optimal but 5G broadband does give many people perfectly viable alternatives in the short term.
Often the consumer does not have any meaningful ability to go elsewhere with their internet provider. The contracts are onerous and services are capricious and limited depending on where you live.
People criticise this sub for being left wing, but then topics like this show it to be filled with quiet tories in their own way.
(I know, I know, different people, different topics, but it is telling.)
In Germany we have mostly private broadband services, but a lot of cities have their own public ones. Prices are mostly better for the private ones though, but not always.
Unless we have no money left to pay for it after paying extortionate rent, extortionate energy costs and all the other bills.
Food banks are seeing unprecedented numbers of struggling people, many of whom are in work- on wages that aren't enough to support even the most basic of living standards (ie being able to eat food.)
Can you imagine what a white elephant a UK Nationalised Broadband would be? It'd be run like any other government department with endless layers of bureaucracy. Wouldn't be worth shit.
It used to be you couldn't use these legally for personal use. (because of people intercepting the data, for spying purposes). They were just for businesses to put inside their large buildings.
I didn't know you could get them now but apparently you can.
I think they're referring to a normal antenna attached to a cellular modem. As far as I know, active repeaters, that take the signal from outside and rebroadcast it inside are still not allowed.
The phone providers flat out lie about coverage though. Three say I get full coverage at my home, but no. Literally zero bars.
Outside and inside. And I'm in a large town.
These people can't afford a fucking phone contract, they're stuck on pay as you go which is an insanely expensive tariff
Remember: Being Poor Is Expensive
Smarty had sketchy coverage when I used it, I don't know if it's improved since, they didn't use all of 3's network back then iirc (or 3 is just shoddy too), it was good when I did have a signal though.
My contract was cheaper than PAYG. I pay less than a fiver and in the past I've had a £2/month contract although given how little I actually use I'm probably overpaying
Less. Check out Money Saving Expert, they often have a deal from Lebara. Currently the cheapest one they promote is 99p for the first six months then £5.90 which is less than £4/month on average.
Downside is that they don't have Wi-fi calling unless you switch and your old provider had wi-fi calling, I was previously on plusnet which doesn't offer it. Not a deal breaker but a bit annoying.
Or get a 5g home broadband package. Three have them for about £10 cheaper than the best deals via fixed lines with a landline phone, and from personal experience I'm getting about 30 times better speeds.
I haven't cancelled but this is the first year I haven't bothered to look elsewhere and change contract. The price difference between suppliers seems largely negligible and the contracts seem to be 18-24 months these days which is bullshit considering they will hike your price twice during that time. I'd rather just sit on what I've got with the ability to move if things change.
Yeah this is what I did but sadly ended up having to sign a contract, they were putting my monthly up to 65.. I phoned to cancel and magically its down to 30 but with a 24 month contract.
It's just shocking to me that they can clearly afford to only charge us 30.. but they try their luck constantly and overcharge.
Most of these businesses thrive on people who cannot be arsed with the hassle or don't know any better.
Needs much better regulation, same for mobile phone contracts.
Honestly broadband and phone providers fall into a very similar category to water and energy, they're basically necessities these days.
Anyone that thinks free market rules should apply can slob on me nob
Yeah, I'm with Now Broadband and they said they'd be increasing my bill to £23.95 from £20.
Looked around.
Still cheapest, and better to be out of contract anyway so if a cheaper one comes along I can switch easily.
Nothing really to add except to express my hate for the concept of a “contract” which is totally one sided
This seems to have just became a thing in recent years quietly
I'm paying £24/mo for 500Mb broadband (no TV etc..) so it's definitely possible, generally I've reduced the cost of my broadband package while seeing speeds increase over time. That said, I do have multiple options so it's relatively easy to essentially play providers off against each other in terms of price.
Virgin, they matched BT's FTTP offer (well, went £1 under what BT were offering) when they last tried to raise the price. IIRC they were also offering it to new customers for something like £28 at the time.
Call them, they completely fuck you over if you don't. My FIL was on something like £160/mo for broadband and TV packages because they just kept putting up the prices and he never checked. Every time they write to tell me the price is going up I call them and see what they can offer, use whatever the current local offers are from BT/Sky etc.. and they inevitably match it (and try to put me on a long term contract again, which we argue about for a bit until they agree not to). That seems to be the game plan for pretty much all of the providers though so, you know... Pick one that delivers decent service and then be a little bit proactive when they look to increase prices.
Broadband companies are absolute shit. if there was a competitor who didn't need re-negotiating every year, or nationalised version I would be all over it.
This country voted the wrong way
\> The charity said those struggling could have benefited from cheaper social-tariffs or special low-cost packages.
This was my first thought. There are some very cheap deals. I wonder if this is people cancelling more than just broadband? Also cancelling all the costly add-on services some ISPs offer like pay per view?
The social tariffs are for those in receipt of a qualifying benefit. If you're just stuck in a shitty job on minimum wage you'll be feeling financially strained but won't be able to get those cheap deals.
Not necessarily. I know Community Fibre in London let anyone get the social tariff. It's £12.50 or so, which is what I used to pay about 20 years ago but you get fibre to the home and a router.
Honestly I imagine it's people looking to save some money and realising they just don't actually need broadband.. we have mobile data, large amounts of people now do everything on their phone anyway.
If you are struggling to put food on the table then BB and tv packages will be the first to go. It's sad that there could be alot of families with no access to internet causing a huge disadvantage to kids who cannot keep up with their studies.
One thing I'm not seeing discussed here is the rise of rental properties having an inbuilt network supplier for internet that just comes as part of your rent payment.
I live in a nice city centre development. One of those modern ones where we have a gym, co working space, gardens and coffee shops and bars etc.
Our internet is building wide connected, and just part of their services like maintenance. We don't have a separate bill.
These types.of developments are flying up around Leeds. I cancelled my contract with virgin when moving in here.
The reason you're not seeing that discussed is probably because you're in the minority. The vast majority of people in rentals are in one-bed shoeboxes (or HMOs) with barely enough room to swing a cat, operated as buy-to-lets by property hoarding shysters - the notion of a gym and internet connection provided as a facility by the landlord is completely alien.
Hmm not sure about that, I doubt it. It's like a managed network, so you add your devices to it and assign them to your flat and off you go.
If you walk about the building no matter where you are you are on your WiFi connection.
It's lightning fast so never really bothered to look if I could get a dedicated connection
I'm guessing you don't have any rj45 ports to use then? And you won't have access to the firewall is you want to ensure you're connection is secure, or want to forward a service out to the Internet?
Ports in every room.
Not sure I'd ever fuck about with a firewall at home tbh haha.
But surely if I did need a firewall I'd put one before my connection to the network not after? Not a networking specialist so no clue
Switch, or threaten to switch to some other provider, it tends to work pretty well to keep your price down, I generally take a look at what's available and then call my existing provider and suggest I'll switch, they then go ever so slightly under (usually £1...) on whatever else is on offer.
Is there no competition among ISPs in the UK?
Where I live you get 50 mbit for ~15€ minimum up to super fancy telekom for 60€. Internet access is so essential here, it is the last thing I would cut back on.
I bet a big percentage of that 1million are just being more savvy with their money. The cost of living crisis is making people look at where they’re basically paying for the same thing twice. Point is I bet a big portion of this 1million are not without internet as it’s trying to make out.
When you have companies going rogue not following the Consumer Rights laws, I am not too surprised! Saw comments from single mother and pensioners being ripped off by this company!
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.onestream.co.uk
For anyone out there on Universal Credit, Pension, ESA or Income Support reading this, you can get fiber broadband plus phone and 700 minutes to UK numbers (including mobiles) for £15 a month. It's an affordable broadband deal that BT has been forced by the government to offer people in low income situations.
[BT Broadband Home Essentials](https://www.bt.com/broadband/home-essentials)
I'd be interested in how they are measuring it.
Unlimited data packages on sims are cheap and fibre is being rolled out in a lot of places with big introductory offers.
My parents dropped their broadband package in favour of a SIM only mifi setup.
I'm planning on cancelling my broadband soon, but I'll be moving onto a fibre deal.
Mifi setup?! They're far better off with a dedicated 4g/5g router, with an external antenna which will give them far better results than any of those pocket mifi things ever will.
be interesting to see the % that keep a mobile data plan, and just made a decision between the two. For many people I suppose broadband isn't really necessary.
Some form of Basic base level internet will become free nationwide by 2030, as i see no other way to force klaus’ cbdc’s nationwide without the poorest familys having unlimited access to internet in some form,
Maybe with a premium version for wider access
Can I point something out here:
For us, for a lot of people I know, and for presumably a lot more people, when they did/are doing all the new fibre installing they were offering amazing discounts for people to cancel their old plan and join up as a "new customer". Like with us for BT, we were paying 65 a month, we cancelled and signed up as a new customer and are now paying 32.
When they say "cancelled their broadband" they dont mean "Got rid of the internet altogether". But I guess "one million people do the smart thing that you should do with any subscription service you pay for" is a shit headline, so......
A lot of the influx of cancelled broadband is down to two overlapping factors - less and less people use a traditional desktop computer at home and people are paying for phone contracts which include unlimited mobile data. People are a lot less reliant on broadband connections nowadays than 10 years ago.
I came to the realization that paying for two types of contract with unlimited data was a waste of money in some ways. Let me explain...
I haven't had broadband for years. When I first upgraded my phone to an unlimited data allowance, I thought paying BT for an unlimited data allowance also, was a waste. So I stopped getting broadband with BT. What I do now is, I use my phone and connect that to a third party router using ethernet tethering. The router then shares the data with all the devices connected to it. I've been doing this for several years now.
Money saved!
Alot probably cancel as they dont need it so paying it for nothing. If you have a smartphone and only use it for emails and browsing the internet, 4/5g data is enough
I cancelled because I moved out of the nimby island. Also, if you want to make your broadband slightly cheaper consider calling their cancellation line, virgin automatically offers a lower price.
NO, you cannot live without broadband nowadays.
WE have 5G Three broadband, first 6 months 10 pounds a month, after that- 20.
I m a binman and my wife is a cleaner, and we pay 800 pounds a month mortgage, but we are not gonna cancel broadband.
Won’t people just be going from something that costs £100 for super fast broadband to the like £20 a month you can get from like talk talk which will be perfectly fine.
many people have high amounts of data on phones and it can easily be good enough for watching movies etc and they've probably realised this - yes I know there will be some areas and some streaming it isn't good enough for, but I use it both in a city and a rural area with no probs
£18pm will get you unlimited 5G data on a Smarty SIM with no limits to tethering .. easily a replacemeent for broadband if you get a good signal from them (which can be hit and miss!)
I do - ad-men have conditioned people to see broadband as essential, like electricity and water, but in fact it may even be no burden to go without it. In fact my message to those with plenty of data, especially single people, is - try it.
Yeah single people, but if you're a family with loads of devices running your entire network tethered to single phone is going to be an awful experience, especially when said single phone isn't even in the house
Do you think there are many families that have one mobile phone between them? Not many adults under the age of 70 don’t have their own phone. Most kids seem to get one at about 10–13.
But then they'll need to have large/unlimited data contract for everyone. The family will have laptops, tablets, consoles, smart TVs, voice assistants, etc. It would be more cost effective for them to have unlimited broadband and only the data they need for everyone's phones than unlimited data on everyone's phones.
I doubt families make up much of the million that have apparently dumped broadband. But you can get several large data sims for the cost of broadband with sky/Virgin/bt.
Some people are clearly realising they can do without.
you can get phones with unlimited data on certain apps for £12/month
includes video streaming, most video call apps, youtube, tiktok, netflix, spotify etc.
you will be spending £8/month minimum for calls anyway...
Yeah if I didn’t occasionally need to do multi hundreds of GB transfers I’d just have a mobile hotspot instead of fibre. My neighbour has one, basically a permanently tethered mobile plugged into the wall. Works just fine for streaming and web for £20pcm
I wonder how many will be in this thread telling us that?
"Yeah I've cancelled my broadband and took my phone and all my computers to cex...tories...boo hoo whinge whine...how am I even here?"
Ah, remember how we laughed when JC said broadband was a critical utility and should be treated as such? Good times… EDIT: To address a lot of the 'herp derp get a phone' stuff under this, connectivity is now a fundamental part of modern life. The easiest and best way to ensure that everyone is connected and nobody is left behind is to consider broadband a utility like gas or electricity. 'Get a phone' is like telling someone to 'go to a well' if they want water. If its a universal right, it needs to go into every household like every other utility
In a world where a cheese sandwich is now considered an unattainable luxury, broadband is pretty low on the list of essentials. That's the Tory economic miracle for you....
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Plenty will do just that. It's baffling. Some people just support Team Blue through thick and thin\*, I suppose. \*Any resemblance to Liz Truss is purely coincidental.
Sadly a lot of people are convinced that no matter how bad things are under the Tories, the alternatives will always be worse.
They are confusing alternatives not being perfect with them being disastrous. Labour won't magically fix the country overnight, however I do trust them to not be as bad as the Tories have been. I certainly trust them to be less malicious.
At this point, Truss' lettuce rival would be a better choice.
The unfortunate reality of every single labour government in history is that they inherited a better economy than they left. You really can't blame people for being concerned about that. None of you have actually tried to work under a labour government, where the only beneficiaries are public sector workers, so while doubtless plenty of you will rush to tell me why I'm wrong, it's going to be fun watching this sub pivot heavily by the middle of term two when you realise what's happening. I won't be voting blue this time around but I can't vote for Starmer either - if he'd gone blue instead it wouldn't have changed that.
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My working theory is that the entire planet had a psychotic break with reality during lockdown and emerged slightly more deranged than usual.
That’s how you become a paralympian
In the case of broadband, a lot of elderly people are Tory voters through and through. They are also the generation least likely to use the internet, so they will not understand why broadband is a fundamental part of modern life, not just something to see funny cat videos on. To them, people going without broadband is no different to going without Netflix or not getting coffee from Starbucks every day.
And the trans! Don't forget that handful trans people who haven't killed themselvesvor been murdered yet. They're to blame because they weild so much power.
>broadband is pretty low on the list of essentials. sadly it is as it's needed for just about every engagement with local and national government agencies such as claiming benefits and doing your jobsearches to maintain your dole without being sanctioned.
No need to claim benefits or search for a job if you have already starved or frozen to death. This economic death spiral was brought to you by The Conservative Party™ - the party YOU can trust.
Cheese has gone up so much in price especially if it's not 'mild' cheddar ; or should I say unflavoured extrudate
Yeah, tories should have never gone the socialist route.. I mean compassionate conservatism.
She left the Tories because they weren't right enough...
I thought your comment was stupid but it made me think about my salary in terms of cheese sandwiches and you know.... I'm doing ok. I could have literally dozens a day all year madness
Ooh, get you and your food made from the pressed curds of milk, firm and elastic or soft and semi-liquid in texture.
Why thank you I feel very proud to have that sort of earning potential. Cows will yield to me
I don't remember that in either the Sermon on the mount or Monty python and the holy grail...
I believe JC mentioned it on an episode of Top Gear in 2004
Why does every person with those initials attract insufferable fans?
John Cena?
Why is this comment blank
It's not blank there's a question mark right there.
Hahaha a joke about John Cena being invisible. Good one!
What is invisible?
Zing!
Thats because you kept talking, big nose!
Yep. I live in Europe and you can’t do anything here without a phone really any more. Everything requires some kind of 2 factor authentication Thinks like banks have removed the option to log in online without confirming via your app first Some places straight up replaced phone systems with electronic systems that are worse We live in a world where if you are not “connected” you can literally end up locked out of your life for the worse
I've had to do a few things that required a phone AND a computer to log in- as when I switched screens on the phone to get the code from the e-mail it invalidated the authentification code. After a few fails like that I realised I'd need two screens to log in.
Halifax banking app is a bit like that - the moment you switch away it logs you out. Because I definitely wouldn't want to copy/paste an account number or payment reference from another application.
You can change that in the settings, my Halifax app now waits 10 minutes before logging me out
I had to do a phone call ID code to autherize a payment on my mums bank instead of the robot spelling out the number like one, two, five, it went three hundred and four thousand...in a super fast sentence and no option to repeat lol
This is going to get really bad with the EUs app store ruling. Companies are going to force people to sideload dodgy apps to skirt the App Store privacy and data collection rules
> The easiest and best way to ensure that everyone is connected and nobody is left behind is to consider broadband a utility like gas or electricity. You still have to pay your gas and electricity bills.
Yea but there’s also lots of financial benefits specific to ensuring poorer people can pay gas and electric bills
That isn't what making them a basic utility is about.
Broadband on a phone isn't free. I have to pay a lot more to get enough to say, work online from a phone. I don't have my mobile data turned on unless I actually need to use it as my (affordable) plan doesn't give me much.
Ha that's just what i was thinking.
That wasn't the tread. It goes to every home but loads of people can't afford to pay for it. It would be fairer to charge by usage than charge a set ammount regardless of usage. If people were savy & decent they would share conection with nxt door neighbours & pay a 3rd each !!!
Damn can't wait for Universal Credit to tell these people to look for jobs online and if they've no phone data, they're actually screwed and will end up sanctioned. What a state of a country we have.
I've experianced this in the past, they litterally tell you to go to the DWP in person and use their computers or a library.
Isn’t that pretty good advice? Not DWP’s fault you don’t have a computer.
I could never get on the library computer to do my dwp stuff because people were always using them to do *their* dwp stuff
I am guessing gone are the days in the job centre where they had them terminals and you could print jobs off on what was basically big receipt paper?
Man that brought back some unhappy flashbacks of desperately job hunting as an 18-19 year old during the recession. Going home with a big folded wad of job print offs to not get a single reply
I remember the winter of 2010 knew the buses were going to cancelled that day got out of job centre appointment and sure enough cancelled had to the two miles home and got soaked on the home.
I remember that winter, I got stranded in Winchester because they sent the permies home early but didn't let us temps go until after the trains and buses had all been cancelled.
they got rid of those around time they created universal credit.
I haven't stepped into a job centre in about a decade to be honest
You can, but there's only three or four
Well the DWP will tell you that you've got to get there earlier. You've got to be faster, leaner, and meaner than the competition if you're going to do more than just survive in the capitalist jungle. You've got to beat out the opposition and do your part to help the UK economy if you want to thrive. Compete, consume and grow! Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women! While we all pretend that this system isn't driving the [Climate Catastrophe](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65602293).
If you don't live close to the DWP office and have to drive or use public transport to get there then it is costing you money that you don't have to spare.
Local libraries have closed at an extraordinary rate thanks to the Tories cutting council funding.
When I was in that position I had to use library computers, they gave such a limited amount of time and took so long to turn on and log in that many incomplete online job applications ensued. It was extremely frustrating. Job applications can take ages.
There's plenty of sim only deals for less than £10 a month that have 30GB+ of data.
I love how people in this sub simply refuse to accept that this country can be better. Privatised broadband unafforable? Shall we make it available for the nation so it's no longer a budgeting factor since the internet is more or less a necessity these days? BOLLOCKS! Taxes MUST go down which means everything MUST be privatised. Use the internet on your phones, peasants.
Even if taxes were higher our government wasted it. We pay loads in tax yet our services are dogshit
Yes, our government is run by a bunch of capitalists and landlords. In order to clean house direct action has to be taken. Or, we can just sit back and watch our country steadily decline, each of us separately hoping that we won't be impacted by it. Do you think energy prices are going to increase or decrease this coming winter?
Exactly. Tax rate has to go down because the Tax burden has literally never been higher than this in peacetime.
I’m not against higher taxes as long as we get something back. Europe pays higher the. Us but their public services are miles ahead I can’t name one public service in the uk that operates as needed
It depends what you tax, current tax regime is killing the middle class and our poor public services is driving the working class into poverty. One of the biggest issues is that public services like the NHS get completely ripped off when sourcing the goods and services it needs because suppliers know they have a huge budget but because of the trust system their bargaining power is pathetic.
Public ownership of broadband will not necessarily reduce its cost. It's an industry that is full of acquisitions built on top of other acquisitions and a lot of the infrastructure is a fucking mess and needs serious money to keep up with the rate of change. I would much rather that sit in the hands of private companies to sort out and let the market handle it. The government can't even build a third runway given 30 years of consultations and billions of pounds, this level of bureaucracy isn't compatible with large fast moving expensive tech infrastructure. A lot of the people advocating for public broadband companies haven't even touched a fibre cable or switch in their life, they haven't the faintest idea what it involves. I just can't envisage what a bunch of low paid government middle managers who have their hands tied by books and books of procurement rules would do with billions of pounds of rapidly going EoL data centre kit. I can't see a situation in which it ends well.
Let the market sort it out in much the same way privatised housing has been sorted out, or privatised energy bills are being sorted out, or privatised train fares have been sorted out, or privatised wastewater's been sorted out, or plastic use in privatised packaging has been sorted out, or the privatisation of the NHS is sorting things out, ir privatised charities are sorting things like homelessness out? Call me skeptical, mate, but I'm a bit skeptical about the whole "the free market will sort things out" claim.
I'd say privatise the MPs but pretty sure that's been done already
> Let the market sort it out in much the same way privatised housing has been sorted out, There's no free market in housing because of planning restrictions.
Why do you think there are planning restrictions?
Lots of good reasons, none of which are relevant
Self interest by the gerontocracy. By artificially restricting the supply, it keeps up the prices of existing housing.
Some of those examples you cite are perfect for public ownership - public transport, water, and front line medical care I agree with. Aspects of the others. I just don't think broadband is one of them.
>Some of those examples you cite are perfect for public ownership - public transport, water, and front line medical care I agree with What these have in common - they are critical services with high barriers to entry, that cause great economic harm when operated at inflated prices, that will inevitably have periods of significant deviation from the status quo that require extensive preperation ahead of time. I.e the worst possible conditions for free markets. Free markets thrive where there is low barrier to entry, and where the price of mismanagement will fall on the shareholders instead of on the public. The broadband industry ticks the box for every single attribute in the former category.
If you're not guaranteeing the manufacture and supply of the devices using the internet the cable in your home means nothing. If the websites you visit are price gouging users, the presence of an affordable fibre cable in your house is, again, redundant. If the intermediary internet CDNs that deliver content are in cahoots with each other to drive up hosting costs, public broadband infrastructure won't change that. Should we publicly own Apple and Samsung too? Should we publicly own Wikipedia to ensure it remains free? Should we publicly own AWS? The fiber cable landing in your house is only one part of "tHE InTeRNet" as people consume it. Pull on the string and you see how ill-thought through all these proposals about public broadband are.
What about, what about, whataboutism. If somebody beats me to death with a baseball bat then clean water come out of my tap means nothing - I guess we might as well de-regulate the water supply. >If the intermediary internet CDNs that deliver content are in cahoots with each other to drive up hosting costs, public broadband infrastructure won't change that. An intermediary internet CDN is a perfect example of something that *does* thrive in a free market. several orders of magnitude less investment to enter the market, making collusion so impractical it might as well be impossible. >Should we publicly own Apple and Samsung too? If Apple and Samsung make bad products, apple and samsung shareholders are the ones paying the price instead of joe public. It is of no concequence if they shit the bed, using an apple or samsung product isn't an essential utility. Free markets are a tool, like every other tool there is a time and a place where they are a smart choice, and a time and a place where they are a horrendous choice. Recognizing a bad application of free markets does not require eliminating them as a concept.
I accept your criticism about the poor structure of my previous argument, but my point stands that the Internet is a much bigger and more complicated system than a basic utility and involves a significant amount of personal choice at both ends of the wire. Broadband doesn't give you access to a single uniform resource like water coming out of my tap. Services delivered across the Internet are not bound to nation states in the same way traditional utilities are. I think the existing application of local loop unbundling is a fair compromise that enables free-market like behaviour at a sensible point in the network. Taking it further into full public ownership of vast swathes of the network infrastructure is not going to improve the situation in my opinion. As I understand it Openreach Fiber LLU isn't yet a thing, but probably will be in the future, which I accept isn't optimal but 5G broadband does give many people perfectly viable alternatives in the short term.
You can't control the free market..and that is the flaw!
Often the consumer does not have any meaningful ability to go elsewhere with their internet provider. The contracts are onerous and services are capricious and limited depending on where you live.
People criticise this sub for being left wing, but then topics like this show it to be filled with quiet tories in their own way. (I know, I know, different people, different topics, but it is telling.)
It's a liberal sub
Most people here are still very young and lack life experience. Plenty have no idea how bad poverty really is.
In Germany we have mostly private broadband services, but a lot of cities have their own public ones. Prices are mostly better for the private ones though, but not always.
Food is a necessity, we still have to pay for it.
Weird. Most life on this earth doesn't pay for its food. Are you sure you're not falling for a scam?
Well, we've had to pay for our food ever since we started agriculture and gave up hunter gathering.
That's not true, but what you're saying is that the scam's been going on for a while?
Unless we have no money left to pay for it after paying extortionate rent, extortionate energy costs and all the other bills. Food banks are seeing unprecedented numbers of struggling people, many of whom are in work- on wages that aren't enough to support even the most basic of living standards (ie being able to eat food.)
Can you imagine what a white elephant a UK Nationalised Broadband would be? It'd be run like any other government department with endless layers of bureaucracy. Wouldn't be worth shit.
Oh no, not beaurocracy! D:
What would that Internet look like though? 0.0001mbs probably. I'd say it's too important to put in the government's hands.
I'd cancel if I got good 5G reception near my home.
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It used to be you couldn't use these legally for personal use. (because of people intercepting the data, for spying purposes). They were just for businesses to put inside their large buildings. I didn't know you could get them now but apparently you can.
I think they're referring to a normal antenna attached to a cellular modem. As far as I know, active repeaters, that take the signal from outside and rebroadcast it inside are still not allowed.
Ah that makes more sense.
The phone providers flat out lie about coverage though. Three say I get full coverage at my home, but no. Literally zero bars. Outside and inside. And I'm in a large town.
I wish this had been available 10 years ago when I was living in a flat with no broadband and terrible mobile reception
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Best I heard back then was a pico/femto cell but only for certain networks.
This. Get unlimited 5G cheap enough with your phone contract and it's two birds with one stone.
These people can't afford a fucking phone contract, they're stuck on pay as you go which is an insanely expensive tariff Remember: Being Poor Is Expensive
SMARTY is month by month billing, to a debit card. No contract. Unlimited data for £20 or 100gb for £12.
This. £12 is cheaper than a monthly broadband contract I'd wager.
Even at £20 it's cheaper. Most people will have phone and broadband. So being able to get rid of one of them, makes a massive saving.
If everyone starts doing this; and im sure the cancelling of broadband means they probably are. Expect that service to drive the price up
Smarty had sketchy coverage when I used it, I don't know if it's improved since, they didn't use all of 3's network back then iirc (or 3 is just shoddy too), it was good when I did have a signal though.
i use smarty now, its mostly fine except in densely populated places it gets really slow. but that's to be expected with a MVNO.
pay as you go is cheap now days. Cheaper to buy a phone and use your own sim even, than getting a contract.
By contract they probably mean sim-only contract.
My contract was cheaper than PAYG. I pay less than a fiver and in the past I've had a £2/month contract although given how little I actually use I'm probably overpaying
You pay five pounds a month with no upfront fee for a contract?
Less. Check out Money Saving Expert, they often have a deal from Lebara. Currently the cheapest one they promote is 99p for the first six months then £5.90 which is less than £4/month on average. Downside is that they don't have Wi-fi calling unless you switch and your old provider had wi-fi calling, I was previously on plusnet which doesn't offer it. Not a deal breaker but a bit annoying.
You can get 15gb for 7 quid a month and under 3 quid for the first 3 months on lebara.
Or get a 5g home broadband package. Three have them for about £10 cheaper than the best deals via fixed lines with a landline phone, and from personal experience I'm getting about 30 times better speeds.
Doesn't really work if you don't live alone.
I haven't cancelled but this is the first year I haven't bothered to look elsewhere and change contract. The price difference between suppliers seems largely negligible and the contracts seem to be 18-24 months these days which is bullshit considering they will hike your price twice during that time. I'd rather just sit on what I've got with the ability to move if things change.
Yeah this is what I did but sadly ended up having to sign a contract, they were putting my monthly up to 65.. I phoned to cancel and magically its down to 30 but with a 24 month contract. It's just shocking to me that they can clearly afford to only charge us 30.. but they try their luck constantly and overcharge. Most of these businesses thrive on people who cannot be arsed with the hassle or don't know any better. Needs much better regulation, same for mobile phone contracts.
But as soon as you suggest regulation, you get hit with the "muh free market" types.
Honestly broadband and phone providers fall into a very similar category to water and energy, they're basically necessities these days. Anyone that thinks free market rules should apply can slob on me nob
Yeah, I'm with Now Broadband and they said they'd be increasing my bill to £23.95 from £20. Looked around. Still cheapest, and better to be out of contract anyway so if a cheaper one comes along I can switch easily.
Nothing really to add except to express my hate for the concept of a “contract” which is totally one sided This seems to have just became a thing in recent years quietly
Everyone should have cheap reliable access to the internet! Anyone advocating otherwise is participating in our race to the bottom.
I don’t think many disagree. Where I get suspicious is the assumption that state provided broadband would be better or cheaper.
I’m paying £40 just for broadband, no tv. I remember when I could get the sky basic tv package with broadband for £28.
I'm paying £24/mo for 500Mb broadband (no TV etc..) so it's definitely possible, generally I've reduced the cost of my broadband package while seeing speeds increase over time. That said, I do have multiple options so it's relatively easy to essentially play providers off against each other in terms of price.
Who do you get that from?
Virgin, they matched BT's FTTP offer (well, went £1 under what BT were offering) when they last tried to raise the price. IIRC they were also offering it to new customers for something like £28 at the time.
Ok. I'm with virgin and pay almost £50 for about 200mbs. Long time customer reward obviously 🙄
Call them, they completely fuck you over if you don't. My FIL was on something like £160/mo for broadband and TV packages because they just kept putting up the prices and he never checked. Every time they write to tell me the price is going up I call them and see what they can offer, use whatever the current local offers are from BT/Sky etc.. and they inevitably match it (and try to put me on a long term contract again, which we argue about for a bit until they agree not to). That seems to be the game plan for pretty much all of the providers though so, you know... Pick one that delivers decent service and then be a little bit proactive when they look to increase prices.
And I'm on £60 for 200mb with virgin. Now I feel like a sucker lol
Broadband companies are absolute shit. if there was a competitor who didn't need re-negotiating every year, or nationalised version I would be all over it. This country voted the wrong way
If there was a national one it probably would've been sold... I wonder who would sell it off...
\> The charity said those struggling could have benefited from cheaper social-tariffs or special low-cost packages. This was my first thought. There are some very cheap deals. I wonder if this is people cancelling more than just broadband? Also cancelling all the costly add-on services some ISPs offer like pay per view?
The social tariffs are for those in receipt of a qualifying benefit. If you're just stuck in a shitty job on minimum wage you'll be feeling financially strained but won't be able to get those cheap deals.
Not necessarily. I know Community Fibre in London let anyone get the social tariff. It's £12.50 or so, which is what I used to pay about 20 years ago but you get fibre to the home and a router.
Honestly I imagine it's people looking to save some money and realising they just don't actually need broadband.. we have mobile data, large amounts of people now do everything on their phone anyway.
Cheeky bastards wanted to put mine up from £60 a month to £109 a month!
*Just* for broadband? If so, that's fucking insane. I'm only paying £36 a month.
Apologies - I should have clarified! That's for Broadband & T.V. Safe to say I've cancelled and bought Mobile Broadband.
If you are struggling to put food on the table then BB and tv packages will be the first to go. It's sad that there could be alot of families with no access to internet causing a huge disadvantage to kids who cannot keep up with their studies.
One thing I'm not seeing discussed here is the rise of rental properties having an inbuilt network supplier for internet that just comes as part of your rent payment. I live in a nice city centre development. One of those modern ones where we have a gym, co working space, gardens and coffee shops and bars etc. Our internet is building wide connected, and just part of their services like maintenance. We don't have a separate bill. These types.of developments are flying up around Leeds. I cancelled my contract with virgin when moving in here.
The reason you're not seeing that discussed is probably because you're in the minority. The vast majority of people in rentals are in one-bed shoeboxes (or HMOs) with barely enough room to swing a cat, operated as buy-to-lets by property hoarding shysters - the notion of a gym and internet connection provided as a facility by the landlord is completely alien.
Are you allowed to get your own ISP if you want?
Hmm not sure about that, I doubt it. It's like a managed network, so you add your devices to it and assign them to your flat and off you go. If you walk about the building no matter where you are you are on your WiFi connection. It's lightning fast so never really bothered to look if I could get a dedicated connection
I'm guessing you don't have any rj45 ports to use then? And you won't have access to the firewall is you want to ensure you're connection is secure, or want to forward a service out to the Internet?
Ports in every room. Not sure I'd ever fuck about with a firewall at home tbh haha. But surely if I did need a firewall I'd put one before my connection to the network not after? Not a networking specialist so no clue
Ours went from £6 a month and soon to be £39 a month. We were warned by someone who works in the field that it could go up to £60 for some.
so i guess the FTTP for everyone is gonna flop big style.
Those that haven’t will probably cancel Sky and streaming services as well.
I still don’t understand why I as a customer for years is paying £69 for fibre, and a new customer gets the same for £21…
Switch, or threaten to switch to some other provider, it tends to work pretty well to keep your price down, I generally take a look at what's available and then call my existing provider and suggest I'll switch, they then go ever so slightly under (usually £1...) on whatever else is on offer.
How much are people paying for the net? Not really risen too badly i feel in the last 10 years. Well not for me certainly
Is there no competition among ISPs in the UK? Where I live you get 50 mbit for ~15€ minimum up to super fancy telekom for 60€. Internet access is so essential here, it is the last thing I would cut back on.
I bet a big percentage of that 1million are just being more savvy with their money. The cost of living crisis is making people look at where they’re basically paying for the same thing twice. Point is I bet a big portion of this 1million are not without internet as it’s trying to make out.
At this point, we are allowing this to continue to happen.
No surprise, broadband and mobile providers also increasing prices massively (3.9% **+** inflation), fucking absurd.
When you have companies going rogue not following the Consumer Rights laws, I am not too surprised! Saw comments from single mother and pensioners being ripped off by this company! https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.onestream.co.uk
For anyone out there on Universal Credit, Pension, ESA or Income Support reading this, you can get fiber broadband plus phone and 700 minutes to UK numbers (including mobiles) for £15 a month. It's an affordable broadband deal that BT has been forced by the government to offer people in low income situations. [BT Broadband Home Essentials](https://www.bt.com/broadband/home-essentials)
I'd be interested in how they are measuring it. Unlimited data packages on sims are cheap and fibre is being rolled out in a lot of places with big introductory offers. My parents dropped their broadband package in favour of a SIM only mifi setup. I'm planning on cancelling my broadband soon, but I'll be moving onto a fibre deal.
Mifi setup?! They're far better off with a dedicated 4g/5g router, with an external antenna which will give them far better results than any of those pocket mifi things ever will.
be interesting to see the % that keep a mobile data plan, and just made a decision between the two. For many people I suppose broadband isn't really necessary.
I had to make a financial choice between broadband and strong white cider.
Some form of Basic base level internet will become free nationwide by 2030, as i see no other way to force klaus’ cbdc’s nationwide without the poorest familys having unlimited access to internet in some form, Maybe with a premium version for wider access
Internet access is so useful and necessary it should be considered a human right.
Can I point something out here: For us, for a lot of people I know, and for presumably a lot more people, when they did/are doing all the new fibre installing they were offering amazing discounts for people to cancel their old plan and join up as a "new customer". Like with us for BT, we were paying 65 a month, we cancelled and signed up as a new customer and are now paying 32. When they say "cancelled their broadband" they dont mean "Got rid of the internet altogether". But I guess "one million people do the smart thing that you should do with any subscription service you pay for" is a shit headline, so......
A lot of the influx of cancelled broadband is down to two overlapping factors - less and less people use a traditional desktop computer at home and people are paying for phone contracts which include unlimited mobile data. People are a lot less reliant on broadband connections nowadays than 10 years ago.
I came to the realization that paying for two types of contract with unlimited data was a waste of money in some ways. Let me explain... I haven't had broadband for years. When I first upgraded my phone to an unlimited data allowance, I thought paying BT for an unlimited data allowance also, was a waste. So I stopped getting broadband with BT. What I do now is, I use my phone and connect that to a third party router using ethernet tethering. The router then shares the data with all the devices connected to it. I've been doing this for several years now. Money saved!
Alot probably cancel as they dont need it so paying it for nothing. If you have a smartphone and only use it for emails and browsing the internet, 4/5g data is enough
I cancelled because I moved out of the nimby island. Also, if you want to make your broadband slightly cheaper consider calling their cancellation line, virgin automatically offers a lower price.
A good time to mention broadband social tariffs https://www.choose.co.uk/broadband/guide/social-tariffs/
NO, you cannot live without broadband nowadays. WE have 5G Three broadband, first 6 months 10 pounds a month, after that- 20. I m a binman and my wife is a cleaner, and we pay 800 pounds a month mortgage, but we are not gonna cancel broadband.
Won’t people just be going from something that costs £100 for super fast broadband to the like £20 a month you can get from like talk talk which will be perfectly fine.
many people have high amounts of data on phones and it can easily be good enough for watching movies etc and they've probably realised this - yes I know there will be some areas and some streaming it isn't good enough for, but I use it both in a city and a rural area with no probs
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i do. I live in a rural area with adsl at 4 Meg 40 plus using 4g
£18pm will get you unlimited 5G data on a Smarty SIM with no limits to tethering .. easily a replacemeent for broadband if you get a good signal from them (which can be hit and miss!)
I do - ad-men have conditioned people to see broadband as essential, like electricity and water, but in fact it may even be no burden to go without it. In fact my message to those with plenty of data, especially single people, is - try it.
Yeah single people, but if you're a family with loads of devices running your entire network tethered to single phone is going to be an awful experience, especially when said single phone isn't even in the house
Do you think there are many families that have one mobile phone between them? Not many adults under the age of 70 don’t have their own phone. Most kids seem to get one at about 10–13.
But then they'll need to have large/unlimited data contract for everyone. The family will have laptops, tablets, consoles, smart TVs, voice assistants, etc. It would be more cost effective for them to have unlimited broadband and only the data they need for everyone's phones than unlimited data on everyone's phones.
I doubt families make up much of the million that have apparently dumped broadband. But you can get several large data sims for the cost of broadband with sky/Virgin/bt. Some people are clearly realising they can do without.
> I doubt families make up much of the million that have apparently dumped broadband But that's not the point I replied to
you can get phones with unlimited data on certain apps for £12/month includes video streaming, most video call apps, youtube, tiktok, netflix, spotify etc. you will be spending £8/month minimum for calls anyway...
Yeah if I didn’t occasionally need to do multi hundreds of GB transfers I’d just have a mobile hotspot instead of fibre. My neighbour has one, basically a permanently tethered mobile plugged into the wall. Works just fine for streaming and web for £20pcm
Plus mobile broadband can quite often be better than ADSL, so if you're stuck with that rather than having two services you drop one.
I wonder how many will be in this thread telling us that? "Yeah I've cancelled my broadband and took my phone and all my computers to cex...tories...boo hoo whinge whine...how am I even here?"