34 ms·

One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

287 points by nly 3y ago

Anonasty 3y ago
Seems like counterintuitive but then again the article does not mention cellphones which is quite enough for many people.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  Not to mention that a lot of connections are still DSL (misrepresented as "fibre" which is apparently perfectly legal) so in practice a cellular connection may very well be an upgrade.
  - meinheld111 3y ago
    True. But quality metrics differ and no wireless connection that i have seen is an upgrade in terms of jitter and reliability overall a wired one (even dsl)
    - usrusr 3y ago
      And it won't exactly get better when your whole block starts canceling wired..
  - Gordonjcp 3y ago
    I used to live in a house that was about 1.6km from the nearest FTTC cab and 8km from the exchange, just about 20 minutes drive from Glasgow. I could get very intermittent ADSL (2Mbps on a good day, typically down about 1Mbps if it was windy or rainy because of all the splices in the cable). I switched to 4G and got 40Mbps symmetric using a Mikrotik SXT-LTE on a pole at about eaves height aiming at a mast about 5km away. It was cheaper than ADSL, too! I think a lot of people on here are in the US where you get absolutely fucking *rinsed* for mobile data. Here in the UK it's cheap as tap water.
- veltas 3y ago
  Even 10 years ago I knew people cancelling their broadband to just use mobile internet. It's smart to cancel broadband if you're not streaming video, or if you are streaming but have a fast mobile network connection and decent plan. It probably sucks for any real-time stuff like gaming, but otherwise it makes sense. I don't doubt many people would rather cancel broadband than turn their boiler off.
  - koito17 3y ago
    Ironically, 8-10 years ago my carrier's cellular network felt so fast that a young, naive version of myself expected to never sign up for broadband internet. I used to actually play video games on this connection because it was way more reliable than my home internet connection. But in the past 4-5 years, this same cellular network has become a high jitter, low bandwidth disaster, despite "upgrades" from 4G LTE (i.e. faux 4G) to what my carrier claims is "5G". I'm aware this is just an anecdote and n = 1 implies infinite variance and what not, but it's amazing seeing countless people have such a good cellular network they can just ditch broadband subscriptions.
  - yamtaddle 3y ago
    I'd seriously consider it if not for working from home. Other than that, all we really use our home broadband for that I couldn't do with my phone is streaming—and you can buy/rent quite a few discs per month for the cost of broadband plus streaming services.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hashtag-til 3y ago
Or could've been written as "One million start sharing broadband as living costs rise (UK) "
badcppdev 3y ago
Turns out that as you squeeze the capital out of a segment of society then they will stop being part of capitalism.
onion2k 3y ago
Another reason to develop mobile first websites and apps, and focus perf testing on both overall page weight and high latency connections.
- Popcorn3865 3y ago
  Although if "cost of living" continues to rise, cancelling mobile contracts may be next. Many less well off folk have annual or multiyear deals (which include handsets) so the cancellations would come at end of term for most. I suspect the issue at hand is that a fast growing number of people simply can't afford non-essentials, and in the process of deciding what's absolutely necessary and optional, access to the Internet may not be a necessity when rent, food and energy (including fuel) consume every penny you earn (or, more than you earn, there's a increasing trend of short term loans being taken out to pay bills, which will come home to roost).
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    As counterintuitive as it might be, I think the cellphone and mobile contract come last (thought switching to a lower plan or a MVNO is an option). There is a saying that if you don't have money you need connections, so as it gets tougher, communication becomes critical. In particular missing a message from your bank alerting you of a operation that could get rejected, getting mail from social service of paperwork you need to get in order, alerts for tax deadlines etc. are essential. On the other end of the spectrum, keeping in touch with your buddy's friend who's a garagist and can fix you in a pinch, keeping an eye on your elderly in case they fall short of something, answering the call when your neighbour needs you to see their kids for an hour or two as they have an emergency is also critical.
    - gpderetta 3y ago
      Another way to say that is that a minium amount of connection is essential these days.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      Those things don't need contracts, just a phone with prepaid service. Top up £5 and be careful to make it last a couple of months, or potentially a lot longer (6+ months) if you can use WiFi and mostly receive calls and texts.
mobiuscog 3y ago
There will be a whole lot more cancelling, when (if) they actually remove landlines in 2025.
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  BT just announced a 40% reduction in jobs by the end of the decade. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65631168 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65631168
- Gordonjcp 3y ago
  They're not removing landlines. BT are no longer providing PSTN service. The existing copper infra will still be used for DSL services. Gradually these will get phased out and replaced by FTTP, but there's no real rush to do that.
  - yuhong 3y ago
    [dead]
andrewstuart 3y ago
Politicians would have us believe all is Ok.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  Labour wouldn't. Just sayin'
  - bnastic 3y ago
    _Our_ politicians are not like _their_ politicians.
  - jablala 3y ago
    Ah yes, the red tories.
    - toyg 3y ago
      Still better than the blue ones, who have been in power for 13 years and have only rubbles to show for it.
      - jablala 3y ago
        100% but when the alternative seems just so bleak it's hard to be positive.
0xDEF 3y ago
A lot of people, including my parents, are doing fine with just their smartphone's 4G/5G plans with unlimited data. Even watching hours of Netflix on TV doesn't lead to any throttling.
kmlx 3y ago
> One million cancel broadband as living costs rise > Citizens Advice said its survey of 6,000 people suggested big difference between the title and a survey of 6000 charity customers.
- kazinator 3y ago
  If that survey were properly randomly sampled across the UK population, the 95% confidence interval for that sample size would be around +/- 200,000 people: i.e. we are 95% sure that between 800,000 and 1.2M people canceled broadband (or whatever the question is in the survey). Even if the 6000 people surveyed are selected from those who seek help from Citizens Advice, there are ways to make reasonable inferences from that.
- helsinkiandrew 3y ago
  This wasn't a survey of CA customers, it was a survey funded by CA: > Walnut Unlimited surveyed 6,000 UK adults online including a total of 1,215 people in receipt of universal credit between January 9 and February 8. https://perspectivemag.co.uk/one-million-cut-broadband-access-amid-cost-of-living-crisis-survey/ https://perspectivemag.co.uk/one-million-cut-broadband-acces...
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  From the horses mouth: Citizens Advice data from an online survey of 6,000 UK adults plus a boost of 243 respondents in receipt of Universal Credit to make a total of 1,215 respondents in receipt of Universal Credit. Fieldwork was conducted by Walnut Unlimited on behalf of Citizens Advice. Fieldwork was undertaken between 9 January - 8 February 2023. The figures have been weighted and are nationally representative. The figures for the Universal Credit boost are weighted to be representative of the demographics of those receiving Universal Credit. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/about-us1/media/press-releases/one-million-lose-broadband-access-as-cost-of-living-crisis-bites/ https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/about-us1/media/p...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
gumballindie 3y ago
I dont think people comprehend how deep the economic issues of britain are.
- chrisbolt 3y ago
  Can you elaborate? I would like to comprehend.
  - monk_e_boy 3y ago
    Other than london and a couple of other cities, most of the country was already ranked as most deprived in Europe. Throw in Brexit, cost of living and most normal people are fucked. I'm a lecturer (5 yrs) and I'm struggling to pay my bills. We've been out on strike and nothing happened. NHS is struggling. Pay rises are around 0% for most people I know. Food inflation is around 16%. Foodbanks are struggling to feed families. Companies are making record profits, these are distributed as dividends to shareholders (the rich) who then go on to buy more shares or other assets (e.g. houses) Where I live most houses are Air B&B for a lot of the year, this has destroyed most villages by the coast. House prices have doubled or more. So a lot of those families have moved into towns, forced to rent rather than buy. Tons of money that used to go into mortgages (investments) is now funnelled to rich people who own the housing stock. There's a lot of crazy stuff going on. The UK has a shrinking middle class. The middle class used to drive the economy. The rich poor divide is breaking the country. A better TAX system would fix most of the problems. But our government is not interested.
    - el_oni 3y ago
      House prices are awful, and with the current mortgage rates it makes it even harder. Last July when we first started looking at what sort of deposit we would need and how much mortgage payments would be it looked like we would be spending an additional £400 a month (which is fine, I wouldn't have to save for a house after all). But since the catastrophic economic policies of our shortest term prime minisiter we would be paying an extra £1000 a month over our current rent. The house 2 doors down was last sold for £80k about 20 years ago. The house over the road that has just gone up for sale is asking for £300k. I'm lucky that my salary is over the median, but a 3-bed semi detached is like 10x the median salary (£26k). The same sort of property that my parents generation bought for 5x the median salary back in the 90s.
drumhead 3y ago
If you only ever use your phone then there's no point in paying for broadband. I think a lot of people have been taking a look at their subscriptions and cancelling things which they seldom use. Do you really need a sub for a 500mbit connection when you use you phone? You can always cancel it and switch to a much cheaper slower connection or just use you allowance. I had a Disney+ sub which I hardly used so I cancelled it along with several others I kept out of sheer inertia.
- jonathantf2 3y ago
  Most connections in the UK are max 80mbps so if you live in a city you’re probably getting quicker speeds in 4G anyway
  - 2b3a51 3y ago
    I'm on 'mobile broadband' in a city of 1 million in the UK midlands. That's where you pay a monthly fee and get a mains powered router pod that connects itself to the vendor's G4 mobile network. Several companies offer this. I ditched my landline phone and pay just under £15 a month. Works fine. Easily saturates the wifi card on my old Thinkpad at the same time as her indoors is watching Emmerdale over the same connection. Happy customer (at the moment, mergers in the pipeline).
  - blibble 3y ago
    as of this month 51% of UK premises have access to FTTP
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    That depends on concurrent traffic.
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    I have fiber, 1Gb, in Uk, and wouldnt trade it for anything else.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  OTOH the article cited as an example an old guy who go to the library to have internet access. It is very likely he can't even afford a mobile plan with data. I have known a number of people who rely on prepaid and only pay for it when they can. They will send you an email or ask someone to send you an sms so you can call them back.
Veen 3y ago
It should be noted that these figures are based on an online survey. So the affected people have access to the internet, most likely via their phones.
quickthrower2 3y ago
No mention of mobile phones? If you have a good data plan, and can tether your phone, ditching your broadband makes sense. Especially when the uptime of 4G/5G is much better in my experience, at least in populated areas. In addition, I might come up on a 'quit broadband' stat, as I sit here with my 5G hub. I am just using a different medium.
samwillis 3y ago
An interesting thing to note in contrast to this is the massive amount of PE cash being pumped into privet regional FTTP broadband companies. Affluent areas, such as where I live, are even seeing multiple competing companies pulling fibre through the OpenReach ducts. We have two along with BT to chose from in a town of only 30k people in the midlands. As others commenters have noted, the rich/poor divide is getting wider. On one end you have people canceling broadband, and the other massive privet fibre startups servicing affluent areas. The country is broken.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  The fact that you have multiple companies each running their own physical network (through the same ducts, no less!) is absolutely wasteful - imagine if we did the same for the electric grid, water or gas. The physical network should be government-managed and any providers can pay for layer-2 access between any 2 points. This will prevent wasteful, redundant infrastructure.
  - samwillis 3y ago
    Exactly, it's absurd. For a little more detail, this is Stamford Lincs. As well as BT installing FTTP we also have Upp Broadband and LightSpeed Broadband installing their own infrastructure. https://www.upp.com/ https://www.upp.com/ https://www.lightspeed.co.uk/ https://www.lightspeed.co.uk/ They have had to make some of the underground junction boxes bigger to fit all the kit in. My only thought is that they hoped to get their kit in quicker than BT and get brought out. Clearly the aim of these regional companies is to eventually be acquired by larger national ISPs.
    - foldr 3y ago
      Sounds oddly like the early days of the London Underground. So many weird station layouts in the modern system are the result of multiple separate systems run by private companies later being combined. There's an excellent YouTube channel about it: https://www.youtube.com/@JagoHazzard https://www.youtube.com/@JagoHazzard
  - 3y ago
nologic01 3y ago
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 entire population to mobile phones is a severe downgrade, a sort of digital precariat.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  > Homes should be connected with permanent, reliable, high capacity fiber optic networks. UK solved that problem by allowing DSL to be sold as "fiber".
  - thefz 3y ago
    > 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 mobile broadband and landline.
    - rcarr 3y ago
      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.
  - amiga386 3y ago
    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/ 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.
sega_sai 3y ago
Also because just this year broadband companies raised the prices by inflation + several percents. I.e. my monthly bill increased by > 10 quid. And in the same time I'm in a contract (till the end of the year), so I can't even switch. It's not surprising that people cancel their contracts if they can.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  It's amazing that one-sided contracts like this (where you're committed to a term, but they're not committed to a price) don't violate consumer protection laws. What if they chose to double your monthly bill?
  - LandR 3y ago
    Annoyingly, I just got a new mobile contract as I was leaving BT and moved to EE. I had agreed to a price of £x per month. After 2 weeks, I hadn't even had my first bill in, I got a letter saying the price was going up because of inflation... 2 weeks!
  - jsmith99 3y ago
    They can't. The contract generally says the price rise will be inflation plus a specified percent. Otherwise, eg if they raise call costs, they have to tell you that you can cancel penalty free - which I have done multiple times.
    - lucb1e 3y ago
      > inflation plus a specified percent You sure? In NL it's just inflation, anything else means you have the option to cancel. Seems odd that they could specify an extra percentage in their terms of service just for the heck of it, not because of increased costs or so. Though, in practice, you're with a carrier for a reason (either best quality or lowest price) and the competition also raised prices per inflation, or at least close enough that it doesn't tip the scale, so there's never a point cancelling a contract prematurely. Maximum contract duration is 2 years anyway iirc.
  - 3y ago
jarym 3y ago
And 3 million depend on food banks. Things are getting tough for lots of people and that's with extremely high levels of employment. Not sure this will go well if there is a recession that causes the jobless rate to increase.
- uoaei 3y ago
  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.
  - Nextgrid 3y ago
    Potential counterpoint: most gig work is on a contract/self-employed basis and may not be included in "employment" metrics.
    - soperj 3y ago
      If they're not looking for a job, then they would be.
  - ars 3y ago
    > poorly-paid gig work The gig workers I know do it because they like the money, it's the best money available to them. So I don't know about the "poorly-paid" part, there's so much demand for gig work people complain they can't find enough of it.
    - uoaei 3y ago
      Wishful thinking doesn't make for convincing rhetoric.
- yazzku 3y ago
  > Things are getting tough for lots of people and that's with extremely high levels of employment. Capitalism has succeeded then.
omginternets 3y ago
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.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  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.
  - omginternets 3y ago
    >You’ll see congestion during peak usage times Yeah, that's kind of the issue. That, and latency.
    - syntaxing 3y ago
      Not OP, but I used tmobile ISP for over two years during the whole Covid era. Worked pretty good for what it is, managed to get about 200 Mbps down and 20 up. I hit 500 Mbps but moved away from that area at one point. I only just switched to fiber recently because a 1G fiber line was installed and only cost $60 a month.
      - omginternets 3y ago
        >Worked pretty good for what it is, Sure. The "for what it is" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, though. See also: it's rather expensive for what it is.
        ianlevesque 3y ago
knorker 3y ago
I'm doing my part, sitting here with two broadband providers "just in case".
jameshush 3y ago
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 shopping. I couldn't believe it, so he pulled up his pay stub on his phone and showed me. Family members out here who are working non-tech regular jobs are telling me they had to cut back on turning on their heating at night during the winter. I grew up in Canada, and lived seven years in Los Angeles, but now live in Asia. I don't know how the UK is going to get back to where it was 10ish years ago.
- hinkley 3y ago
  Pretty sure five guys here is about that expensive. Haven’t been in a while. Might remedy that
- zabzonk 3y ago
  > This was at Five Guys that's quite up-market - you would pay much less at macdonalds. > he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this he must be earning a fair bit then 40 to 45 percent is the norm for good, middle-class salaries. but you are right, inflation here in the uk is getting quite frightening.
- EddieEngineers 3y ago
  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 $1k more than I'd pay in the UK but in the UK that includes national insurance while in the US I pay health insurance on top. So while taxes sound crazy in the UK it's not actually different to the US - it's all marginal. VAT is only 7.25% in California but then you have to add 15-20% in tips when you're out.
  - CydeWeys 3y ago
    You wouldn't be making nearly that much in the UK though.
rejectfinite 3y ago
Im in another country with a desktop, fibre, phone plan, 3 monitors, laptop, on 24/7. Im watching youtube and netflix right now an HN on one monitor How do peolpe function with just phone?? omg
- kwere 3y ago
  Some telecoms allow hotspots from phones to Pcs, and data plans are a afforable, considering most people rarely need more than 50-100 gb/month of mobile data. Personally in Italy i only use phone with hotspot, i pay 10$ for 200 gb data/month and i can "restart" the plan if i use all the data for 10$.
clnq 3y ago
> Watchdog Ofcom has warned 4.3 million eligible people are missing the deals. > These were available in 99% of the UK and started from £10 per month, it added. This language sounds a bit more like advertisement than what I'd expect from a national regulator. Also, almost of the social tariff plans (plans for people receiving significant poverty-related benefits in the UK) are at £10 per month - https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/costs-and-billing/social-tariffs https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice.... Also, broadband in the UK is not very expensive. 130 Mbps from Virgin Media is £26 a month with no set-up or rental fees. The £10 difference between the avg social tariff and what you can get on the high street is inconsequential in the context of the cost of living crisis. Heating is several hundred pounds each month for a typical apartment, food is another several hundred for a couple of people, unless they eat very low quality food, and renting a room is another several hundred in most cities, can go up to a £1.5k in London. If you have a family, you probably won't feel right living in a room, so your housing expenses will be much higher. I mean... there is value in jumping through some hoops to save £10 a month. But it's not really anything to write home about. I can understand why people would rather save £25 and cancel if they struggle to make ends meet and don't use broadband besides what they can get on their phone + hotspot. Or share a WiFi password between rooms/flats.
- skippyboxedhero 3y ago
  They aren't "significant poverty-related benefits", a lot of the benefits that make you eligible are in-work benefits or from having children. That is why most people don't claim, most of these people have jobs and have no problem paying another £10/month and don't want to go through the admin (or restrictions, I think some of the plans have restrictions). You are bang on about property costs. You notice how instant action has been taken by regulators to blame telecoms companies. Where is the action on planning regulations? Trying to reduce bills through this route really makes no sense.
  - clnq 3y ago
    Yes, I oversimplified the significant poverty-related benefits part. Also, when I said “significant”, I meant “not insubstantial”. I don’t mean benefits for those severely affected by poverty. And “poverty-related” to my mind includes “poverty-reducing”. Probably it could have been phrased better seeing that it wasn’t clear what I wanted to say.
johnvaluk 3y ago
I just canceled one of my ISPs because there was no way for me to adjust my plan online unless I selected an upgrade. The agents I chatted with were misleading and the website was full of dark patterns. I'd still be a customer if they had simply allowed me to make choices a la carte.
Neil44 3y ago
1 million cancel broadband in a year? The entire population is like 65M so the number of BB connections is going to be what, <10M? And 10% of them cancelled and didn’t renew in a 1 year period? Doesn’t pass smell test for me.
- toyg 3y ago
  Second ddg hit: "there were an estimate 28.1 million households in the UK in 2021". The actual Census (third hit) says 24.7 in England and Wales alone. So the actual cancellation figure would be around 3%. Sounds reasonable.
raydev 3y ago
Seems like both the article and many commenters here are overlooking the fact that most people have cheap mobile data plans. For most people's use cases (read: not readers here) that's enough. Most people living in cities and even most suburban areas have great coverage, so why bother paying for a landline?
- thom 3y ago
  While that’s a valid point, the Citizens Advice Bureau survey (which was conducted via an agency called Walnut Unlimited) asked follow up questions about negative consequences because of cancelling broadband and it was somewhat clear people’s quality of life suffered (12% of people said they cut back or cancelled broadband and experienced at least one negative consequence such as finding it harder to manage bills etc). https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/wales/about-us/about-us1/media/press-releases/one-million-lose-broadband-access-as-cost-of-living-crisis-bites/ https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/wales/about-us/about-us1/m...
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
Could it be because of unlimited fast 5G phone plans?
MarkusWandel 3y ago
This applies to where I live in Canada. The price skew may be even greater elsewhere. Good residential broadband now costs in the neighbourhood of $60/month; this will be essentially unlimited, to the point of being able to leave a 4K video stream playing as background entertainment. Good cellular service costs in the neighbourhood of $40/month and the amount of data you can use is going up gradually; currently I see 20-25GB advertised. That's plenty for "needed" internet access - not the leave video running part - and if you need your laptop online you can just tether it to your phone. So it's perfectly rational, if short on cash, to get rid of the home broadband. Can't get rid of the cell phone anyway since you've likely gotten rid of your landline phone already.
- sharkjacobs 3y ago
  > good cellular service costs in the neighbourhood of $40/month if you live in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, or Quebec. It's about double that in the rest of the Country.
  - tejohnso 3y ago
    I pay $25/mo in Ontario with Lucky. Never a dropped call, 1GB data (almost always on wireless anyway), unlimited canada wide calling, text.
fsckboy 3y ago
>One million cancel broadband because they use their mobile devices for absolutely everything are landlines next!?
testemailfordg2 3y ago
Just bought a cup of green tea in office(UK) today and realised the price has increased by ~43%....Even after a 10% employee discount.... Now ask yourselves does water+electricity+green tea import+paper cup+worker wages of the coffee shop increased collectively by 43% to justify this increase...
- tom_ 3y ago
  Ask yourself why you paid it!
trgdr 3y ago
As an American expat in London, I think the thing that consistently shocks me is how neither Brits nor Americans understand how much poorer Brits are than Americans. The median London wage is something like 30k GBP / 40k US. In New York (where I lived before London) that number is ~70k, and the costs of living are pretty comparable. And as much as I love that the NHS is a thing, it's not a reasonable comparison. No one I know who has a choice uses NHS services apart from emergency medicine or surgery. Everyone I know who can afford it has private health insurance anyway. In general, everyone I know in this country either has serious family money or is downright poor by American standards. There really isn't much in between. TO BE FAIR: it's generally much more pleasant to be poor in the UK than it is in the US. NHS is miles better than nothing, which is what many Americans have to deal with.
- b3kart 3y ago
  Dubious evidence for rather strong claims. > The median London wage is something like 30k GBP / 40k US. In New York (where I lived before London) that number is ~70k, and the costs of living are pretty comparable. Couldn't be bothered to verify the numbers, but even if they're true: you've compared London to New York. The vast majority of Brits and Americans don't live in these two cities. I'd argue that these two cities are not representative of the rest of the two countries. > Everyone I know who can afford it has private health insurance anyway. Have you considered that your sample is biased? It's akin to looking at the top 1% of earners in the UK and concluding that nobody uses the NHS. > It's generally much more pleasant to be poor in the UK than it is in the US. For some definition of "poor" this means that it's much more pleasant for the _majority_ of people to live in the UK than in the US. This seems to contradict your prior claims.
  - dan-robertson 3y ago
    US: Real median household income was $70,784 in 2021, not statistically different from the 2020 estimate of $71,186 (Figure 1 and Table A-1). [1] UK: Median household disposable income in the UK was £32,300 in the financial year ending (FYE) 2022, a decrease of 0.6% from FYE 2021, based on estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Household Finances Survey. [2] I think the GP’s claims are true (the UK is poorer and many people don’t realise it). It used to be a bit less obvious when GBP was strong so you needed to look at things like PPP (or like, how good the tumble driers are) to see the difference. [1] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2022/demo/p60-276.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2022/demo/p60-27... [2] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyearending2022 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personal...

287 points by nly 3y ago

Seems like counterintuitive but then again the article does not mention cellphones which is quite enough for many people.

Nextgrid 3y ago
Not to mention that a lot of connections are still DSL (misrepresented as "fibre" which is apparently perfectly legal) so in practice a cellular connection may very well be an upgrade.
- meinheld111 3y ago
  True. But quality metrics differ and no wireless connection that i have seen is an upgrade in terms of jitter and reliability overall a wired one (even dsl)
  - usrusr 3y ago
    And it won't exactly get better when your whole block starts canceling wired..
- Gordonjcp 3y ago
  I used to live in a house that was about 1.6km from the nearest FTTC cab and 8km from the exchange, just about 20 minutes drive from Glasgow. I could get very intermittent ADSL (2Mbps on a good day, typically down about 1Mbps if it was windy or rainy because of all the splices in the cable). I switched to 4G and got 40Mbps symmetric using a Mikrotik SXT-LTE on a pole at about eaves height aiming at a mast about 5km away. It was cheaper than ADSL, too! I think a lot of people on here are in the US where you get absolutely fucking *rinsed* for mobile data. Here in the UK it's cheap as tap water.
veltas 3y ago
Even 10 years ago I knew people cancelling their broadband to just use mobile internet. It's smart to cancel broadband if you're not streaming video, or if you are streaming but have a fast mobile network connection and decent plan. It probably sucks for any real-time stuff like gaming, but otherwise it makes sense. I don't doubt many people would rather cancel broadband than turn their boiler off.
- koito17 3y ago
  Ironically, 8-10 years ago my carrier's cellular network felt so fast that a young, naive version of myself expected to never sign up for broadband internet. I used to actually play video games on this connection because it was way more reliable than my home internet connection. But in the past 4-5 years, this same cellular network has become a high jitter, low bandwidth disaster, despite "upgrades" from 4G LTE (i.e. faux 4G) to what my carrier claims is "5G". I'm aware this is just an anecdote and n = 1 implies infinite variance and what not, but it's amazing seeing countless people have such a good cellular network they can just ditch broadband subscriptions.
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  I'd seriously consider it if not for working from home. Other than that, all we really use our home broadband for that I couldn't do with my phone is streaming—and you can buy/rent quite a few discs per month for the cost of broadband plus streaming services.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

hashtag-til 3y ago

Or could've been written as "One million start sharing broadband as living costs rise (UK) "

badcppdev 3y ago

Turns out that as you squeeze the capital out of a segment of society then they will stop being part of capitalism.

onion2k 3y ago

Another reason to develop mobile first websites and apps, and focus perf testing on both overall page weight and high latency connections.

Popcorn3865 3y ago
Although if "cost of living" continues to rise, cancelling mobile contracts may be next. Many less well off folk have annual or multiyear deals (which include handsets) so the cancellations would come at end of term for most. I suspect the issue at hand is that a fast growing number of people simply can't afford non-essentials, and in the process of deciding what's absolutely necessary and optional, access to the Internet may not be a necessity when rent, food and energy (including fuel) consume every penny you earn (or, more than you earn, there's a increasing trend of short term loans being taken out to pay bills, which will come home to roost).
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  As counterintuitive as it might be, I think the cellphone and mobile contract come last (thought switching to a lower plan or a MVNO is an option). There is a saying that if you don't have money you need connections, so as it gets tougher, communication becomes critical. In particular missing a message from your bank alerting you of a operation that could get rejected, getting mail from social service of paperwork you need to get in order, alerts for tax deadlines etc. are essential. On the other end of the spectrum, keeping in touch with your buddy's friend who's a garagist and can fix you in a pinch, keeping an eye on your elderly in case they fall short of something, answering the call when your neighbour needs you to see their kids for an hour or two as they have an emergency is also critical.
  - gpderetta 3y ago
    Another way to say that is that a minium amount of connection is essential these days.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    Those things don't need contracts, just a phone with prepaid service. Top up £5 and be careful to make it last a couple of months, or potentially a lot longer (6+ months) if you can use WiFi and mostly receive calls and texts.

mobiuscog 3y ago

There will be a whole lot more cancelling, when (if) they actually remove landlines in 2025.

tonyedgecombe 3y ago
BT just announced a 40% reduction in jobs by the end of the decade. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65631168 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65631168
Gordonjcp 3y ago
They're not removing landlines. BT are no longer providing PSTN service. The existing copper infra will still be used for DSL services. Gradually these will get phased out and replaced by FTTP, but there's no real rush to do that.
- yuhong 3y ago
  [dead]

andrewstuart 3y ago

Politicians would have us believe all is Ok.

rbanffy 3y ago
Labour wouldn't. Just sayin'
- bnastic 3y ago
  _Our_ politicians are not like _their_ politicians.
- jablala 3y ago
  Ah yes, the red tories.
  - toyg 3y ago
    Still better than the blue ones, who have been in power for 13 years and have only rubbles to show for it.
    - jablala 3y ago
      100% but when the alternative seems just so bleak it's hard to be positive.

0xDEF 3y ago

A lot of people, including my parents, are doing fine with just their smartphone's 4G/5G plans with unlimited data. Even watching hours of Netflix on TV doesn't lead to any throttling.

kmlx 3y ago

> One million cancel broadband as living costs rise > Citizens Advice said its survey of 6,000 people suggested big difference between the title and a survey of 6000 charity customers.

kazinator 3y ago
If that survey were properly randomly sampled across the UK population, the 95% confidence interval for that sample size would be around +/- 200,000 people: i.e. we are 95% sure that between 800,000 and 1.2M people canceled broadband (or whatever the question is in the survey). Even if the 6000 people surveyed are selected from those who seek help from Citizens Advice, there are ways to make reasonable inferences from that.
helsinkiandrew 3y ago
This wasn't a survey of CA customers, it was a survey funded by CA: > Walnut Unlimited surveyed 6,000 UK adults online including a total of 1,215 people in receipt of universal credit between January 9 and February 8. https://perspectivemag.co.uk/one-million-cut-broadband-access-amid-cost-of-living-crisis-survey/ https://perspectivemag.co.uk/one-million-cut-broadband-acces...
tonyedgecombe 3y ago
From the horses mouth: Citizens Advice data from an online survey of 6,000 UK adults plus a boost of 243 respondents in receipt of Universal Credit to make a total of 1,215 respondents in receipt of Universal Credit. Fieldwork was conducted by Walnut Unlimited on behalf of Citizens Advice. Fieldwork was undertaken between 9 January - 8 February 2023. The figures have been weighted and are nationally representative. The figures for the Universal Credit boost are weighted to be representative of the demographics of those receiving Universal Credit. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/about-us1/media/press-releases/one-million-lose-broadband-access-as-cost-of-living-crisis-bites/ https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/about-us1/media/p...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

gumballindie 3y ago

I dont think people comprehend how deep the economic issues of britain are.

chrisbolt 3y ago
Can you elaborate? I would like to comprehend.
- monk_e_boy 3y ago
  Other than london and a couple of other cities, most of the country was already ranked as most deprived in Europe. Throw in Brexit, cost of living and most normal people are fucked. I'm a lecturer (5 yrs) and I'm struggling to pay my bills. We've been out on strike and nothing happened. NHS is struggling. Pay rises are around 0% for most people I know. Food inflation is around 16%. Foodbanks are struggling to feed families. Companies are making record profits, these are distributed as dividends to shareholders (the rich) who then go on to buy more shares or other assets (e.g. houses) Where I live most houses are Air B&B for a lot of the year, this has destroyed most villages by the coast. House prices have doubled or more. So a lot of those families have moved into towns, forced to rent rather than buy. Tons of money that used to go into mortgages (investments) is now funnelled to rich people who own the housing stock. There's a lot of crazy stuff going on. The UK has a shrinking middle class. The middle class used to drive the economy. The rich poor divide is breaking the country. A better TAX system would fix most of the problems. But our government is not interested.
  - el_oni 3y ago
    House prices are awful, and with the current mortgage rates it makes it even harder. Last July when we first started looking at what sort of deposit we would need and how much mortgage payments would be it looked like we would be spending an additional £400 a month (which is fine, I wouldn't have to save for a house after all). But since the catastrophic economic policies of our shortest term prime minisiter we would be paying an extra £1000 a month over our current rent. The house 2 doors down was last sold for £80k about 20 years ago. The house over the road that has just gone up for sale is asking for £300k. I'm lucky that my salary is over the median, but a 3-bed semi detached is like 10x the median salary (£26k). The same sort of property that my parents generation bought for 5x the median salary back in the 90s.

drumhead 3y ago

If you only ever use your phone then there's no point in paying for broadband. I think a lot of people have been taking a look at their subscriptions and cancelling things which they seldom use. Do you really need a sub for a 500mbit connection when you use you phone? You can always cancel it and switch to a much cheaper slower connection or just use you allowance. I had a Disney+ sub which I hardly used so I cancelled it along with several others I kept out of sheer inertia.

jonathantf2 3y ago
Most connections in the UK are max 80mbps so if you live in a city you’re probably getting quicker speeds in 4G anyway
- 2b3a51 3y ago
  I'm on 'mobile broadband' in a city of 1 million in the UK midlands. That's where you pay a monthly fee and get a mains powered router pod that connects itself to the vendor's G4 mobile network. Several companies offer this. I ditched my landline phone and pay just under £15 a month. Works fine. Easily saturates the wifi card on my old Thinkpad at the same time as her indoors is watching Emmerdale over the same connection. Happy customer (at the moment, mergers in the pipeline).
- blibble 3y ago
  as of this month 51% of UK premises have access to FTTP
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  That depends on concurrent traffic.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  I have fiber, 1Gb, in Uk, and wouldnt trade it for anything else.
prmoustache 3y ago
OTOH the article cited as an example an old guy who go to the library to have internet access. It is very likely he can't even afford a mobile plan with data. I have known a number of people who rely on prepaid and only pay for it when they can. They will send you an email or ask someone to send you an sms so you can call them back.

Veen 3y ago

It should be noted that these figures are based on an online survey. So the affected people have access to the internet, most likely via their phones.

quickthrower2 3y ago

No mention of mobile phones? If you have a good data plan, and can tether your phone, ditching your broadband makes sense. Especially when the uptime of 4G/5G is much better in my experience, at least in populated areas. In addition, I might come up on a 'quit broadband' stat, as I sit here with my 5G hub. I am just using a different medium.

samwillis 3y ago

An interesting thing to note in contrast to this is the massive amount of PE cash being pumped into privet regional FTTP broadband companies. Affluent areas, such as where I live, are even seeing multiple competing companies pulling fibre through the OpenReach ducts. We have two along with BT to chose from in a town of only 30k people in the midlands. As others commenters have noted, the rich/poor divide is getting wider. On one end you have people canceling broadband, and the other massive privet fibre startups servicing affluent areas. The country is broken.

Nextgrid 3y ago
The fact that you have multiple companies each running their own physical network (through the same ducts, no less!) is absolutely wasteful - imagine if we did the same for the electric grid, water or gas. The physical network should be government-managed and any providers can pay for layer-2 access between any 2 points. This will prevent wasteful, redundant infrastructure.
- samwillis 3y ago
  Exactly, it's absurd. For a little more detail, this is Stamford Lincs. As well as BT installing FTTP we also have Upp Broadband and LightSpeed Broadband installing their own infrastructure. https://www.upp.com/ https://www.upp.com/ https://www.lightspeed.co.uk/ https://www.lightspeed.co.uk/ They have had to make some of the underground junction boxes bigger to fit all the kit in. My only thought is that they hoped to get their kit in quicker than BT and get brought out. Clearly the aim of these regional companies is to eventually be acquired by larger national ISPs.
  - foldr 3y ago
    Sounds oddly like the early days of the London Underground. So many weird station layouts in the modern system are the result of multiple separate systems run by private companies later being combined. There's an excellent YouTube channel about it: https://www.youtube.com/@JagoHazzard https://www.youtube.com/@JagoHazzard
- 3y ago

nologic01 3y ago

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 entire population to mobile phones is a severe downgrade, a sort of digital precariat.

Nextgrid 3y ago
> Homes should be connected with permanent, reliable, high capacity fiber optic networks. UK solved that problem by allowing DSL to be sold as "fiber".
- thefz 3y ago
  > 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 mobile broadband and landline.
  - rcarr 3y ago
    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.
- amiga386 3y ago
  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/ 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.

sega_sai 3y ago

Also because just this year broadband companies raised the prices by inflation + several percents. I.e. my monthly bill increased by > 10 quid. And in the same time I'm in a contract (till the end of the year), so I can't even switch. It's not surprising that people cancel their contracts if they can.

AlexandrB 3y ago
It's amazing that one-sided contracts like this (where you're committed to a term, but they're not committed to a price) don't violate consumer protection laws. What if they chose to double your monthly bill?
- LandR 3y ago
  Annoyingly, I just got a new mobile contract as I was leaving BT and moved to EE. I had agreed to a price of £x per month. After 2 weeks, I hadn't even had my first bill in, I got a letter saying the price was going up because of inflation... 2 weeks!
- jsmith99 3y ago
  They can't. The contract generally says the price rise will be inflation plus a specified percent. Otherwise, eg if they raise call costs, they have to tell you that you can cancel penalty free - which I have done multiple times.
  - lucb1e 3y ago
    > inflation plus a specified percent You sure? In NL it's just inflation, anything else means you have the option to cancel. Seems odd that they could specify an extra percentage in their terms of service just for the heck of it, not because of increased costs or so. Though, in practice, you're with a carrier for a reason (either best quality or lowest price) and the competition also raised prices per inflation, or at least close enough that it doesn't tip the scale, so there's never a point cancelling a contract prematurely. Maximum contract duration is 2 years anyway iirc.
- 3y ago

jarym 3y ago

And 3 million depend on food banks. Things are getting tough for lots of people and that's with extremely high levels of employment. Not sure this will go well if there is a recession that causes the jobless rate to increase.

uoaei 3y ago
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.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  Potential counterpoint: most gig work is on a contract/self-employed basis and may not be included in "employment" metrics.
  - soperj 3y ago
    If they're not looking for a job, then they would be.
- ars 3y ago
  > poorly-paid gig work The gig workers I know do it because they like the money, it's the best money available to them. So I don't know about the "poorly-paid" part, there's so much demand for gig work people complain they can't find enough of it.
  - uoaei 3y ago
    Wishful thinking doesn't make for convincing rhetoric.
yazzku 3y ago
> Things are getting tough for lots of people and that's with extremely high levels of employment. Capitalism has succeeded then.

omginternets 3y ago

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.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
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.
- omginternets 3y ago
  >You’ll see congestion during peak usage times Yeah, that's kind of the issue. That, and latency.
  - syntaxing 3y ago
    Not OP, but I used tmobile ISP for over two years during the whole Covid era. Worked pretty good for what it is, managed to get about 200 Mbps down and 20 up. I hit 500 Mbps but moved away from that area at one point. I only just switched to fiber recently because a 1G fiber line was installed and only cost $60 a month.
    - omginternets 3y ago
      >Worked pretty good for what it is, Sure. The "for what it is" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, though. See also: it's rather expensive for what it is.
      - ianlevesque 3y ago

knorker 3y ago

I'm doing my part, sitting here with two broadband providers "just in case".

jameshush 3y ago

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 shopping. I couldn't believe it, so he pulled up his pay stub on his phone and showed me. Family members out here who are working non-tech regular jobs are telling me they had to cut back on turning on their heating at night during the winter. I grew up in Canada, and lived seven years in Los Angeles, but now live in Asia. I don't know how the UK is going to get back to where it was 10ish years ago.

hinkley 3y ago
Pretty sure five guys here is about that expensive. Haven’t been in a while. Might remedy that
zabzonk 3y ago
> This was at Five Guys that's quite up-market - you would pay much less at macdonalds. > he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this he must be earning a fair bit then 40 to 45 percent is the norm for good, middle-class salaries. but you are right, inflation here in the uk is getting quite frightening.
EddieEngineers 3y ago
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 different to the US - it's all marginal. VAT is only 7.25% in California but then you have to add 15-20% in tips when you're out.
- CydeWeys 3y ago
  You wouldn't be making nearly that much in the UK though.

rejectfinite 3y ago

Im in another country with a desktop, fibre, phone plan, 3 monitors, laptop, on 24/7. Im watching youtube and netflix right now an HN on one monitor How do peolpe function with just phone?? omg

kwere 3y ago
Some telecoms allow hotspots from phones to Pcs, and data plans are a afforable, considering most people rarely need more than 50-100 gb/month of mobile data. Personally in Italy i only use phone with hotspot, i pay 10$ for 200 gb data/month and i can "restart" the plan if i use all the data for 10$.

clnq 3y ago

> Watchdog Ofcom has warned 4.3 million eligible people are missing the deals. > These were available in 99% of the UK and started from £10 per month, it added. This language sounds a bit more like advertisement than what I'd expect from a national regulator. Also, almost of the social tariff plans (plans for people receiving significant poverty-related benefits in the UK) are at £10 per month - https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/costs-and-billing/social-tariffs https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice.... Also, broadband in the UK is not very expensive. 130 Mbps from Virgin Media is £26 a month with no set-up or rental fees. The £10 difference between the avg social tariff and what you can get on the high street is inconsequential in the context of the cost of living crisis. Heating is several hundred pounds each month for a typical apartment, food is another several hundred for a couple of people, unless they eat very low quality food, and renting a room is another several hundred in most cities, can go up to a £1.5k in London. If you have a family, you probably won't feel right living in a room, so your housing expenses will be much higher. I mean... there is value in jumping through some hoops to save £10 a month. But it's not really anything to write home about. I can understand why people would rather save £25 and cancel if they struggle to make ends meet and don't use broadband besides what they can get on their phone + hotspot. Or share a WiFi password between rooms/flats.

skippyboxedhero 3y ago
They aren't "significant poverty-related benefits", a lot of the benefits that make you eligible are in-work benefits or from having children. That is why most people don't claim, most of these people have jobs and have no problem paying another £10/month and don't want to go through the admin (or restrictions, I think some of the plans have restrictions). You are bang on about property costs. You notice how instant action has been taken by regulators to blame telecoms companies. Where is the action on planning regulations? Trying to reduce bills through this route really makes no sense.
- clnq 3y ago
  Yes, I oversimplified the significant poverty-related benefits part. Also, when I said “significant”, I meant “not insubstantial”. I don’t mean benefits for those severely affected by poverty. And “poverty-related” to my mind includes “poverty-reducing”. Probably it could have been phrased better seeing that it wasn’t clear what I wanted to say.

johnvaluk 3y ago

I just canceled one of my ISPs because there was no way for me to adjust my plan online unless I selected an upgrade. The agents I chatted with were misleading and the website was full of dark patterns. I'd still be a customer if they had simply allowed me to make choices a la carte.

Neil44 3y ago

1 million cancel broadband in a year? The entire population is like 65M so the number of BB connections is going to be what, <10M? And 10% of them cancelled and didn’t renew in a 1 year period? Doesn’t pass smell test for me.

toyg 3y ago
Second ddg hit: "there were an estimate 28.1 million households in the UK in 2021". The actual Census (third hit) says 24.7 in England and Wales alone. So the actual cancellation figure would be around 3%. Sounds reasonable.

raydev 3y ago

Seems like both the article and many commenters here are overlooking the fact that most people have cheap mobile data plans. For most people's use cases (read: not readers here) that's enough. Most people living in cities and even most suburban areas have great coverage, so why bother paying for a landline?

thom 3y ago
While that’s a valid point, the Citizens Advice Bureau survey (which was conducted via an agency called Walnut Unlimited) asked follow up questions about negative consequences because of cancelling broadband and it was somewhat clear people’s quality of life suffered (12% of people said they cut back or cancelled broadband and experienced at least one negative consequence such as finding it harder to manage bills etc). https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/wales/about-us/about-us1/media/press-releases/one-million-lose-broadband-access-as-cost-of-living-crisis-bites/ https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/wales/about-us/about-us1/m...

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago

Could it be because of unlimited fast 5G phone plans?

MarkusWandel 3y ago

This applies to where I live in Canada. The price skew may be even greater elsewhere. Good residential broadband now costs in the neighbourhood of $60/month; this will be essentially unlimited, to the point of being able to leave a 4K video stream playing as background entertainment. Good cellular service costs in the neighbourhood of $40/month and the amount of data you can use is going up gradually; currently I see 20-25GB advertised. That's plenty for "needed" internet access - not the leave video running part - and if you need your laptop online you can just tether it to your phone. So it's perfectly rational, if short on cash, to get rid of the home broadband. Can't get rid of the cell phone anyway since you've likely gotten rid of your landline phone already.

sharkjacobs 3y ago
> good cellular service costs in the neighbourhood of $40/month if you live in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, or Quebec. It's about double that in the rest of the Country.
- tejohnso 3y ago
  I pay $25/mo in Ontario with Lucky. Never a dropped call, 1GB data (almost always on wireless anyway), unlimited canada wide calling, text.

fsckboy 3y ago

>One million cancel broadband because they use their mobile devices for absolutely everything are landlines next!?

testemailfordg2 3y ago

Just bought a cup of green tea in office(UK) today and realised the price has increased by ~43%....Even after a 10% employee discount.... Now ask yourselves does water+electricity+green tea import+paper cup+worker wages of the coffee shop increased collectively by 43% to justify this increase...

tom_ 3y ago
Ask yourself why you paid it!

trgdr 3y ago

As an American expat in London, I think the thing that consistently shocks me is how neither Brits nor Americans understand how much poorer Brits are than Americans. The median London wage is something like 30k GBP / 40k US. In New York (where I lived before London) that number is ~70k, and the costs of living are pretty comparable. And as much as I love that the NHS is a thing, it's not a reasonable comparison. No one I know who has a choice uses NHS services apart from emergency medicine or surgery. Everyone I know who can afford it has private health insurance anyway. In general, everyone I know in this country either has serious family money or is downright poor by American standards. There really isn't much in between. TO BE FAIR: it's generally much more pleasant to be poor in the UK than it is in the US. NHS is miles better than nothing, which is what many Americans have to deal with.

b3kart 3y ago
Dubious evidence for rather strong claims. > The median London wage is something like 30k GBP / 40k US. In New York (where I lived before London) that number is ~70k, and the costs of living are pretty comparable. Couldn't be bothered to verify the numbers, but even if they're true: you've compared London to New York. The vast majority of Brits and Americans don't live in these two cities. I'd argue that these two cities are not representative of the rest of the two countries. > Everyone I know who can afford it has private health insurance anyway. Have you considered that your sample is biased? It's akin to looking at the top 1% of earners in the UK and concluding that nobody uses the NHS. > It's generally much more pleasant to be poor in the UK than it is in the US. For some definition of "poor" this means that it's much more pleasant for the _majority_ of people to live in the UK than in the US. This seems to contradict your prior claims.
- dan-robertson 3y ago
  US: Real median household income was $70,784 in 2021, not statistically different from the 2020 estimate of $71,186 (Figure 1 and Table A-1). [1] UK: Median household disposable income in the UK was £32,300 in the financial year ending (FYE) 2022, a decrease of 0.6% from FYE 2021, based on estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Household Finances Survey. [2] I think the GP’s claims are true (the UK is poorer and many people don’t realise it). It used to be a bit less obvious when GBP was strong so you needed to look at things like PPP (or like, how good the tumble driers are) to see the difference. [1] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2022/demo/p60-276.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2022/demo/p60-27... [2] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyearending2022 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personal...