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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 cancel

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.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
I'm surprised more people aren't doing the opposite. There are pay as you go phone plans that cost hardly anything. Meanwhile there is free WiFi almost everywhere, including at home. If you have broadband. So pay the cable company for fast internet and pay half that or less for mobile service, then connect your mobile to WiFi 97% of the time so you hardly use any mobile data. The math gets even more dramatic if you have multiple people living in the same place. Broadband price gets divided by however many people you have there, higher cost of an unlimited phone plan get multiplied by the same number.
- _0w8t 3y ago
  It all depends on price details. In Norway one needs to pay about 20 Euro/month for a phone subscription with amount of data that allows, for example, watch YouTube or do video calls occasionally outside WiFi. Yet for 35 Euro/month one can get a mobile subscription with 1 TB of traffic with 10 MBit/s speed. That is enough to watch movies and do many kinds of remote work. Yet the fiber costs at least 50 Euro/month. So it only makes sense to get broadband if it is shared by 4 people.
  - tristor 3y ago
    Sounds like it makes sense to get fiber as soon as 2+ people are sharing it, since it's faster and less than 70 EUR/mo.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      You still want a cheap mobile plan, so it's not technically cheaper until you have 4 people. But that's comparing fiber to 10Mbps cellular, and even with 2 people the fiber is dramatically faster and only €20 more expensive. If you can live with 10Mbps then there is presumably some broadband option at no worse than that speed for less than €30 and then you're already ahead with 2 people. And most people aren't going to be happy with speeds that low, but then you'd be paying more for each cellular plan.
      - 3y ago
dheera 3y ago
> If you only ever use your phone then there's no point in paying for broadband. Um, I live 2km from the Google headquarters and I have zero cell reception in my apartment. That's the state of technology in 2023 for you. Yes, I need broadband and Wi-Fi to do anything at home.
- ben_w 3y ago
  On the other hand, before moving abroad I used to live in a sleepy quaint village a few miles north of Cambridge, and was already able to switch from wired broadband to mobile broadband back in 2017 — just a few percent of UK households is sufficient for "a million". It isn't necessary for everyone to be able to do this to get headlines, and logic, like this.
hammyhavoc 3y ago
This assumes that people don't live outside of areas of major population density where cellular coverage is spotty and where there's not much work. This also assumes that people don't need to transfer significant quantities of data on a regular basis for whatever reason.
- mywittyname 3y ago
  The people canceling their subs probably live in areas with good mobile coverage. This article is about people living UK, which a much smaller country that has much better mobile coverage.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    I live in the UK. Cellular coverage is hit-and-miss up North where there's not much work outside of areas of high population density.
monkeynotes 3y ago
Exactly, are these people entirely cut off from the internet or do they just use their ridiculously cheap mobile data? Imagine this article 10 years ago talking about UK people ditching their land line and surmising those people are being left behind. The reality is mobile data can cover your minimal internet requirements in the UK.
dorkwood 3y ago
I had that plan when I moved to the US, until I found out that T-Mobile blocks you from tethering to your phone.
- mnkmnk 3y ago
  It should be illegal to restrict tethering or charging differently for tethering. There are really no technical reasons for a phone to even convey whether it is using the data or sharing data using a hotspot. It is purely for price gouging. I also hate that even unlocked phones don’t have a way to stop the provider from knowing whether tethering is being used or not.

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.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

I'm surprised more people aren't doing the opposite. There are pay as you go phone plans that cost hardly anything. Meanwhile there is free WiFi almost everywhere, including at home. If you have broadband. So pay the cable company for fast internet and pay half that or less for mobile service, then connect your mobile to WiFi 97% of the time so you hardly use any mobile data. The math gets even more dramatic if you have multiple people living in the same place. Broadband price gets divided by however many people you have there, higher cost of an unlimited phone plan get multiplied by the same number.

_0w8t 3y ago
It all depends on price details. In Norway one needs to pay about 20 Euro/month for a phone subscription with amount of data that allows, for example, watch YouTube or do video calls occasionally outside WiFi. Yet for 35 Euro/month one can get a mobile subscription with 1 TB of traffic with 10 MBit/s speed. That is enough to watch movies and do many kinds of remote work. Yet the fiber costs at least 50 Euro/month. So it only makes sense to get broadband if it is shared by 4 people.
- tristor 3y ago
  Sounds like it makes sense to get fiber as soon as 2+ people are sharing it, since it's faster and less than 70 EUR/mo.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    You still want a cheap mobile plan, so it's not technically cheaper until you have 4 people. But that's comparing fiber to 10Mbps cellular, and even with 2 people the fiber is dramatically faster and only €20 more expensive. If you can live with 10Mbps then there is presumably some broadband option at no worse than that speed for less than €30 and then you're already ahead with 2 people. And most people aren't going to be happy with speeds that low, but then you'd be paying more for each cellular plan.
    - 3y ago

dheera 3y ago

> If you only ever use your phone then there's no point in paying for broadband. Um, I live 2km from the Google headquarters and I have zero cell reception in my apartment. That's the state of technology in 2023 for you. Yes, I need broadband and Wi-Fi to do anything at home.

ben_w 3y ago
On the other hand, before moving abroad I used to live in a sleepy quaint village a few miles north of Cambridge, and was already able to switch from wired broadband to mobile broadband back in 2017 — just a few percent of UK households is sufficient for "a million". It isn't necessary for everyone to be able to do this to get headlines, and logic, like this.

hammyhavoc 3y ago

This assumes that people don't live outside of areas of major population density where cellular coverage is spotty and where there's not much work. This also assumes that people don't need to transfer significant quantities of data on a regular basis for whatever reason.

mywittyname 3y ago
The people canceling their subs probably live in areas with good mobile coverage. This article is about people living UK, which a much smaller country that has much better mobile coverage.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  I live in the UK. Cellular coverage is hit-and-miss up North where there's not much work outside of areas of high population density.

monkeynotes 3y ago

Exactly, are these people entirely cut off from the internet or do they just use their ridiculously cheap mobile data? Imagine this article 10 years ago talking about UK people ditching their land line and surmising those people are being left behind. The reality is mobile data can cover your minimal internet requirements in the UK.

dorkwood 3y ago

I had that plan when I moved to the US, until I found out that T-Mobile blocks you from tethering to your phone.

mnkmnk 3y ago
It should be illegal to restrict tethering or charging differently for tethering. There are really no technical reasons for a phone to even convey whether it is using the data or sharing data using a hotspot. It is purely for price gouging. I also hate that even unlocked phones don’t have a way to stop the provider from knowing whether tethering is being used or not.