Why is broadband so expensive in the US

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Commercials are the ultimate pest. I never watch a channel that has commercials (except CNN Europe and Al Jazera in English which are 'mild'). In my German setup I have appr. 100 commercial free channels of which I use 40 from 7 different countries. There are a lot of channels from more countries but those are in e.g. Farsi or Arab languages.

Different strokes for different folks.

 

[AmericanPharaoh]

Commercials are the ultimate pest. I never watch a channel that has commercials (except CNN Europe and Al Jazera in English which are 'mild'). In my German setup I have appr. 100 commercial free channels of which I use 40 from 7 different countries. There are a lot of channels from more countries but those are in e.g. Farsi or Arab languages.

For me, I grew up with TV commercials. So, I guess I'm just used to them always being there. Ever saw the Movie Demolition Man, were commercial songs are their favor music. LOL

Don't know how TV is setup in Europe, but I'd imagine by having all those small countries so close to one another may be the reason it is like that. Group discount.

I guess they have their own satellites and can link with ours. Although, I never studied this subject.

If you learn Farsi and Arabic, you'll have forty more commercial free channels!

John

 

[whs]

The advantage of having TV from many countries is that you can get perspecives on current issues that come from different angles. Thus you are not stuck with what one goverment allows them to broadcast.

Europe has many countries but it is not small and the EU alone is 500 million people - if only their goverments could agree on a common direction. With the history of those 27 countries that is not easy - especially with the Brits.

 

[boohbah]

quite so.

 

[ThrashZone]

U-Verse isn't all that bad as when it was first put out there, 84.00 Internet and t.v. no land line,
Cell is on the chopping block 79.00/ which not allot of options there= Verizon or at&t which Verizon is on the high side but more data...
HD quality is very good now the boxes come preset on 720 so as soon as I switched to 1080 it was better than what Dish network had plus no more storm outages,
Price wise I saved quite a bit over what Comcast had and the plus there is not dealing with Comcast Priceless

 

[AmericanPharaoh]

The advantage of having TV from many countries is that you can get perspecives on current issues that come from different angles. Thus you are not stuck with what one goverment allows them to broadcast.

Europe has many countries but it is not small and the EU alone is 500 million people - if only their goverments could agree on a common direction. With the history of those 27 countries that is not easy - especially with the Brits.

What I meant when I said small countries was their size as in square miles in area, and not population. I do realize Germany is packed with a population of over 82,000,000 and is about the same size in square miles as the US state of New Mexico. I lived in Darmstadt, Germany for nearly 3 years. But, that was a long time ago. Oktoberfest was fun!

I watch BBC channel often, like their news and movies. I don't have HBO, but Downton Abbey is really good. Saw the first 2 seasons in Comcast On-Demand. Still waiting for season 3 to pop up there.

John

 

[Britton30]

Wolfgang I wish the US had free commercial-free channels with watchable, entertaining content. We have C-SPAN and occasionally NASA TV. C-SPAN is or was live feeds from Congress, not fun at all.

I suppose I'm more or less average in TV habits. When commercials come on my eyes glaze over or I go get a snack. I suspect if these advertisers knew how little their expensive content is ignored there would be changes.

One unique exception, I like to watch the Super Bowl only for the new and sometimes very funny ads, I don't like football. I do now have a DVR so I can forward through ads with recordings.

The answer to the title....they are greedy <expletive deleted>.

 

[Stephanie]

Seams to me that Broadband is quit reasonable in the UK, SKY do a free Broadband and its about 2MB line.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
As the previous poster says - the Cost of Broadband in most places in the UK where there is reasonable competition - particularly between Virgin and SKY you can get some good deals and UNCAPPED -- as I've pointed out there's no point in having the fastest broadband on the planet if your CAP is about 5 mins worth of an HD MOVIE -- don't forget it's not just DOWNLOADS that consume bandwidth but things like STREAMED services (NETFLIX, SKY GO etc) also consume just as much as downloads too.

The main problem with the UK is that if the courts can get an order at the drop of a hat to BLOCK sites there won't be soon be any sites apart from Govt services to log on to. The UK will soon have a more restricted service than China or N Korea !!!

Here's another 20 or so sites that are being blocked in the UK - some of these aren't even "classical Torrent sites" but are getting refused access just because some Movie / music companies think they *Could* host copyright material !!!!.

From the BBC : BBC News - ISPs told to block 21 pirate sites

Mind you takes about 2 secs to bypass - but still shows what Govts are REALLY after - not per se the blocking of these sorts of sites - but eventually ANY site they don't like - probably will give a bovine reason like National Security. By allowing the courts to have a go at these sites the UK Govt is testing the water for a BIG attack later on sites IT wants to block.

I'm sure in the USA the Federal Govt is probably looking at this with interest too --just because it happens in ONE country doesn't mean it won't happen elsewhere.


Cheers
jimbo

 

[Britton30]

I forgot to mention I have Comcast too. they had proposed a cap too but at 250GB per month. they have suspended it for the time being.

I hope the tough police don't rise up here too.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
It's not the commercials - but the QUALITY of them these days that's so inane.

I remember an old commercial -- it showed a picture of a seemingly empty building with a phone ringing -- a man then appeared going through rooms until he found a phone under a thick layer of dust -- he blew the dust away and on the phone it said "Carlsberg Complaints Dept" !!! (Carlsberg is a type of lager / beer for those not in the know).

Another good one - also by a Danish beer company was a Huge truck pulls up outside a small house. Truck driver rings door bell -- old grey-haired woman answers door - truck driver asks to go to the Bog (can / WC) - woman sees Tuborg Export on side of truck and says Yes please do. -- As soon as truck driver enters she opens a trapdoor and deposits Truck driver in the cellar.

Commercial ends with "Tuborg so good - The Danes hate to see it leave". !!

They don't make commercials like that any more so no wonder people don't watch them. For TV catch up services are infinitely better so no commercials even on commercial channels (at least on the SKY catch up service).

Mind you again if you use the TV catch up services whether downloading or via streams you still need a decent UNCAPPED service -- it doesn't have to be mega fast either - a 3 - 4 MB/s service will easily stream you an HD movie at full 1080p quality. For me I'd choose almost ANY uncapped service over a capped one at almost any speed.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[whs]

The advantage of having TV from many countries is that you can get perspecives on current issues that come from different angles. Thus you are not stuck with what one goverment allows them to broadcast.

Europe has many countries but it is not small and the EU alone is 500 million people - if only their goverments could agree on a common direction. With the history of those 27 countries that is not easy - especially with the Brits.

What I meant when I said small countries was their size as in square miles in area, and not population. I do realize Germany is packed with a population of over 82,000,000 and is about the same size in square miles as the US state of New Mexico. I lived in Darmstadt, Germany for nearly 3 years. But, that was a long time ago. Oktoberfest was fun!

I watch BBC channel often, like their news and movies. I don't have HBO, but Downton Abbey is really good. Saw the first 2 seasons in Comcast On-Demand. Still waiting for season 3 to pop up there.

John

Interesting - Darmstadt is my home town where I grew up and made my masters degree at the Technische Hochschule. But that was in the late 50's and early 60's. I left there in 1961 to work in Stuttgart and have lived mostely in foreign countries since 1962.

 

[whs]

Wolfgang I wish the US had free commercial-free channels with watchable, entertaining content. We have C-SPAN and occasionally NASA TV. C-SPAN is or was live feeds from Congress, not fun at all.

I suppose I'm more or less average in TV habits. When commercials come on my eyes glaze over or I go get a snack. I suspect if these advertisers knew how little their expensive content is ignored there would be changes.

One unique exception, I like to watch the Super Bowl only for the new and sometimes very funny ads, I don't like football. I do now have a DVR so I can forward through ads with recordings.

The answer to the title....they are greedy <expletive deleted>.

Gary, our commercial free channels have excellent programs. They are federal or a German state (we have 16 states) owned but are controlled by independent boards that come from all walks of life - parties, unions, churches and other groups. That makes them completely independent. Those channels we pay for with our 20 Euro fee.

But we also have channels that are financed by e.g. the German Parliament, the EU, Germany and France together (Arte) and Germany, Austria and Switzerland together (3Sat).

In addition to those we have commercial free channels from other countries. I watch Austria, Switzerland, UK, Canada (Quebec), France, Belgium. And then there is, of course, CNN Europe and Al Jazeera in English (excellent). But those have an occasional commercials.

There are also Russian and Chinese channels in English. But those I usually do not watch.

 

[AmericanPharaoh]

The advantage of having TV from many countries is that you can get perspecives on current issues that come from different angles. Thus you are not stuck with what one goverment allows them to broadcast.

Europe has many countries but it is not small and the EU alone is 500 million people - if only their goverments could agree on a common direction. With the history of those 27 countries that is not easy - especially with the Brits.

What I meant when I said small countries was their size as in square miles in area, and not population. I do realize Germany is packed with a population of over 82,000,000 and is about the same size in square miles as the US state of New Mexico. I lived in Darmstadt, Germany for nearly 3 years. But, that was a long time ago. Oktoberfest was fun!

I watch BBC channel often, like their news and movies. I don't have HBO, but Downton Abbey is really good. Saw the first 2 seasons in Comcast On-Demand. Still waiting for season 3 to pop up there.

John

Interesting - Darmstadt is my home town where I grew up and made my masters degree at the Technische Hochschule. But that was in the late 50's and early 60's. I left there in 1961 to work in Stuttgart and have lived mostely in foreign countries since 1962.

Small World! I was in Darmstadt 1972-75. Nice little town. The bratwurst mit brötchen is great!

I've been to Stuttgart, too. And several other towns and cities in Germany. Liked riding the train.

John

 

[z3r010]

Europe has many countries but it is not small and the EU alone is 500 million people - if only their goverments could agree on a common direction.

Like scrapping the whole corrupt undemocratic establishment that is the EU

 

[jimbo45]

Europe has many countries but it is not small and the EU alone is 500 million people - if only their goverments could agree on a common direction.

Like scrapping the whole corrupt undemocratic establishment that is the EU

Hi there
I can't believe this either - But I'm actually in agreement with you (for once) !!!!!.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[whs]

Europe has many countries but it is not small and the EU alone is 500 million people - if only their goverments could agree on a common direction.

Like scrapping the whole corrupt undemocratic establishment that is the EU

It could be better if the national goverments would give way and have a democratically elected EU goverment take over. Then they may start to address the real problems rather than make directives about cucumbers or bananas.

Corruption is a problem everywhere. None of our current goverments are free from that.

 

[z3r010]

Most of our governments can get there accounts signed off which is more than the evil eu.

Also somebody would need to send the EU some democracy for dummies books as they currently ain't got a clue what it is.

 

[whs]

Most of our governments can get there accounts signed off which is more than the evil eu.

Also somebody would need to send the EU some democracy for dummies books as they currently ain't got a clue what it is.

In 2015 you have a chance to vote against GB staying in the EU. I hope a majority of the British voters will vote that way.

 

[z3r010]

If we were allowed a referendum the polls show most of us would leave, sadly it looks like we won't get that choice.

Anyway I could go on all night about how much I detest the EU but I've just sat down in a bar and am going just do it in person with my Spanish waiter lol.