On Thu, 02 Aug 2012 15:32:58 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> Now, at today's exchange rate, $70 is about £45 - vastly more expensive
> than any ISP package I've ever seen advertised. (Anyone wanting £30 is
> unlikely to have many takers. £15/month is more typical.)

Our 3 Mbps DSL is $49.95/month.  In the US, ISP charges tend to be a bit 
more expensive.

Then again, US cable TV through Comcast was costing us $120/month.  How 
much do you pay for your TV license+other TV services?

Jim

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On 02/08/2012 05:17 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 02 Aug 2012 15:32:58 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>
>> Now, at today's exchange rate, $70 is about £45 - vastly more expensive
>> than any ISP package I've ever seen advertised. (Anyone wanting £30 is
>> unlikely to have many takers. £15/month is more typical.)
>
> Our 3 Mbps DSL is $49.95/month.  In the US, ISP charges tend to be a bit
> more expensive.

Interesting. I wonder if wages are comparably higher...

> Then again, US cable TV through Comcast was costing us $120/month.  How
> much do you pay for your TV license+other TV services?

Just looked it up. £145/year for a TV license. (That's around 
£12/month.) If you use Freeview, this is the only recurring cost.

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On Thu, 02 Aug 2012 18:03:30 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> On 02/08/2012 05:17 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 02 Aug 2012 15:32:58 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>>
>>> Now, at today's exchange rate, $70 is about £45 - vastly more
>>> expensive than any ISP package I've ever seen advertised. (Anyone
>>> wanting £30 is unlikely to have many takers. £15/month is more
>>> typical.)
>>
>> Our 3 Mbps DSL is $49.95/month.  In the US, ISP charges tend to be a
>> bit more expensive.
> 
> Interesting. I wonder if wages are comparably higher...

I found this:

http://blog.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/paye/tax/comparison-of-uk-and-usa-
take-home/

>> Then again, US cable TV through Comcast was costing us $120/month.  How
>> much do you pay for your TV license+other TV services?
> 
> Just looked it up. £145/year for a TV license. (That's around
> £12/month.) If you use Freeview, this is the only recurring cost.

Yeah, I knew it was about £145 (£145.50 IIRC).  But you don't get 600+ 
channels of garbage, either. ;)

But comparatively speaking, you get off pretty cheaply.

Jim

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>> Interesting. I wonder if wages are comparably higher...
>
> I found this:
>
> http://blog.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/paye/tax/comparison-of-uk-and-usa-
> take-home/

I made this:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=average+income+Kansas

On current exchange rates, that looks like considerably more money than 
I will ever earn.

>> Just looked it up. £145/year for a TV license. (That's around
>> £12/month.) If you use Freeview, this is the only recurring cost.
>
> Yeah, I knew it was about £145 (£145.50 IIRC).  But you don't get 600+
> channels of garbage, either. ;)
>
> But comparatively speaking, you get off pretty cheaply.

Heh. I can still remember when I was a teenager people telling me that 
"in America, you can buy a CD for just £5!" (That's 3x cheaper than the 
UK.) I always wondered whether there was actually a shred of truth to 
such an outlandish claim...

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> The prices look pretty insane though.

what is really insane, and brace yourself:

with this kind of high-speed connection you'll have HD content on the fly.
Movies, TV or games, whenever you want from whatever device you want.  Wanna
watch "Avatar" now?  No prob, just click away and start watching.  Wanna play
the latest nextgen HD game?  No need to buy the latest and most expensive
console or GPU, or download any executable, just click away and start playing
right away on you inexpensive android device.

really, they are making even gaming a hispeed connection cloud service... search
OnLive or Gaikai...

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>> The prices look pretty insane though.
>
> what is really insane, and brace yourself:
>
> with this kind of high-speed connection you'll have HD content on the fly.
> Movies, TV or games, whenever you want from whatever device you want.  Wanna
> watch "Avatar" now?  No prob, just click away and start watching.

That's a nice /idea/... except that whoever is serving the content will 
be charging you very large fees for this service.

> Wanna play
> the latest nextgen HD game?  No need to buy the latest and most expensive
> console or GPU, or download any executable, just click away and start playing
> right away on you inexpensive android device.

How the heck would that work?

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> Our 3 Mbps DSL is $49.95/month.  In the US, ISP charges tend to be a bit 
> more expensive.

I wonder why. Here in Finland internet connections tend to be laughably
cheap. For example I have a 10/2 Mbps connection that costs me 5 euros
per month.

(Ok, it's a bit more complicated than that, but it's still laughably cheap.
You see, there's an internet connection by default in all the flats of this
housing cooperative, which is part of the rent(*), and by default 1/1 Mbps, as
part of a deal with the ISP. Increasing it to 10/2 Mbps costs just 5 euros
per month more.)


(*) Well not "rent" per se. I think the closest term I can find with google
is "condominium payment" or "condo fee". But this same housing cooperative
has rental housing with the same deal.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> The prices look pretty insane though.
> >
> > what is really insane, and brace yourself:
> >
> > with this kind of high-speed connection you'll have HD content on the fly.
> > Movies, TV or games, whenever you want from whatever device you want.  Wanna
> > watch "Avatar" now?  No prob, just click away and start watching.
>
> That's a nice /idea/... except that whoever is serving the content will
> be charging you very large fees for this service.

netflix is just an inexpensive R$ 14 here in Brazil.  Now the fast connection is
up to you, but it's not that hard.  I confortably watch SD netflix with nothing
but a 3G cellphone connection! o_0

> > Wanna play
> > the latest nextgen HD game?  No need to buy the latest and most expensive
> > console or GPU, or download any executable, just click away and start playing
> > right away on you inexpensive android device.
>
> How the heck would that work?

they send you video frames and you send them command inputs.  Continuously.

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Am 02.08.2012 21:39, schrieb Warp:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> Our 3 Mbps DSL is $49.95/month.  In the US, ISP charges tend to be a bit
>> more expensive.
>
> I wonder why. Here in Finland internet connections tend to be laughably
> cheap. For example I have a 10/2 Mbps connection that costs me 5 euros
> per month.

Maybe in Finland the "Damned Last Mile" is typically shorter than in the 
USA.

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>> That's a nice /idea/... except that whoever is serving the content will
>> be charging you very large fees for this service.
>
> netflix is just an inexpensive R$ 14 here in Brazil.  Now the fast connection is
> up to you, but it's not that hard.  I confortably watch SD netflix with nothing
> but a 3G cellphone connection! o_0

Presumably Netflix is only possible due to absurd levels of image 
compression though. Higher bandwidth lets you send pictures with less 
compression, but then you're putting more load on the server streaming 
the data. That isn't going to be cheap.

>>> Wanna play
>>> the latest nextgen HD game?  No need to buy the latest and most expensive
>>> console or GPU, or download any executable, just click away and start playing
>>> right away on you inexpensive android device.
>>
>> How the heck would that work?
>
> they send you video frames and you send them command inputs.  Continuously.

I severely doubt that even a gigabit link would have sufficiently low 
latency for this to be feasible.

(Hell, I have a 100 mbit *LAN* and VNC is still laggy as hell...)

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