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Wireless Networking AT&T Communications United States Verizon

Americans Abandoning Wired Home Internet, Shows Study (seattletimes.com) 352

An anonymous reader writes: Americans as a whole are growing less likely than before to have residential broadband, according to new data on a sample of 53,000 Americans. In plain English, they're abandoning their wired Internet for a mobile-data-only diet -- and if the trend continues, it could reflect a huge shift in the way we experience the Web. The study, conducted for the Commerce Department by the U.S. Census Bureau, partly upholds what we already knew. Low-income Americans are still one of the biggest demographics to rely solely on their phones to get online. Today nearly a third of households earning less than $25,000 a year exclusively use mobile Internet to browse the Web. That's up from 16 percent in 2013. They're often cited as evidence of a digital divide; families with little money to afford a home Internet subscription must resort to free Wi-Fi at libraries and even McDonald's to do homework, look for jobs and find information. But people with higher incomes are ditching their wired Internet access at similar or even faster rates. In 2013, 8 percent of households making between $50,000 and $75,000 a year were mobile-only. Fast-forward a couple of years, and that figure is 18 percent. Seventeen percent of households making between $75,000 and $100,000 are mobile-only now, compared with 8 percent two years ago. And 15âpercent of households earning more than $100,000 are mobile-only, versus 6 percent in 2013.
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Americans Abandoning Wired Home Internet, Shows Study

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  • by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @09:42AM (#51940027) Homepage
    I'm not American, but I would have thought that mobile data is more expensive than wired? Certainly that's the case in the UK.
    • by Infiniti2000 ( 1720222 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @09:44AM (#51940049)
      Yes, but unless the usage is very large, it's generally cheaper to just buy the mobile data plan and not also have a home ISP. And, most people will never give up their mobile data access.
      • by Penguinisto ( 415985 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @10:05AM (#51940249) Journal

        I'm kind of curious about the non-cell-carrier wireless ISP usage data.

        For instance, I use Sat. Internet (because the ISPs are too cheap/lazy to run broadband to my rural-as-hell property).

        I also have used, and know that folks still use wireless ISPs (wherein a unidirectional antenna is bolted to the roof of the house and pointed to a distant tower). I last used it from 2000-2005 by way of Sprint Broadband, and got T1 speeds up and down - from a tower 35 miles away. Wasn't perfect for FPS gaming, but was quite usable in spite of that. Pretty sure that speeds have gone up since then.

        • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @10:35AM (#51940487) Homepage Journal

          I have had three different WISPs, without moving. The first one used WiFi gear and was bought out by the second one which used something based on cellular technology. They were being lames so I switched to another WISP which is, sadly, also very lame. They just instituted caps so now I'm paying $80 for 200GB/mo and 7.5 Mbps down, and I can pay more for more cap but I can't get more bandwidth. I was originally paying $50 for no cap and 5 Mbps down. The WISP which bought out that WISP charged $50 and provided 4-5 Mbps down, and then later wanted to institute a 90GB cap which is when I left.

          My ping is usually pretty good except at peak times. Netflix buffers pretty hard during some peaks, other times it's fine. Gaming is usually pretty good. Sometimes during the winter they fail hard, but I think that's mostly related to their crap antique equipment. I have recently been upgraded to something slightly more modern, but I haven't had much inclement weather since so I don't know how things have changed.

        • by yacc143 ( 975862 )

          Well, European sat based Internet (Astra) you can get 20mbit/4mbit unlimited usage for around €70-80 per month.
          (It depends upon the reseller, as Astra is not selling to customers directly, and there are cheaper packages too, but these DO have data caps.)

        • by KGIII ( 973947 ) <uninvolved@outlook.com> on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @12:36PM (#51941651) Journal

          My home is almost exactly 24 miles from the *center* of the village and about another 68 miles to the center of a reasonable sized town. I had to pay for a CO and the physical wire for the upgrade. The teleco put the lines in at their expense for labor. A neighbor chipped in and paid for a mile's worth of line beyond my place - so that they could connect.

          Of the six residencies that wanted the service, we all now have reasonably speedy DSL. I had it done as the house was being built - I retired there in 2008, I was in the new house for Christmas. I could have gone with cable, believe it or not. The price would actually have been about the same. I opted for DSL for some fairly obvious reasons.

          It's the telephone line, they have to keep it maintained. I can use any provider I want, I'm only limited to those who are willing to provide service - so I can use any ISP that I feel like and I have switched when I wanted to. There are a number of legislative protections, a public utility commission, and an active consumer protections body that care about phone lines in very rural Maine.

          The list goes on.

          Anyhow, cable would have been about the same price to install and would have been faster. Though, I now get faster speeds on DSL than cable had said I'd get back in 2007 when I was doing the leg work. I pay for 10/.75 and get 14.5/1.5 and have three disparate connections, each gets that speed. I'm told that they're actually (they've gotta look good on paper - and I know several of the actual engineers personally now) running fiber out by the end of this year. I will not be switching to fiber. I will order fiber but I'll retain at least one of the DSL pipes.

          Why? I've had the copper wires on the ground, in snowbanks, with trees on top of it, *plowed by the plow truck* into the snowbank after getting knocked down, and still had reasonable connectivity speeds. Fiber will not do that. They'll be hanging the fiber from the poles and not trenching it. So, I'll be keeping my DSL.

          It wasn't all that expensive to have the lines brought in. It was a one time cost and was just about $30,000, in 2008 dollars. That might sound like a lot but I've used dial-up and the dial-up in the area was actually usually less than 14. kb/sec 4 in true throughput. I feel that it was worth every penny. Given the magnitudes of the differences between those speeds and that I consider my time worth money, I might even be able to say that it has exceeded paying off the investment. Even if the measurement is sheer joy, it has paid itself off - tenfold or more.

          I'm not sure my pricing is all that accurate. It's accurate in that it is what I paid but they were also doing upgrades in the area at that time. They were already buying the stuff and I personally negotiated the deal with some input from a friend in the business. I'm given to understand that I paid *only* for the lines that were replaced and the CO ("central office" which is really just a big metal box) and, I think, a couple of things that amplify the signal - they put some small boxes on some of the poles. Obviously, this is not my forte.

          But, I'm told that I paid *only* for the cost of material and that I paid the same price they paid for said material. The labor was not charged on the bill, not itemized at least, and that was part of the agreement because I was able to get others to commit to signing up. The folks who wanted internet service were more than happy to agree to sign up when they found out that I'd be doing the investing. They're actually good people but i didn't really know them then. It's a very, very small sub-community with those six residencies spread out over about a 2-3 mile stretch of road. The last one out is not interested in phone, 'net, or even mains electricity so the wires stop before they get to his house - as do the electrical wires.

          At any rate, that was one of the wisest purchases that I ever made. I know others who have paid quite a bit more but they just took the quoted price and paid that. I actually went into the

      • by ranton ( 36917 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @10:41AM (#51940541)

        Yes, but unless the usage is very large, it's generally cheaper to just buy the mobile data plan and not also have a home ISP.

        Usage doesn't have to be that large. One hour of HD video is about 1.2 GB of data. Even a standard YouTube video at 480p is 400 MB for an hour of video. Removing wired Internet access will probably save around $50 per month, which could pay for an extra 10 GB or so from a mobile data provider like Verizon. That is only 8 hours of full HD video or 25 hours of low-res YouTube video per month. Neither of those would be considered excessive.

        I can understand why a large number of people have switched to mobile data only over the past few years. That only recently became a serious option. But I have a hard time believing this trend will continue. Mobile data providers would have to start offering closer to 10x the current data volumes for the same price before it could handle the amount of content viewing needs of the average household (which if you believe YouTube marketing watch on average of 25+ hours of YouTube per month).

        My wife for instance would never be considered a mobile power user, but when we had problems with our WiFi equipment she went through over 3 GB of data in a single weekend. That was almost entirely YouTube, Netflix, and Snapchat.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        Do you like to use any of those streaming video services?

        If so, then mobile internet is out. You will blow through your cap in an evening.

        Keeping the wired broadband makes a lot of sense if you're not so poor that you have to do without Netflix, Amazon Prime, or HBO Now. On the other hand, cheap wired internet is still going to be cheaper than any mobile plan.

        I would tend to attribute the mobile fixation of poor people on innumeracy and stupidity.

        • Due to a mixup, I was without regular wired internet for about a month and used my cellphone as a hotspot. It cost an arm, a leg, and a few internal organs. Definitely not feasible long-term!

        • I would tend to attribute the mobile fixation of poor people on innumeracy and stupidity.

          You need to take into account that these people need a phone of some type for emergency calls and job opportunities so they will be paying for a phone regardless. Straighttalk offers 5gb or 10gb of 4g data with unlimited 2g, unlimited text, and unlimited calling inside the US for $45/m or $55/m you will not be getting an internet connection and a phone especially with unlimited calling inside the US for that price.

      • In addition, mobile providers sometimes exempt common high-data services like Netflix and Pandora from data caps.

        Also it's worth noting that a lot of people in urban areas are pooling their wired internet. (There are a lot of cord cutters who either schmooze, steal or pay a few $ a month to ride on their neighbor's WiFi.)

    • by IcyWolfy ( 514669 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @09:44AM (#51940053) Homepage

      I get Unlimited (2GB at 4G speeds, rest at 2G speeds) for $39.99/mo.
      Cheaper than Comcast's home internet offerings.

      • by Sax Russell 5449D29A ( 4449961 ) <sax.russell@protonmail.com> on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @10:29AM (#51940441)

        In Nordic Countries it's 25–35 EUR for unlimited data at maximum LTE speeds. People often say this is because these countries are smaller, but I don't really buy that argument as smaller scale also more often than not means more expensive, not to mention the excessive telcom regulations. 100/100Mbps to 1Gbps land connections often range from 10–50 EUR.

        Now that I think of it, maybe it's the regulations that keep the prices down. Antitrust laws are quite strict.

        • by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @04:12PM (#51943115)

          Now that I think of it, maybe it's the regulations that keep the prices down. Antitrust laws are quite strict.

          Hey, US antitrust laws are quite strict as well. We just don't enforce them.

      • I currently have the cheapest available broadband connection I know of in Mexico — I pay MX$390 a month, which is a bit over US$20. My connection is 5MBps. Of course, we have much bigger data plans... I am just happy with 5. Can't you get such prices in the USA?

      • But, I get 8Mb down/1.5Mb up, with virtually no data cap (I forget, it's in the hundreds of gigabytes per month) from Comcast for $60 per month. It's the cheapest deal I could get out of them. Granted, I hate Comcast, they're an evil company, but so are all the wireless companies, too.

        I don't even have a smartphone, let alone pay for a dataplan. I have yet to find a justifiable enough reason to have one, based on the cost of dataplans, the speed, the monthly cap on data, the cost of the damned phone itself
        • by Rockoon ( 1252108 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @12:22PM (#51941537)

          I don't understand how or why someone who is living below the poverty line would even have a smartphone and pay for a dataplan, it really sounds like poor prioritization skills to me.

          This is exactly why a lot of poor remain poor.

      • 2GB is nothing. Netflix will blow through that in an hour or two. Anyone who is a cord cutter or a gamer will not be able to use such little internet. That's basically just enough to check email and read websites.

        • by gmack ( 197796 )

          That seems optimistic. Last vacation I took, I blew thew a 1 GB data plan in less than a week with nothing but basic web browsing (no youtube or other video sites) even though I was browsing a lot less than normal since I was spending time at the beach or in the local restaurants.

    • by transami ( 202700 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @09:52AM (#51940127) Homepage

      If you have to choose between a cell phone and a home Internet connection, which are you going to choose?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Internet, of course -- I can make voice calls using a myriad of apps and devices that way. Besides, there isn't any cell coverage here.

      • by guises ( 2423402 )
        Are you trying to imply that this is an easy question? I know people who would choose a cell phone over a home internet connection. They might be the minority on Slashdot, but they do exist. The answer isn't as obvious as you're suggesting.
      • Depends...

        Like Sibling, cell coverage is nonexistent out at my house, but I can get home Internet.

      • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        Internet, hands down. It's pretty easy. Cell phones are an expensive luxury.

        You would think that members of the peanut gallery were poor-ish at least when they were first on their own and should have SOME experience with making those kinds of choices.

        Relating to this stuff shouldn't require growing up in the hood or a ghetto.

      • I chose a pay-as-you-go data plan from Ting as a middle ground option. I almost never use data on my phone, but I can enable it when there is a need and pay for what I use. We average $35 a month for 2 phones for everything, and my wife uses a modest amount of data every month (still cheaper than a divorce attorney). I find this to be a good compromise for not having two sizeable internet data bills every month.

    • I haven't gone there yet, but I've considered it. I'm close to the end of the line for media services. Cable stops at the end of my street and the company won't invest to actually run it to the houses on the street. We are serviced by the furthest piece of DSL equipment from whatever central routing equipment AT&T has in the local service area. We've had several service problems, but they are usually received with a level of dismissal that I can only assume is "we barely have a business case to have
    • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @10:01AM (#51940225)

      Yes it is. But Wireless is more convenient. And most of us have some sort of wireless data plans on our devices anyways, so even though broadband is cheaper and faster. It would be a redundant expense for some people.
      Myself I have a cheap data plan, enough for a few google searches and the occasional youtube video while I am waiting. And I do most of my browsing off of Broadband. But I keep an eye on the rates, Performance and coverage. I wouldn't mind dropping broadband for my home, if I got a good enough data plan wirelessly.

    • you still need a phone. wired internet plus home phone is the same as several phones plus the service for a family and most people have better things to do than stare into netflix, youtube or torrent crap they won't watch or listen to for hours at a time
      • by jedidiah ( 1196 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @11:05AM (#51940795) Homepage

        > you still need a phone.

        You don't need a smart phone.

        You don't need a mobile phone either.

        It's just a luxury you've grown accustomed to.

        You don't "need" the single most expensive option available both in terms of service costs and the price of equipment.

        • You don't need a mobile phone either.

          Are you trying to imply that a landline would be a good choice vs. home Internet service? A landline is more expensive these days!

        • Syrian refugees are using smart phones to keep in your with relatives, help find routes out of the danger zones, Etc

          It is allowing people who would lose everything including contact with loved ones, to lose their belongs but still remain in contact. That is making all the difference in the world.

    • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

      It depends on your carrier. I pay a flat $42 for my cell phone, and that's unlimited everything including data. My internet bill for the computers is $50.

      • by Nutria ( 679911 )

        There (shockingly!!) seem to be a lot of childless and spouseless people on /.

        The cost of buying four smartphones adds up quickly, as does the monthly service. And you can't all sit in the living room and watch a streaming moving without turning one person's phone into a hot spot.

        Wired is a flat fee no matter how many people use it.

    • I use my mobile data very seldom, so I have little experience on this. Also, I am in Mexico, which might have somewhat inferior infrastructure — although I understand that, in major cities at least, it is very close to what you get in the USA.

      I don't like mobile networking. It is quite laggier, and its quality variance (both in bandwidth and in latency) is much higher than wired Internet. Of course, it can be easily explained with many people walking into or out of my cell, with the antennas having to

    • I would have thought that mobile data is more expensive than wired?

      Theoretically... per gigabyte, cellular data is certainly much more expensive.

      But in practice, you can get a lower per-month fee, if your usage is limited, with cellular plans. Services like FreedomPop even give you a small but completely free monthly allowance of data, if you are careful to avoid their hidden fees. Obviously no wired internet services are similarly FREE.

      For some context, US cellular carriers are in a nasty fight right no

      • Services like FreedomPop even give you a small but completely free monthly allowance of data, if you are careful to avoid their hidden fees.

        Companies like FreedomPop upsell you devices they don't have in stock, fraudulently claiming that they do have them in stock, then fail to cancel your order before it has shipped a week later and you've already got a phone elsewhere because you couldn't wait. And they don't put their name on the box, so it's difficult to tell which package to refuse. Fuck FreedomPop in the ear.

    • Are you kidding? Mobile data is cheap in the UK. Line rental alone £16.99 from BT. Add another £10-£20 for a basic internet package. £27 - £37 buys you a lot of mobile data.
    • I have a grandfathered, truly unlimited mobile data plan that includes a limited hotspot feature. I'm pretty sure I can subvert that and run a third-party hotspot and go totally unlimited, risking a TOS violation.

      Yes, they want to upgrade me to something not unlimited. No, I am never throttled. Yes, they warn me when I use a LOT of data (20+GB/mo) in their estimation, and I see WiFi turned on when i reboot my phone 'cause the carrier really, really wants to minimize my usage, for obvious and not necessari

    • by yacc143 ( 975862 )

      Yes, but one big benefit, unlimited usage, of fixed lines is missing in the US, as most ISPs do cap data usage also on fixed lines.

    • Coz wired connections in US are expensive and slow amongst the large group of people who're switching.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Internet is a utility. You can have it at home, expect it when you travel around, and so on. So why is the government letting ISPs scam us?

  • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @09:45AM (#51940059) Homepage Journal

    I can't even get wired home internet. All I can get is a WISP which charges $80/mo for 200GB at 7.5 Mbps peak (supposed to be up to 10 Mbps, but... fail)

    DSL is hot garbage, cable companies overcharge and try to bone you at every opportunity...

    Maybe if we could get some fair laws surrounding internet access? But our government is currently only concerned with making sure they can spy on us.

    • The problem is the government is not considering it part of our needed infrastructure.
      In some ways I wish there was internet available for everyone for the common good.
      However there is a lot of innovation going on in this area. So a Government Internet will soon be slow and out of date.

      Even if they were forward thinking imagine late 1990's giving everyone a T1 line (Faster than what most people could ever use, much like gigabit fiber today). But even after a few years the T1 line is slower than what we can

    • I wouldn't call a good solid DSL connection "hot garbage". It may not be the most high-capacity option available, but it's low latency and downright reliable on good infrastructure. Newer/better technologies may displace older/less capable tech, but that doesn't make the older stuff unusable. I happen to know the space program ran on mostly serial data until the end of the shuttle program - partially because it's "cleaner" than packet based communications and near instantaneous where packeted interfaces

  • by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @09:45AM (#51940067) Journal

    Is this gonna work, with hundreds of people in an area watching YouTube and Netflix over mobile? This isn't WiFi, but pure phone.

    • The people who do this are the subset of people that only do light web browsing, who don't have Netflix and don't watch random YouTube videos.

  • Comcast (Score:5, Insightful)

    by John Smith ( 4340437 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @09:46AM (#51940071)
    Followed by this article: 98% of Americans abandoning broadband say that lousy ISPs were the primary reason for doing so. "Even 4G LTE is cheaper than the rippoff prices" said one user. "Verizon wouldn't offer us any FIOS, so this was our only non-DSL option." another claimed. In other news, Google Fiber and FIOS are holding onto 90% of users.
  • In Canada anyhow, wired Internet is both tremendously faster and cheaper too especially in my area with FIOS and unlimited packages. All mobile packages are expensive and charged per MByte. A good workaround is to connect to your friend's wifi points or to the numerous free wifi points found all over the city. While in theory I could afford mobile Internet why waste the price of home Internet for extremely limited service.

  • Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @09:51AM (#51940119) Homepage

    100% the fault of cable companies and shit ISP's.

    They want to keep the USA as a third world country as far as internet connectivity goes.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @09:52AM (#51940123)

    If the average user is being asked if they use wired broadband, but use wifi they'll say no even though their wifi router is being fed by it.

    • I really hate news stories that cite a poll, survey, or scientific paper and don't give a reference so I can see what was actually asked in the poll or survey or actually stated in the paper, rather than something filtered through the kidneys of the person writing the story.

      If the data came from the American Community Survey [census.gov], then the questions were probably something like these questions from the 2016 American Community Survey [census.gov], and the options, each one offering "yes" or "no", are:

      1. "cellular data plan f
  • by ErichTheRed ( 39327 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @09:54AM (#51940143)

    For the low end -- Maybe this can be chalked up as another "cost of being poor." Mobile carriers charge an arm and a leg for data now since they're not making money on calls or SMS anymore, plus low income people are less likely to have a service contract and have to do pay as you go rates. So, if you can't afford a cable bill and a mobile phone, the phone wins out. These costs of being poor really suck, and include things like having to rely on check cashing places to do your banking or buying expensive unhealthy packaged food because your neighborhood lacks access to fresh food.

    Not sure about the high end though, It would seem to me that the average high income household would have 20 devices installed, several XBoxes for the kids, etc. That kind of hardware requires a wired service of some kind to power its Internet consumption. I can see lots of people cutting out TV, especially high income folks who don't have time to watch it, but not Internet service.

    • These costs of being poor really suck, and include things like having to rely on check cashing places to do your banking or buying expensive unhealthy packaged food because your neighborhood lacks access to fresh food.

      What neighborhoods are these? I lived in a really bad area in college. less than 100 yards from a neighborhood called "Crack Lane". In that neighborhood I could walk to a grocery store with fresh foods in 10 minutes. I had to walk through Crack Lane to get there, too. If I didn't want to go thru Crack Lane, I could walk the other way and find a Walmart with fresh groceries. That route was only marginally better. I have never seen a neighborhood so bad that it didn't have at least one grocery store.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    There's no doubt that there is a huge shift taking place towards mobile. The problem is that normal people never wanted to be sys-admins. They were forced into that for a little while because it was the only way to get online, but it was a disaster to try to make them be that, and so they are rapidly changing to mobile now to avoid that mess. People are sick to death of dealing with traditional PCs, the update nightmares, the malware nightmares, overly complex interfaces they don't understand, being blam

  • by Thanshin ( 1188877 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @09:57AM (#51940181)

    VR Streaming will bring back the home broadband.

    There is a delicate balance between "Most convenient connection..." and "...which allows the best porn commonly available."

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @09:58AM (#51940199)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Really? If we only had cars and suddenly motorcycles and pickup trucks were introduced, would we say people are "abandoning" cars when car sales suddenly take a drop? I hear everyone is abandoning PCs for tablets too. And abandoning still photography for video. And abandoning butter for margarine (...now I dating myself).

    • Really? If we only had cars and suddenly motorcycles and pickup trucks were introduced, would we say people are "abandoning" cars when car sales suddenly take a drop?

      Yes. We would say that [some] people are abandoning cars for other vehicles, assuming that was what was actually happening (and not people just keeping their cars longer, so that they have money to spend on an additional vehicle in the form of a motorcycle or pickup truck.)

  • by IMightB ( 533307 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @10:06AM (#51940255) Journal

    I personally cannot stand surfing the web with a phone. Tablets are only slightly better, but as a married father of 2 boys under 5 and a geek. Being able to stream netflix, or purchased and ripped videos, movies and other content is invaluable. I'm currently on the tail end of a retrofit project where I have 47 cat6 ethernet drops, 17 POTS (cat6 as well and easily changeable for VOIP) phone lines and Century Link is currently laying fiber for a FTTH deployment in Denver. And a business class 1200ac WAP.

    I have multiple runs of quad shielded rg6 and cat6 to my DMARC's, all my rooms and even attic for future home automation/surveillance purposes and have multiple attic mounted antennas in my attic (thanks to previous owners) the only thing that I have done is changed/updated the baluns and upgraded wiring to said quad shielded rg6 from rg5(8/9) and home run everything to my furnace room.

    I say let the peasants have wireless.

    I have seen massive response improvement's in my roku3, and multiple RPI's running openelec/retropie. In fact the only place I haven't seen a noticeable improvement from going wired is the shitty Blue-ray player that we use for netflix/amazon in the Living room. Even if the uplink to my house is comcast shitty basic. The rest of my house massively benefits from having wires. When I get FTTH I pity the fools using wireless for their PS4/xbox setups.

  • ...and for what definition of "Americans"?

    I can totally see a young person on a limited budget for whom "using the Internet" amounts to social media sites, clickbait news sites, and cat videos not bothering with any kind of wired broadband.

    For them, there's nothing wired broadband gives them that they're not getting on their phone or tablet or tethered to their laptop.

    Then there's living arrangements. I can remember more than one circus around getting and keeping a phone line in a shared house situation.

  • by Etcetera ( 14711 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @10:50AM (#51940633) Homepage

    If you've never traveled across it (not flown across -- traveled across) or you've never been to the US at all and just know what LA looks like from the movies, do yourself a favor and take a look at a map first, and compare the scale to $your_country. The US is huge. And especially the western half of the country, where most areas with residents were built in the last 100 years, and most of the rest is completely open land.

    "Internet access" for the downtown core of a major city, for the suburbs and residential areas outside of dense urban zones, for small towns, and for rural areas 3 miles from your nearest neighbor mean *vastly* different things. Infrastructure investment and wired vs wireless communications in some areas carry tradeoffs involving public safety, reliability, access, and available technology.

    So before you comment, take that into account. Thanks.

  • by darkain ( 749283 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @10:57AM (#51940697) Homepage

    Prior to the gigabit rollout in my neighborhood which just happened this year, I had honestly considered the same. Cell phone internet in my area is cheaper than wired internet. The cell easily pulls 80mbps and an unlimited plan which supports tethering is well under $100/mo, whereas cable internet at 30/6mbps was $99/mo. Why honestly pay for both!? This is similar to why POTS systems are mostly dead, because why have one when you have a cell, too? (yes, there are a couple reasons that could be debated, but for the majority of people and situations, those corner cases are hardly a concern)

  • I think the IoT will change this trend for higher income households. I was just recently lamenting that both my 8-port switch upstairs and my 4-port WiFi router downstairs are full and I have so many wireless devices I have lost count. I have a DIY security system, home automation (temp and lights), and remote video surveillance all accessed and controlled from my phone when I am away from home. All of that, and my wife and I combined barely make over the $100k threshold. I would hate to give up either

  • by ljw1004 ( 764174 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2016 @11:14AM (#51940905)

    The cheapest low-speed Comcast plan I can get is $70/month all-up, about $850/year.

    If I were making $50k/year, spending $45k on basic necessities like housing, food, clothes and school stuff for my kids -- then no way would Comcast be a good use of 20% of my disposable income. No way!

    • You say "$50k/year" as though that's a low figure. That's about twice the median personal income. Half of Americans make half or less than that.

      Which I guess makes your point even stronger, but still.

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