Your logic falls down on the point brexit succeeded when it made no sense either.
Brexit, for once some facts.
- Thread starter flecc
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Using the same logic why have they access to many thousands of miles of free roads?
we pay VED and carbon tax on fossil fuel.
The internet is free, government can provide and maintain the main infrastructure but usage should be charged for.
If you make home provisioning free of charge then why not bus pass for everyone?
Considering the huge excessive bandwidth usage due to google, facebook, etc., it surely only right they should be paying for it.
A lot of the time, a page I might wish to view is positively dwarfed by the advertising/tracking/what-have-you load it carries.
Perhaps Microsoft, Apple, etc., should also be contributing for the huge downloads we require to maintain their products?
Don't get me wrong, I do understand and, to some extent, accept the need for sites to carry advertising.
Maybe a basic allowance with charges for a higher cap (or no cap) and faster speeds?
We need to remember that internet access is very close to compulsory for quite a number of government services - such as jobseeker's allowance. Yes, they do allow "free" access within job centres, but you have to get there, which can be expensive to somone on benefits. And you have to demonstrate activity to find a job - e.g. their findajob service - and can't just do that once a week.
We get these same arguments against any government provisions, but they are often essential for an equitable society.
Do you really think it wrong that we have the NHS? I remember how bad private medecine was before it and have seen the huge improvements since getting it, giving the lie to your argument that governmnet provision is always worse.
The original private railways also became terrible in the end and improved once brought into State control. Privatised once more, they've again become increasingly a shambles, first the infrastructure and them some of the companies sections having to be run again by the State.
But my main answers to your argument is how other European countries governments manage to run public ser vices like rail so well and how private rail fell to pieces in the USA, becoming one of the world's worst rail systems.
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We cycle, ride animals and walk on the roads free of charge.
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the idea of 'free at the point of service/care' does not work.
Successive governments did not invest enough and won't, 4 millions of Brits queueing for elective surgery.
Unheard of in France.
No it isn't, streaming TV etc often hits problems at far above that nominal speed, especially when the traffic in an area is high. And what about working from home via the internet, both personal and commercial use.
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Exactly, not an intrinsic problem of a free service, just the intrinsic problem of right wing Tory governance not giving a damn about the masses, spending on and ruling for their wealthy own.
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I used to access the internet with my US Robotics 28.8 kilobit modem connected to pipex.
My kids had much less than 10 megabit when they grew up, that was enough to do their homework and play games.
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As did we all, but it's nothing like enough for today's web with much higher software loads. My earliest website was installed via a 52K modem, but it's blighted by its tiny low quality images.
But perhaps you think having a website or only accessing the better quality websites is only for those rich enough?
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No, I don't. I host woosh website on a £50 a year shared server.
My mobile phone contract is £7 a month including internet.
It's hardly reserved only to the rich.
Internet access is cheap. My 100 megabit connection is £17:50 / month and my phone connection is £10.40 for 26 GB data / month. You just need to make the effort to negotiate with the provider. There lies the problem, it takes effort.
Hold on there!
When we moved here, knowing the broadband to be poor, we tried a 4G connection. It achieved something like 20 Mbps - not bad. Two problems - download cap and reliability.
It was far, far too difficult to manage our bandwidth usage and so we often found ourselves hitting our monthly cap. Paying extra for the last few hours or days of the month was not attractive. Especially as so often that usage was ramped up by the unreliability. Too many times something like a Windows update would use a gigabyte or more, then get interrupted and start all over again. And again. Multiply by number of machines/operating systems/major packages in use. Start with Windows, MacOS, IOS and Android.
The unreliability manifested mainly as short interruptions - enough to break downloads, or annoy if watching a program - but not so big as to make complaints to EE stick.
Increasing the 4G usage in the area many times over, as seems quite likely, would probably make it grind to a halt and become a very poor option.
it's still better than digging up pavements for fibre.
4G/5G will be better linked up with millimetre wave band.
I see that EE now offer unlimited 4G data at £34. Which would address the cap issues, but not the unreliability.
Different argument, you said 10 megabits was enough for the masses, aka the poor. It isn't.
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Honestly, it's not better if it ended up with existing users no longer able to use 4G and new users being little better off.
And not everywhere requires any digging at all. Like here. The ductwork had all been properly done by the developer - just BT had failed to connect it up with anything better than wet string. Now fibre to the property and we are deciding which ISP to go with.