Yet another example of competition working out well for the consumer. Innovation, price drops, etc.
Can you imagine a world where consumer broadband had the same level of competition? Sigh...a nerd can dream...
Can you imagine a world where consumer broadband had the same level of competition? Sigh...a nerd can dream...
Yes, in most European countries. :)
Virgin Media has a private cable network, which is great if you're not in an oversubscribed area - bandwidth up to 152Mbps is available for low cost.
In general the situation is pretty good, with a pretty wide variety of options.
The UK "last mile" infrastructure is unbundled so you can get your DSL service through a wide variety of providers - but actual line speed upgrades and faults are still at the mercy of BT incompetence, and everyone has to pay them £15/month for "line rental" even if you don't want POTS.
You obviously aren't old enough to remember when BT was part of the state owned post office. It wasn't great.
My argument is that state services don't have to be awful, as a lot of people seem to think. It depends on local political culture. British culture has American pro-privatisation far more than the German/Nordic tradition of efficient services.
Estonia is doing rather well at state-supported internet.
I've seen broadband price comparisons across countries, but could not find one now. This one is for mobile broadband, so a bit of an apples to oranges comparison, but still: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/10/daily-c...
I'm a cheapskate and I get 12Mbit down and 1.5Mbits up with no traffic management and no limits and free phone services for £8/month.
Edit: you need a provider that can afford to make a loss for the sake of customer retention. Sky is a primary example as their broadband is a tiny portion of their business.
Also we have right now large fiber to the home deployments.