Hey @sixnon, not so much like that in the UK generally, but just how I live - the place where I live is quite remote and the only sensible way for me to get broadband is via the 4G network - it works brilliantly and I can watch videos no problem, I just don’t want to be downloading them multiple times because of Youtube’s policy of tracking every click, pause, window size change and each action forcing the data to be streamed again when my data allowance is capped. I just don’t get it, can they not track these things without forcing the data to be downloaded again?!
Brew is a package manager - it helps you install and keep utilities like ‘youtube-dl’ updated. There are probably thousands of packages you can install like this - I think I installed Lua using Brew - i.e. brew install lua - yep - it really can be that simple
We have a “National Broadband Network” here being constructed to take us into the 21st century and it’s been a disaster and a rort from day one. The upper end of the speed ranges are those which Europe and Asia have been enjoying for years, so we’re already behind the pace (last I checked Australia was rated about 45th in the world for internet reliability/speeds but that’s about the same as our education standards standing, so I guess it stands to reason). Because the network has been slow to build, exploited for commercial and political gains and degraded during the process, the upper speed tiers don’t work and so people understandably don’t choose to pay for non existent service (I pay a premium for 25mbps speed) the politicians have said “see we told you, people don’t want higher speeds!”) The only option for many people more than a few km from a population centre is satellite which is ok, but expensive. The copper networks are being turned off so returning to ADSL not an option. I had better, cheaper and more reliable service on an ageing copper system, 30km from town, 6km from the nearest exchange and on a trunk line that had 8 telephone services coming off it!
Also on the satellite there is a 75GB limit in any 4 week period on a rolling basis as part of the “fair use” policy. As a result if you want more bandwidth, contrary to any “free market” principles, you pay more per unit the higher your bandwidth, with prices up to $3.33/GB. Oh, and uploads contribute to one’s data usage!
So…I often get behind in my video viewing! I didn’t realise that reloading was a tracking issue, I thought it network inefficiency, thanks for pointing it out. I use a download manager at the moment for the same purpose. Load up the urls or videos I want to watch and endeavour to download them when I access a more reasonable network in a cafe or the like.
Heh! That’s a pretty clean mechanism for thread diversions!
Suffice to say that Australia’s not the place to look for working in the media/internet fields outside of capital cities. Incredibly backward thinking and slow to act in that regard. I work in the Peruvian Amazon and often get better mobile services there than a few km from town in rural Australia!
I’m now feeling pretty spoiled here in the USA. 50 Mbps down/10 up, unlimited and rock solid. Hope they get you up to speed there soon @sixnon, in Australia! (pun intended, I suppose)
I can actually get faster than 50/10 here - just can’t see any reason to pay for it. I’m already paying plenty, but I use it for work so that helps justify it. 25/5 is not bad at all. But yeah, the bandwidth limit - that would make me crazy worrying about going over!
It’s heartening to hear someone from the US say that speed is reasonable. As you say it’s the bandwidth limitations which are problematic. We seem to see rising speeds advertised as advances whilst commercial decisions are made to limit bandwidths, making the speed increases redundant.
The corporation which owns the majority of the infrastructure was a government monopoly which was sold, made a handsome profits on public assets and it then continued to rort that position to hold consumers to ransom, which makes it feel particularly egregious…
I would say “first world problems” but in fact, as I’ve prior pointed out we’ve plenty of developing nations above us on the charts!
…which makes it all the more a pleasure to deal in a realm where firmware updates are measured in MB’s rather than GBs!
I’m in Houston. The competition here seems great. I get 200 Mbit/s broadband with Xfinity X1 cable and HBO for $63/month. It’s absolutely the best deal I’ve had anywhere. My only complaint is that there’s a 1TB data cap. I don’t pirate anything, but video games and Netflix are bandwidth hogs. The recent Doom patch was 40 GB alone.
AT&T has started rolling out fiber to the home in parts of Los Angeles to hold off the cable companies. Their current offering which I’ve had for a few months is 940 Mbit/s up and down w/o a data cap for $70/month. I’m sure at some point they’ll throw a cap on but for now it is nice to not have to worry…
40/10 here (and most importantly no cap or fair usage bollox!), pretty solid really but I live in a house with two Gamer/FB/snapchat addicts, so the bandwidth can get crowded at times.
Worst offender was the son with iphone video chats, the bloody software just used all available bandwidth, so running at like 120fps on 1080p or something just because the bandwidth was there, so I ended up using my router to throttle his bandwidth a bit. Mad thing is he cant really tell any difference on his video chats!!
So in Florida I was getting 48Mb/s for about $90 with no cap, but here in Germany I’m getting 200Mb/s with no cap for what equates to about $45 a month. Just shameful. It’s awesome to see fiber rolling out so many places in the states. Hoping to be able to get that when we head back.
35 mbs at home(€25 a month) here in Malta 120 mbs fiber (€45) in my shop. Both unlimited. Much better than when I was living in the UK, I think I had a 25mbs connection there.
