Hellopaul

Just wondering what people pay (in real life) for their internet access and what speed (in real life) they get. Just done a quick search for South Carolina and thought the results were PER YEAR...but the prices were PER MONTH! Hughes had a satellite deal for $350 per month...I guess that includes the launch of your own satellite?! The CHEAPEST was Comcast at $60 per month for a puny 6MB connection and I think that's only available if you're already forking out for cable TV! I don't propose to live anywhere so remote as to need satellite internet.

My last English monthly bill for internet and phone combined (including all calls) was £17.63. That's for 10MB broadband (and in reality I do get 10MB/sec download speed).

Should I prepare myself for shockingly high internet bills if I move to USA?

anotherlimey

I don't think broadband is that overpriced. But then I haven't lived in the UK for over 5 years.

The US is a bit behind in terms of broadband access. But it is a large country so you'll find broadband choices, and prices, vary widely. Incidently the best broadband offer I've seen was in South Dakota!

helwardman

I pay $45 a month for a 10MB/s cable internet connection from Cox. In the 2 years (almost) that I have had the service, the down-time has been precisely zero. I haven't done any speed tests recently, but based on speed tests I did in the past, it was always above 10MB/s (usually around 15MB/s).

vegas

Fios $49 per month for a 20 / 5 connection

hobbes79

They tend to push bundles a lot here.

With Verizon Fios, I get the Extreme HD package (basically, all the channels you would ever need), 20/5 internet, free nationwide calling, a DVR box and an HD box in the bedroom... with change from $150/month.

I actually need to call since my contract is up for renewal and I've lost a few discounts. Until recently, was closer to $130.

20/5 Internet alone is $49. If you bundle a few options, you end up with a better deal. If you're planning on getting TV and phone anyway, makes sense.

BritishGuy36

Yes.

I take it you haven't checked the price of cellphone plans yet.....

Prepare for high costs for:

Internet
Phone
Healthcare (and dentistry)
Obtaining your favourite british foods
Auto insurance (they treat you like someone who just passed their test even if you've driven for 30 years in another country)

Welcome to america.

penguinsix

$75 for 8mb down + about 25 tv channels from Comcast, but I'm in an isolated area and it is too far for DSL and FIOS has not arrived.

Your best bet for speed is FIOS, but it's not available in many areas. Comcast is rolling out DOCIS 3.0 in some metro areas, but again hard to find (but pretty fast if you do get it).

Hellopaul

Yeah, I know of the legendary cellphone costs in USA. Mobiles (sorry, cellphones) are so cheap in UK that it's not worth having a landline. Even on my pay as you go deal with O2 (not as cheap as a contract phone deal) I get 500 minutes free if I top up £10 per month - in fact I find it hard to use the £10, so sometimes I have to let the free minutes lapse for a couple of months just to use up enough credit to make it worth topping up again...if you see what I mean.

And of course, being billed for INCOMING calls is going to take some getting used to if we move to USA. I really don't know why the Europe/UK based phone providers don't move in on the USA phone business - they could clean up. There are presumably a lot of corporate politics stopping them.

It'll just be a case of having to readjust to not relying on my cellphone so much - it can't be that hard; we all managed for most of our lives, didn't we?!

I think anyone looking to move back to England from USA (I know there's a whole section devoted to this) will be very pleasantly surprised how much the cost of living in UK has plummetted over the past decade. Especially if you take mortgages into account!

Hellopaul

8mb and not on DSL or FIOS? I guess you must be on cable TV/internet? Surprising that there are more cabled areas than DSL areas - it's the opposite here. I'm one of the lucky few who (a) don't live in London and (b) have cable broadband.

BritishGuy36

a) People do that here too....but only because they don't want to be stung for two phone subscriptions.

b) Yeah it takes getting used to. But not an issue unless you have reams of telemarketers calling you (and you can usually sort that out). Plus it makes marvellous services like Google Voice possible, because the current model lends itself well to things like that.

c) Not as simple as that.....the population is on average 8 times less dense in the USA than in the UK....think how many more cell towers you need.

d) You can still get good deals if you look around. The new StraightTalk plan is proving popular in my area, runs on the Verizon network, no contract (monthly PAYG), 1000 minutes, 1000 texts and 30MB of data for $32 a month (but you have to shell out for the phone up front, minimum $90).

Bill_S

Most immigrants from Europe have the opposite opinion!

Manc

I was about to add that I pay around $25 a month for broadband.

but as it's only my pretend broadband and not real life I decided not to bother.

penguinsix

DSL is limited to 13,000 feet of wire from the central phone office, which in many areas of the US is simply too far. With a population density per km about 1/5th that of the UK, the distance is something that can cause some problems. It's not Hong Kong (1,000 mbps for $100US / month)

Peter Newton

We pay $130 a month for family cable +HBO, Internet and Phone with Time Warner Cable here in NYC. There's a bit more competition here as we have a choice of 2 cable companies plus Verizon Fios.

another bloody yank

I *think* about 18 bucks a month for unlimited dial up. I have connected as fast as 28.8k, but only once. Usually it's around 26.4k. No DSL here and no cable (or is that the same thing?) Could get sattelite, but that's expensive and iffy. One of my friends was talking about something called an "Air card", but I have no idea what that is, and we are moving in a few months anyway, so not that worried about it.

Here's a screen capture I posted a while back that illustrates my glacier like speed...