40GB of Data That Costs the Same As a House

Barence writes "PC Pro has an infographic that reveals the extortionate cost of roaming data. They compared the cost of data typically bundled with a fixed-line broadband package (40GB) costing £15, with the cost of buying that data on various mobile tariffs. Buying 40GB of data on a domestic mobile internet tariff from Orange would cost the same as an iMac; buying the same quantity of data on O2's non-Europe roaming tariff would cost £240,000 — or the same as a three-bedroom house."

Comments

You need to move to texas

[Hadlock]

You can get a 3 bedroom house on a quarter acre in a respectable neighborhood for $130,000 (that's £90,000 in metric dollars for you british types). Sure, we won't have enough water for our population when the apocalypse comes, but in the mean time 3 bedrooms here is considered on the small side.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Dutchmaan]

You can get a 3 bedroom house on a quarter acre in a respectable neighborhood for $130,000 (that's £90,000 in metric dollars for you british types). Sure, we won't have enough water for our population when the apocalypse comes, but in the mean time 3 bedrooms here is considered on the small side.

...but in Texas 3 bedrooms will get you a master bedroom, a children's bedroom and a bedroom for the mother's big ass bleach blonde hairdo.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Hadlock]

That's Arkansas. Their houses are even less expensive, and you might even get a 4 bedroom for that price. The downside is that you have to endure your neighbor field dressing a deer in the driveway every Sunday afternoon.

Re:You need to move to texas

[xaxa]

The house I rent in London has 3 bedrooms (plus another room which is about as big as a double bed). It's "worth" about £600,000. It's in a nice area, has a very small garden, and is 3 minutes walk from a tube station.

For some reason no-one is willing to build decent houses/flats in English cities. Many European cities have large areas of 4/5/6 storey residential buildings, but not here.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Chrisq]

Who would want to move to America from England to a southern state full of bible bashing racist retards....?

Nick Griffin ... or is that wishful thinking

Re:You need to move to texas

[JWSmythe]

    Food and water can be acquired. The more important thing we've lost is our hunter/gatherer survival instinct. If there were a serious ELE, the first waves of heavy deaths (assuming no traumatic ELE cause like the sun exploding), would be at the 1 to 2 week mark, as people died of starvation and dehydration. Water is abundant, if you know where to look, and are willing to consider drainage retention ponds, canals, and other bodies of fresh water. Of course, there would be plenty of human inflected deaths too, fighting over canned goods and bottled water. Don't believe it? Consider what people will do to each other on "Black Friday", and that's for a fucking discount on unnecessary material possessions. Along the same lines, watch your local news. Murders, rapes, theft for the sake of theft. Realize that your local news is covering a small area, and then multiply it by the number of metro areas world wide.

    People will lie, cheat, steal, and murder for that last can of spam, or bottle of water, but won't eat their own dog, or drink from the swimming pool. Ya, if it gets bad enough, Fido will make some nice BBQ.

    Back to the topic though...

    Vendors will sell at prices that the market will pay. They're not raping you. You've bent over, handed them the lube, and said "Here's $200/Mb. I'll be back in a month for more."

    When people stop paying the outrageous prices, the price will come down. Only that, or fair competition will keep it in check. Fair competition, unfortunately, will only bring it down to a point where all parties profit margins are satisfied. They have to keep the share holders happy, after all. No company does anything out of the goodness of their own hearts. They're in business to make a profit, and you, the consumer, have shown them what you're willing to pay.

    Just like our survival instincts, we've forgotten that we, the customer, are in control of the companies. If they don't service us the way we want, we have the choice to go elsewhere. If there is no other option, we have the choice to not use their damned service. Do you really need a cell phone that plays movies, music, gives GPS directions, and (for the ladies) have the extended vibrate feature? No. You got one to make calls on. You've all been swindled by the vendors into paying more for the prettier newer phones, the add-on services, etc, etc. ... and that's how I feel every time someone complains that prices are too high, as they cut the check for the bill. "This costs too much, but oh well, I'll pay anyways."

Re:You need to move to texas

[cvtan]

Have some respect. You need to call them "Bubba".

Re:You need to move to texas

[macraig]

Consumer ignorance and/or apathy is the WORST thing that can ever happen to an economy. If the ignorant are the majority, they wreck the market even for those who aren't ignorant. "Whatever price the market will bear" is a meaningless phrase when consumers don't know how to estimate cost to produce and don't know or care about profit margins.

Sadly, where and when I'm living the ignorant typically are the majority.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Joce640k]

Maybe they're willing but not able....

Re:You need to move to texas

[Stormthirst]

Nah - he's not right wing enough

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but then you'll be living in Texas...

Re:You need to move to texas

[ShakaUVM]

>>Who would want to move to America from England to a southern state full of bible bashing racist retards....

I think you're getting your metaphors confused.

Atheists bash Bibles
Christians (well, some Christians) thump them.

And if you think people in the south are still racist, in general, you're the retard.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Renraku]

What's wrong with that? Make friends with your neighbor and you'll eat deer steaks for a week.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Jimbookis]

You can get a 3br bunghole in need of serious renovation here in sleepy Warrnambool (Australia) for US$250,000. Either the US housing market is screwed or the Australian market is screwed. I am not sure which is the case....

Re:You need to move to texas

[Renraku]

So, let's assume that all the American citizens suddenly got a hair up their asses about cell phone data plans and were clamoring for legislation or for prices to drop. Do you think companies will lower their prices just because it is what the citizens want?

Hell no. They're not going to kill the geese that lay golden eggs. They're going to continue to not upgrade their infrastructure so that they can look good when Congress comes a'knockin and asks why text messages cost ten cents each for less than a kilobyte of data, when you can get an actual data plan of multiple gigabytes for $10/month. Texting is actually more expensive if you don't have a plan than uploading data to the moon via satellite link.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Hadlock]

Water is abundant, if you know where to look, and are willing to consider drainage retention ponds, canals, and other bodies of fresh water.

There are no natural bodies of water in Texas, though. Except that "lake" that sits on our eastern border, far from any major population centers. People forget that the Mississippi is notable in the fact that it's our only truly navigable river on the entire continent. It's also worth pointing out that Dallas is only 100 miles north of Cairo, Egypt. The main difference here (as I try and keep my tomato plants alive in the backyard in stifling 100F+ heat with no rain in three weeks) is that we don't have pyramids, we only have the Federal Reserve Bank and Bank of America Plaza building.

Re:You need to move to texas

[IllusionalForce]

No company does anything out of the goodness of their own hearts. They're in business to make a profit, and you, the consumer, have shown them what you're willing to pay.

Rest in peace, Sun Microsystems.

Re:You need to move to texas

[AK Marc]

Everybody, in general, is racist. Those in the south moreso. I was born in and spent my first 30 years in the south, and southerners are, in general, more racist than than the average Americans.

Re:You need to move to texas

[postbigbang]

There are enough people that would shun such a tarrif that it will eventually be re-figured somehow. A few people will be caught in its web with a bill that's plainly awful. What's wrong is that there's not a way to prevent those hapless few from being really totally burned.

And so we call them out, mock them, and vilify them for their stupidity in hopes that shame will cause them to change. But corporations, especially telcos with monopolistic attitudes, are incapable of shame. It's the nature of such entities to be totally narcissistic and self-serving to the point of what any shrink would call pathological.

A regulatory authority might have the ability to hold sway of such pricing, so as to protect that small minority that will hurt themselves, often unwittingly. So it's not really like we vote with our business. We don't get a "vote" in the model that is the constraint within the context of telco tariffing models. You believe we do, but it doesn't actually work that way. Perhaps the pain of vilification might work, but rarely. Instead, we might gravitate to sanity, those of us that are willing to dive deeply into the rate structures of plans. We shouldn't have to take the time to become experts on telco plans; they should be reasonable from the onset.

Re:You need to move to texas

[zAPPzAPP]

How do I have to imagine a "4 bedroom house"?
A bedroom is any room I can place a bed in. So does this mean it's a house with 4 rooms that are not already kitchen, bathroom and so on?

Re:You need to move to texas

[Hadlock]

For some reason no-one is willing to build decent houses/flats in English cities. Many European cities have large areas of 4/5/6 storey residential buildings, but not here.

For whatever reason, the closer to the city center, and the lower the population density, the higher the value of the property. In addition to that, someone who can afford to occupy a piece of land that would normally house ten families a) usually doesn't cause problems for the landlord b) often times makes improvements to the property and c) by reputation keeps or raises the property value. You'd have to be astoundingly bad at business (or born in to money) to invite more tenants that cause more problems and expect you to maintain the property out of pocket, who at the same time lower the value of your investment, rather than keep the status quo.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Cwix]

You are from AK right Marc?

Judging from the Alaskans I'm familiar with (the Palin clan), you guys are all fucking idiots that fly around and shoot animals from helicopters for fun and profit.

You are also unsure of what a newspaper is.

See stereotypes work both ways :-)

Note: I lived in AK for a few years, so I know this stuff isnt true. I also grew up in Georgia, and frankly I'm of the opinion that there are racists everywhere. The ones in GA seem more out in the open with it though.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Gordonjcp]

Aren't those houses built out of thin sheeting tacked to thin timbers? Basically a packing crate with windows cut in?

Re:You need to move to texas

[drb_chimaera]

Depends where he is, over here in the UK bible-basher is used in the same way bible-thumper is used in the US

Two countries, separated by a common language...

Re:You need to move to texas

[L4t3r4lu5]

Then kill your neighbour. Eat long pig for another week!

Re:You need to move to texas

[ewanm89]

UK house prices and UK mobile phone providers.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

You can not buy any kind of realestate with that money in Toronto that is freestanding on a lot of any size, maybe one bedroom on the skirts of a city in a very questionable neigbourhood.

Re:You need to move to texas

[bernywork]

They are able, but not willing. A lot of people in London and a lot of English, don't want their city going up and up and up in height. A lot less natural light, and more people. They don't want London turning into Singapore which is the way that it would go if the developers had their way.

Re:You need to move to texas

[cynyr]

yep, but that is basically the whole of the US new housing market....

Re:You need to move to texas

[laejoh]

And get yourself a station wagon filled with magnetic tape!

Re:You need to move to texas

[Nursie]

I lived in London for a decade and don't remember being asked about that...

One problem with London of course is the land, which is not really conducive to skyscrapers. But the things is that instead of building upwards, the property owners of London have spent the last couple of decades subdividing. Properties in London are now absolutely tiny. I never bought property there because the huge price you paid in return for no space whatsoever just didn't seem worth it. Of course from an investment perspective I should have just bought anything I could and waited for it to triple in value...

Re:You need to move to texas

[Kjella]

Just like our survival instincts, we've forgotten that we, the customer, are in control of the companies. If they don't service us the way we want, we have the choice to go elsewhere. If there is no other option, we have the choice to not use their damned service.

Ah, the capitalist manifesto - almost as far detached from reality as the communist one. Yes, that's what all companies like you to believe even when they got you by the balls. And there's a mutual understanding with your competitors that price wars are bad so we'll all offer the same overpriced, underperforming service and your only real option is to exit the market altogether. No TV, no phone, no Internet... hey, how are you on slashdot at all? I'm pretty sure you're feeding one of those vendors that you rave about to be here. Unless you're on a small regional ISP, in which case they're paying the megacorps instead of you.

If you really believe that we don't need laws against false advertising, antitrust, first sale, price dumping, any of those consumer laws that give us rights. DRM is fine, if the market doesn't want DRM it'll be rejected - you don't own a DVD drive that supports CSS do you? Clearly that means you wanted it and an industry-wide association didn't shove it down your throat. Doesn't matter if you use it or not, you paid for it and they can say the public doesn't care and everyone has a DVD player that supports it. Same goes for any computer with DVI/HDCP or HDMI - which is now most computers bought in the last decade.

Reality is that the "invisible hand" of the market can be trussed up like a pig. Oh, you might be allowed to run around in a small pen to give you an illusion of freedom, but you're not going anywhere. Sometimes the government helps, but often it's more than enough that the government stands completely aside - which is something libertarians will never admit. You're only in control insofar that you could go all Amish on them and start your own self-sufficient agrarian society. As long as you don't want modern medicine or anything, because that's all ruled by megacorps too. But I guess 99.99% of us aren't willing to go there so then we deserve everything we get, right?

Re:You need to move to texas

[rickb928]

Haven't spent much time in Boston, have you? Or Detroit. Either of the Detroits, for that matter..

Re:You need to move to texas

[rickb928]

Both, for similar and different reasons.

Re:You need to move to texas

[bernywork]

The technology is there for artificial foundations (You don't need a giant slab of granite or sandstone to build on any more) and has been for a while, this is how they built the old ABN AMRO now RBS building on Bishopsgate and the Gherkin. Around central London from the local councils, you can get planning permission for a sub-divide as your not going up.

As a generalisation, a lot of people in London don't want to change the general look of London. They are tied to it's history and the idea of rapid change doesn't sit with them.

Besides, all the blue plaques that would have to be gotten rid of and there would be a bunch of people complaining about the historical value of something if it were to be taken down.

I think the biggest force to stop people around London from majorly increasing demand aside from will is Infrastructure, I don't know when you left, but the Northern, Victoria and Centra lines etc are still crap in the mornings and trying to put another 50 million people onto them just is not going to work. Ripping up Oxford street to replace all the old water pipes is a good example of how old a lot of things are.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Nursie]

I only left last year, so it probably hasn't changed a lot in the last 15 months, I'm guessing.

I wouldn't necessarily argue for building upwards to accommodate more people, I would be much more in favour of building upwards to give people more space.

Not that I'd be completely decided each way, but I'm sure there are enough crappy areas in the city that nobody would miss :)

Re:You need to move to texas

[bernywork]

I wouldn't necessarily argue for building upwards to accommodate more people, I would be much more in favour of building upwards to give people more space.

Yeah right, like that's going to happen. You give a landlord / developer the ability to build upwards and you could nearly photograph the pound signs flashing in his eyes......

Not that I'd be completely decided each way, but I'm sure there are enough crappy areas in the city that nobody would miss :)

Quite a few actually, both north and south of the river. I guess there is only so much money for the local development authorities to work with....

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like our survival instincts, we've forgotten that we, the customer, are in control of the companies.

I don't know that I'd say that we're in control of the companies... But it is most certainly a two-way street. WIthout any customers, those companies aren't going to be around for long.

If they don't service us the way we want, we have the choice to go elsewhere. If there is no other option, we have the choice to not use their damned service. Do you really need a cell phone that plays movies, music, gives GPS directions, and (for the ladies) have the extended vibrate feature? No. You got one to make calls on. You've all been swindled by the vendors into paying more for the prettier newer phones, the add-on services, etc, etc. ... and that's how I feel every time someone complains that prices are too high, as they cut the check for the bill. "This costs too much, but oh well, I'll pay anyways."

People have forgotten how to say "no". People have forgotten what real necessities are. We've been living in luxury for so long that a slightly newer smartphone is seen as a necessity rather than a luxury.

I'm not sure I'd lay all the blame on the vendors... We want our gadgets. We like our toys. We'll seize on any excuse to justify the price. We'll happily go into debt to pay for some extra buttons and a blinking light that we don't actually need. That's more a failing of the society as a whole... The entire US economy revolves around credit and debt.

Re:You need to move to texas

[xaxa]

They are able, but not willing. A lot of people in London and a lot of English, don't want their city going up and up and up in height. A lot less natural light, and more people. They don't want London turning into Singapore which is the way that it would go if the developers had their way.

I can understand arguments against building 20+ storey buildings everywhere, but I don't see a problem with putting 5-storey buildings in large areas of inner London, yet they don't get built either.

Nursie's comment about subdividing is exactly the problem we have (and it means we have the additional people anyway, and less space per person). I'm 25, and I'm sharing a house with three friends. For the same money I could rent a tiny flat (i.e. subdivided house), and have hardly any space.

I'd rather have a decent amount of my own space and live in a 4-6 storey building, which is normal in most other large European cities.

Re:You need to move to texas

[ThosLives]

So, let's assume that all the American citizens suddenly got a hair up their asses about cell phone data plans and were clamoring for legislation or for prices to drop. Do you think companies will lower their prices just because it is what the citizens want?

No, they'll lower prices in the face of lower revenues because some revenue is better than no revenue, and they'd rather have it than their competitors. That's assuming, of course, that the market doesn't suffer from (even informal) collusion where all parties charge exorbitant rates and it's prohibitively expensive (or bureaucratically impossible) for another player to enter the market.

The problem, as the GP noted, is that supply and demand only really applies when you have what economists call "rational actors" on both sides. When it comes to things like cell-phone-technology mobile plans, the majority of the demand side is so ill-informed (or perhaps worse, the majority just doesn't care) that it cannot be called "rational" in that sense. If the participants in an otherwise open market are not rational, that "free market" will be extremely inefficient.

The tyranny of the majority is a real detriment to the concept of a truly free rational market. And this is just cell phone data plans.

Re:You need to move to texas

[xaxa]

I lived in London for a decade and don't remember being asked about that

There was a proposal to build a 12-storey residential building on some spare land behind the local High Street, which was rejected after all the rich people said they didn't like the idea of having more people living here. What they meant was probably that they liked their existing rental income. (I wrote in and supported it, but I don't have a six-figure salary.)

But the things is that instead of building upwards, the property owners of London have spent the last couple of decades subdividing. Properties in London are now absolutely tiny.

That is exactly the problem. Student accommodation in London is the worst offender, IME -- probably because students are relatively poor but really want to be close to their university. I was really lucky with the first place I rented (with three friends) in 2006 -- the agent showed us round a place which had 8 students living there, but a change in the law meant he could then only let 4 people live there (he had to fit a fire alarm system etc to have 8 tenants). That meant we had some communal rooms -- when 8 people had been in that house they'd not had any communal rooms except the kitchen and the bathroom.

A year later I had to move (the landlord wanted to fit the fire alarm system and rent to a group of 8), and I ended up living in a basement flat, which was the "lower ground" floor of a subdivided house. We had three bedrooms plus a kitchen and a bathroom. That was shit, although I didn't realise how bad it would be until I'd lived there a month (too late).

The people that really lose out from the lack of laws (some countries have laws stating the minimum floor area per person) and middle-class resistance to new buildings are the young and the poor-ish. I think it's despicable.

Re:You need to move to texas

[xaxa]

How do I have to imagine a "4 bedroom house"?
A bedroom is any room I can place a bed in. So does this mean it's a house with 4 rooms that are not already kitchen, bathroom and so on?

Pretty much, yes.

Bedrooms ~= Number of rooms - kitchens - bathrooms - defined communal rooms (living rooms, dining rooms, whatever you want to call them).

My parents, now that I've moved out and my sister's moved out, have a 4 bedroom house with 2 bedrooms (theirs, my brother's), a spare bedroom and a "study" (aka room full of junk).

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

You should move to central London. £240,000 will get you a roach-ridden studio in the midst of junkies and hoes

Re:You need to move to texas

[Chrisq]

Murders, rapes, theft for the sake of theft. Realize that your local news is covering a small area, and then multiply it by the number of metro areas world wide.

English people who have not been to the USA might not understand this. I was in Huston and the news was on, running down shootings, car jackings, armed robberies, and so on. I was listenling vaguely, thinking that the USA is a big country so there must be more of that than in the UK. Then they said "and now the news for the rest of the state"! WHat I had thought was for the whole of the USA was just the local news for Houston.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a 3 bedroom ($137k) in a suburb of Little Rock this week and I don't think any of my neighbors hunt. However, one lady looks like a suspiciously capable southern cook.

Re:You need to move to texas

[elfprince13]

Move to Vermont. We got 60 acres for less than $200,000. Actually don't though, because we like it rural.

Re:You need to move to texas

[houghi]

Do you really need a cell phone that ...

You could even ask if you need a cell phone. I live in a student city and as always, students will get X amount of money. X has not changed (except for inflation).

Where students would spend part on housing, part on food (ok, spaghetti every day) and the rest on beer. Now part of that beer money goes to mobile service and the ISP.

Don't forget people usually have only X amount to spend. So if you spend it on one thing, you can't spend it on something else. (No matter what the banks tell you.)

Re:You need to move to texas

[eugene ts wong]

Then kill you. Eat Soylent Green for another week!

Re:You need to move to texas

[Chrisq]

Is that apart from Lake Abilene, Lake Alan Henry, Lake Alvarado Park, Lake Amistad, Lake Amon G. Carter, Lake Aquilla, Lake Arlington, Lake Arrowhead, Lake Athens, Lake Austin, Lake Averhoff, Lake B.A. Steinhagen, Lake Balmorhea, Lake Bardwell, Lake Bastrop, Lake Baylor Creek, Lake Belton, Lake Benbrook, Lake Big Creek, Lake Bob Sandlin, Lake Bonham, Lake Bonham State Park, Lake Brady Creek, Lake Brandy Branch, Lake Braunig, Lake Bridgeport, Lake Brownwood, Lake Bryan, Lake Bryson, Lake Buchanan, Lake Buffalo Creek, Lake Buffalo Springs, Lake Caddo, Lake Calaveras, Lake Canyon, Lake Casa Blanca, Lake Cedar Creek, Lake Champion Creek, Lake Choke Canyon, Lake Cisco, Lake Clyde, Lake Coffee Mill, Lake Coleman, Lake Coleto Creek, Lake Colorado City, Lake Conroe, Lake Cooper, Lake Corpus Christi, Lake Crook, Lake Cypress Springs, Lake Daniel, Lake Davy Crockett, Lake Diversion, Lake Dunlap, Lake Eagle Mountain, Lake E. V. Spence, Lake Fairfield, Lake Falcon, Lake Fayette County, Lake Findley (Alice City Lake), Lake Fork, Lake Fort Parker State Park, Lake Fort Phantom Hill, Lake Fryer, Lake Georgetown, Lake Gibbons Creek, Lake Gilmer, Lake Gladewater, Lake Gonzales, Lake Graham, Lake Granbury, Lake Granger, Lake Grapevine, Lake Greenbelt, Lake Halbert, Lake Hawkins, Lake Holbrook, Lake Hords Creek, Lake Houston, Lake Houston County, Lake Hubbard Creek, Lake Inks, Lake Jacksonville, Lake J.B. Thomas, Lake Joe Pool, Lake Kemp, Lake Kickapoo, Lake Kirby, Lake Kurth, Lake Lady Bird (Town Lake, Austin), Lake Lake O' The Pines, Lake Lavon, Lake Leon, Lake Lewisville, Lake Limestone, Lake Livingston, Lake Lone Star, Lake Lost Creek, Lake Lyndon B. Johnson, Lake Mackenzie, Lake Marble Falls, Lake Martin Creek, Lake McClellan, Lake Medina, Lake Meredith, Lake Mexia, Lake Mill Creek, Lake Millers Creek, Lake Mineral Wells, Lake Monticello, Lake Moss, Lake Mountain Creek, Lake Murvaul, Lake Nacogdoches, Lake Nasworthy, Lake Navarro Mills, Lake New Ballinger, Lake Nocona, Lake Oak Creek, Lake O.C. Fisher, Lake O.H. Ivie, Lake Palestine, Lake Palo Duro, Lake Palo Pinto, Lake Pat Cleburne, Lake Pat Mayse, Lake Pinkston, Lake Placid, Lake Possum Kingdom, Lake Proctor, Lake Purtis Creek, Lake Quitman, Lake Raven, Lake Ray Hubbard, Lake Ray Roberts, Lake Red Bluff, Lake Richland-Chambers, Lake Sam Rayburn, Lake Sheldon, Lake Somerville, Lake Squaw Creek, Lake Stamford, Lake Stillhouse Hollow, Lake Striker, Lake Sulphur Springs, Lake Sweetwater, Lake Tawakoni, Lake Texana, Lake Texoma, Lake Timpson, Lake Toledo Bend, Lake Town Lake (now known as Lady Bird Lake), Lake Tradinghouse Creek, Lake Travis, Lake Twin Buttes, Lake Tyler, Lake Waco, Lake Walter E. Long (Decker), Lake Waxahachie, Lake Weatherford, Lake Welsh, Lake White River, Lake White Rock, Lake Whitney, Lake Wichita, Lake Winnsboro, Lake Wood, Lake Worth and Lake Wright Patman?

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, the difference between high rise European cities and low-rise London is that London has been planned with low rise in mind and has narrow and twisty roads (even outside the centre). If you're going to build upwards you need wide roads to let in the light (and central Amsterdam's 2-roads-and-canal arrangement work even better for the purpose, though it's entirely coincidental).

It's not like you can knock down a row of semis and replace it with a high rise because the street would be too narrow; and when we've done the 'raze a neighbourhood and rebuild it as high-rise' trick we've always done it on the cheap with un-soundproof asbestos-infested council flats.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Nursie]

Couldn't agree more, the whole thing is ridiculous.

I also find it offensive when politicians and newspapers in the Uk talk about building more "affordable housing" by which they mean building things as small as they can get away with, out of cheap materials, and charging what (inflation adjusted) a reasonable house would have cost a decade or so back.

Affordable housing should be about making decent housing affordable, not cramming in tiny, cheap boxes wherever you can shove them.

Lack of space is one of the reasons I left. Perth is no cheaper than London for the average house, but the average house is about three times the size!

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

GW Bush ? Is that you?
The Mississippi is NOT to only navigable River on the continent. Is this what public school is teaching these days?

No Rain for 3 weeks? If you Texans are so GD independent, why don't go get off your arse and dig a well?

This is in Texas.. http://www.moodygardens.com/photo_gallery/
and HOLY CRAP!! There are boats navigating that waterway in front of FREAKING Pyramids!!!!!

Yah Dallas looks to be about 100 Miles North of but also in a different world region. See for your self below, Your geography teacher was wrong.

http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Cairo,+Egypt&daddr=Dallas,+TX&hl=en&sll=31.533615,-32.880679&sspn=103.455288,147.65625&geocode=FWbAygEdZdTcASnrviELpj9YFDG6O0LolrLfeQ%3BFYuI9AEdfWg7-ilLl0V79xlMhjGPZ0f2pJvsuQ&mra=ls&t=h&z=3

Re:You need to move to texas

[kyz]

Land is cheap when you steal it.

Re:You need to move to texas

[elistan]

None of which, as Hadlock indicated, are natural. Every single one of those lakes you mention - except Caddo Lake, already mentioned, on the Texas/Luisiana border - is the result of a man-made dam. (Although I'm not sure if it matters whether a lake is natural or man-made in terms of JWSmythe's comments about finding water for one or two weeks after an ELE. The lakes, and the water they hold, will still be there for a while.)

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

East Texas has swamps. It doesn't magically change from wetlands to desert when you hit the Louisiana/Texas border.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

A Bizarre Analysis of London renting ... subdivide a 2 bedroom flat that rents to one person/couple for £900 a month and then rent out the two one bedroom flats for £600 a month.. simples. As for the reputation of the renter improving the value of the flat, thats even more bizarre, unless you are talking about mega-celebrity. And in those cases they tend not to live anywhere too long (its the tax, darling). Your analysis seems predicated on Daily Mail chav articles, strangeley not all poor people are scum, not even most of them.

Re:You need to move to texas

[macraig]

... And thus the socialists laugh at the libertarians because markets are dominated by irrational actors, the libertarians laugh at the socialists because markets are dominated by unethical and uncooperative actors, and the capitalists mock them both for being so wishful and pre-scriptive in a world that only tolerates de-scription, all the while mis-educating and raping them all at every opportunity. Vive la market noir! [Forgive my bad French.]

Re:You need to move to texas

[JasterBobaMereel]

The horrific rates in the article are for Roaming and Non-Europe Roaming - i.e. they have to deal with a supplier in another country, the European charges ahve just been capped (by the EU), but in other countries the charges are whatever the local carrier wants to charge ....

SMS messages the worst though, the traffic and management overheads required to keep your cellphone on the network uses more data than any person would use in SMS messages in the same time, unless you are fastest than the fastest txter in the world...

Re:You need to move to texas

[speculatrix]

+1 Here in the East of England, South Cambs District Council boasted in their magazine a while back that the new town Cambourne had an even higher housing density than planned and higher than ever before in the region.I thought they should be apologising, not boasting.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Joce640k]

A lot of people in London and a lot of English, don't want their city going up and up and up in height. A lot less natural light, and more people. They don't want London turning into Singapore which is the way that it would go if the developers had their way.

So the developers are willing, but not able (people won't let them). It's what I said.

Re:You need to move to texas

[JasterBobaMereel]

Depends what you can do with it ... If all you are allowed to do is farm it, not build a house on it then it is not worth much ...

Re:You need to move to texas

[speculatrix]

+1

we spend more on our mobile phones and services than people in some countries have to live on, by a considerable margin.

Re:You need to move to texas

[elfprince13]

Nope, it came with a house too.

Re:You need to move to texas

[KDR_11k]

Careful with bodies of water, during e.g. a flood you should stay away from water as it'll likely be heavily infected and polluted, enough that you'll die from it.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Grizzley9]

Yeah, I've never really understood this about the NE. It is beautiful even if the winters are a little longer/harsher. But even on the east coast the population is pretty sparse in places. I wouldn't mind Vermont one bit and loved my vacation to your lovely state a couple years ago.

Re:You need to move to texas

[lisaparratt]

Or you could just have moved oop north...

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also worth pointing out that Dallas is only 100 miles north of Cairo, Egypt.

Unlike most Americans, I knew that Egypt was in South America, but I had no idea it was that close. We need that fence!

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. Traditionally, a 'bedroom' is a room without some other explicit purpose (kitchen, bathroom, etc.) *which has a closet* and is only accessible through a doorway. The same room *without* a closet is a 'study'. The same room without a door is a 'den', 'living room', 'dining room', or 'family room'.

Re:You need to move to texas

[xaxa]

Not really. Traditionally, a 'bedroom' is a room without some other explicit purpose (kitchen, bathroom, etc.) *which has a closet* and is only accessible through a doorway. The same room *without* a closet is a 'study'. The same room without a door is a 'den', 'living room', 'dining room', or 'family room'.

Not in Britain, since we don't tend to have closets. (I think this would apply to lots of Europe, but I've not been in enough bedrooms to know.) Instead we have wardrobes. You can swap a bedroom for a study by moving the bed and wardrobe(s) out, and moving a desk in; but when selling the house both rooms will be counted as "bedrooms" (in the UK, anyway).

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure... you could also buy a whole village in a third world country for that amount of money or less.

Re:You need to move to texas

[adelgado]

As a Brazilian, I feel the urge to point out that there are plenty of truly navigable rivers on our continent.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Convector]

In the US, I believe a "bedroom" must also have an alternate escape route (e.g., in case of fire) besides the main entrance, such as a window that opens and is large enough to crawl through. This may vary by state.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey retard, a "4 bedroom house" is a house that has 4 rooms specifically designated for placing beds in. DERPA DERP

Re:You need to move to texas

[The Yuckinator]

Texting is actually more expensive if you don't have a plan than uploading data to the moon via satellite link.

Including the costs of the receiver, and of getting it up there.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

.

"There are no natural bodies of water in Texas,".

ummm...... Rio Grande much? Pecos any?

Water is abundant in most places. Just not in the form you prefer (glass, ice, umbrella,free of parasites,etc).

Re:You need to move to texas

[enupten]

That's incidentally what it'd cost for a decent one in Bangalore. Funny how India can be both rich and poor at the same time.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Nursie]

This is true, though I don't know anybody up North, and there are lots of weird accents. So to be honest it's not that different to Australia!

Re:You need to move to texas

[JWSmythe]

    That's exactly what I was asking. :) People don't *need* a cell phone, home phone, cable TV. Most cities require that you do have electricity and running water, but in some rural areas you can even do without that.

    Your food can all be dry/canned goods, so you don't need a refrigerator. Air conditioning is a luxury, so you don't really need it. Heat can come from alternative means (wood burning stoves, or even just better clothing). So electricity is all but gone, since you probably want a computer (since we're here, we're obviously Internet junkies). You can set up enough solar panels with a few deep cycle batteries to keep the laptop running all the time (but you shouldn't).

      "running" water can be filtered and treated in-house. Where I grew up, there was no "city" water supply, because we were 20 miles from the nearest city. Absolutely everyone used well water. Even in the city I'm in now, you can find older homes that had wells. The city required that they were capped when they offered water service. Ya. Tell me that wasn't in the financial interest of the city. Most people with well water did no treatment. Some did basic filtering. A few have advanced filtering. As I've found, advanced filtering is required for city supplied water too. At my mom's house, the filter pulls about 2.5 pounds of brown sludge out of the municipal supply, and removes the chlorine. Her clear dishes have all gone from being a milky white, to being perfectly clear again.

    So you have sewage and trash services to contend with. There are perfectly good ways to deal with that, which have withstood the test of time. And no, dumping your chamber pot out the window isn't it.

    But in today's society, when you move into a residence, you turn on power, water, phone, cable, before you move your first belonging in the door.

    Our necessities are luxuries, but most people under 30 have never known life without all of them.

Re:You need to move to texas

[ginbot462]

A think that can get you a toilet stall (non functioning) in San Francisco.

Re:You need to move to texas

[tompaulco]

You won't find anybody more racist than a minority, in my experience.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that the market doesn't always produce exactly the outcome you desire is not evidence of the market's failure. How exactly is it "infringing on your freedom" when a company decides the nature of the product or service they intend to offer? How exactly do these consumer laws "give you" rights that you didn't have before?

Your beliefs about markets, rights, and what it means to be free are very, very confused, not "insightful".

Re:You need to move to texas

[JWSmythe]

    Ya, you have to realize that the United States is roughly the size of Europe. Europe has about 2.8 times the population. That's mainly because the US has vast areas of sparse population, and the population is primarily on the East coast, East of the Mississippi river, and the West coast, relatively close to the ocean.

    The greater Houston area's population is pretty close to that of the greater London area.

    American TV, unfortunately, has a tendency to sensationalize its news. Here, virtually all television is ratings driven. Blood, guts, and mayhem will always make the top stories. Getting or keeping viewers is far more important than portraying the truth.

    From what I understand, the BBC is financed through taxes. It doesn't matter if the news can rival the sex and gore ridden shows before and after it. And I'm not talking badly about either, I like sex and gore, but not usually together. :)

Re:You need to move to texas

[YojimboJango]

I got a nice 4 bedroom 3 bath on 1.25 acres with a stream running through the back yard here in west Michigan for less than last year. When the apocalypse hits I've got drinking water, a nice garden for veggies, and an apple tree to lure deer to into bow and arrow range. Also the day I get to kill the woodchucks that keep eating my watermelons will be a happy day for me.

All this and I've got 2 grocery stores, a strip mall and an IMax movie theatre within walking distance. What now inner city folk.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Hadlock]

Nice copypasta.
 
  Except that all of those except Lake Caddo are actually shallow reservoirs built in the last century. i.e. I've personally seen the dam of roughly 20 of those up close and personal. You might want to brush up on your reading comprehension, because the other guy that replied to you is spot on.

Re:You need to move to texas

[AK Marc]

You are from AK right Marc?

I explicitly stated I was "from" Texas. I did not state where I am. But I was not born in AK and am not posting from AK, so "from" doesn't seem to apply. And yes, many Alaskans are idiots, enough to make the stereotype a valid generalization.

I was watching a CSI episode with the wife and we like to quip about the show we are watching. They mentioned that fugitives go to Las Vegas to hide. I observed that they may go to Vegas to hide, but they go to Alaska to live openly under their real name. There have been at least a few high-profile cases where some family where the head of the family fathered more than one child with more than one of his children, and when people got wise to this, moved to the middle of nowhere Alaska to live openly. But they got so comfortable not having to hide anything, after a few years, then do something stupid in public (like mention that the pregnant 15 year old walking around with the 60 year old man is not only his daughter, but carrying his baby where others hear). They don't start in Alaska, and they are all around the US, but they run to and concentrate in Alaska and live more openly (the case I'm talking about, the guy illegally bulldozed through a park, I don't remember state or national park, so he wasn't afraid of press, all the while abusing his children).

So I'd say that the stereotypes aren't far from the mark. And most stereotypes have truth in them, whether factual truth, or a basis in jealousy (revealing a truth about those starting them, not characterized by them).

The reason stereotypes exist is because the human brain isn't capable of processing every interaction as unique. We group things. If we don't like lettuce, we generally don't like cabbage as well. The same with broccoli and cauliflower. Whether valid or not, we associate similar items and address them with broad strokes. Yes, I just announced that we are prejudice with respect to plants, as well as other people. People afraid of dogs don't care whether the particular dog that made them afraid was a schnauzer or pit bull, they generalize that fear to all dogs. They don't care if the person who took their job didn't get it because of some unrelated characteristic, they generalize that feeling of betrayal to all of "those" people, whoever they may be. In may cases, it's explicitly true (Irish and Chinese imported to work on the railroads in the 1800s), but most cases not and just reflective of general changes in demographics and innate fear/hate of change.

But without prejudice, we would be unable to function. I have a prejudice that someone standing behind a counter with a nametag and who just checked out the person in front of me is a cashier. It would be silly (to the point of breaking commerce) to ask for ID, verify with the manager (who you'd still have to verify in some way) to make sure that the person behind the counter is indeed authorized to take your money and sell you the items. When every 30 second transaction is blocked with 5 minutes of verification, then the store would be unable to process the customers in a timely manner. So we assume things about the person based on our observations of them. Prejudice is a good thing and required for human functioning.

But racial based comments made because of fear and hatred are bad, and in Texas, I'd hardly go a day without hearing one (in college, I'd hear 10-100 racial slurs per day, yay most conservative large public university in the US - Texas A&M). Hell, it would be a rare week when I wouldn't hear "goddamn fucking sand niggers, we should just nuke them all to end this shit." And that's polite compared to most which I would never repeat.

Re:You need to move to texas

[bell.colin]

I've lived all 29 of my years in Texas and i don't think i can name one person that is like that. Or even recall any observation of such things.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Anonymous Coward]

Singapore is a modern, clean, presentable city in which everything works. London is an archaic, broken-down, depressing shit hole. I'd choose Singapore in a heartbeat.

Re:You need to move to texas

[ShakaUVM]

>>Everybody, in general, is racist.

I work with people all across the country, flying out once or twice a month to teach groups of 30 or so. I've spent years in South Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, and Florida. The only time I felt vaguely uncomfortable about race was this one year in South Carolina, when all the black people sat on a different side of the lunch room than the white people all week long. But the next year when I came out, it wasn't that way. When I asked the coordinator about it, he said, "Oh, they were all just friends last year." So... eh.

Oh, and in Mississippi, they finally had their first integrated Prom a couple years ago. Morgan Freeman offered to pay for their Prom if they'd integrate it (he has a business nearby in Memphis). That was probably the most mind-blowing thing I've seen in the South. I'm not sure if it was racist, though it was certainly distasteful.

Perhaps you're talking about "secret racism" - you know, that theory that all the white folk are secretly thinking bad thoughts about black people, but in public are perfectly open and pleasant to them?

Or are you confused when friends use racial slurs with each other?

Because I really don't see this pervasive racism you're talking about.

Re:You need to move to texas

[AK Marc]

You missed the string of dragging deaths for gays east of Houston (near, but I don't think in Beaumont). Or the still occasional lynchings of blacks for things like impregnating white women. Perhaps if you are in Austin and never leave that area (or are in the panhandle or other areas that have neither Hispanics nor blacks in large numbers) then you wouldn't have seen anything, but I can't imagine anyone in El Paso, or Houston, or Dallas, or San Antonio who didn't see anything like that. My first guess is that you are selectively remembering, but many people are racist such that they wouldn't notice others racism.

Re:You need to move to texas

[AK Marc]

Perhaps you're talking about "secret racism" - you know, that theory that all the white folk are secretly thinking bad thoughts about black people, but in public are perfectly open and pleasant to them?

No, I'm talking about the guys who are construction foremen who won't hire Hispanics because they are all lazy and sleep on the job, and they hire blacks only if they don't have to do math (no framing work, but roofing is ok once a white person did the framing that requires any math to get the angles and such right) because blacks are strong and used to taking orders, but can't do math or think so well.

Perhaps because they are nice to the lazy wetbacks and stupid niggers to their face that it's "secret" but they are not secretly talking bad about them the moment the audience is all white (and they go to bars and such that are all white, so an after work drink is filled with assertions of incompetence by minorities by 14 of the 15 people at the table, me being the only one not participating and then not going back to do anything with that group.

And not racism (but still prejudice), but more than one gay person in Texas refused to come out of the closet because of fear of physical harm, and until I moved away, I don't think there was a year that went by where a gay man wasn't killed for being gay, and even a string of killings by dragging the gay man behind a pickup, but they didn't mean to kill him, just maim him for life, so it's not like it's that bad.

I wonder if they ever integrated the athletic housing at Texas A&M. I was told by a person on the football team that they would not put a black person and white person in the same room unless both requested it. But that's 15 years ago. Institutionalized racism was everywhere.

But no, it's all my just making it up and being overly sensitive. It's not racism when white people say "I wish they'd fucking nuke those God damn sand niggers back to the stone age" because they didn't mean any harm, other than killing hundreds of millions of people (or billions, since as far as I know, they'd include Indians and such in that description - but I never asked).

Re:You need to move to texas

[texaport]

Cost to roam? Cost of a home? Texas? You reckon there might be a song here somewhere? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_on_the_Range

Re:You need to move to texas

[Sumtingwong]

Dude, you need to get some sun.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Patch86]

In London, £90,000 will probably buy you a largish garden shed. A 3 bed house for £240k would have to be out in the relative sticks.

Re:You need to move to texas

[Hadlock]

And the same in Manhattan. There are more acres in Texas than there are humans in England. Considerably more illegal laborers in construction as well.

It's the economy!!!!

[Dutchmaan]

I remember the days when a three bedroom house would only cost you 640kb... ahhh those were the days!

Re:It's the economy!!!!

[poena.dare]

Wear rose colored glasses much?

I remember those days too and you failed to mention most houses back then were only 512 x 384, black & white, and 1200 baud.

Jes' sayin'...

Re:It's the economy!!!!

[CraftyJack]

I remember the days when a three bedroom house would only cost you 640kb...

That ought to be enough house for anybody.

Handing over packets between coutries

[drolli]

That seems to be an extremely labor intensive task. Every packet is obviously checked manually.

Re:Handing over packets between coutries

[Anonymous Coward]

thoroughly inspected by the TSA.

Re:Handing over packets between coutries

[Anonymous Coward]

That seems to be an extremely labor intensive task. Every packet is obviously checked manually.

ROTFL! They outsourced the checking to China I suppose :D

Time it takes

[swmike]

Another point to make is that at 8 megabit/s (not that uncommon speed for HSPA), spending those UKP240,000 takes ~11 hours. 40GB of data is approximately what you can fit on a standard Bluray disk.

That's Cheap

[igreaterthanu]

A few years ago my mobile provider (Vodafone) charged NZ$0.10 per 10kB block of data. That is NZ 41.9 million per 40GB or £21.6 million.

Luckily they are much less unreasonable now.

Re:That's Cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

40 GB is 41 943 040 kB. So 4.19 million 10 kB blocks, or $419 430.40.

Still expensive, though. And those rates are still cheaper than we get across the Tasman for international data - about A$20 a MB - so I assume it's just as bad for you kiwis.

If you used text messeges...

[HungryHobo]

If you were to transmit that same 40GB by text it would cost you $52,400,000.

Re:If you used text messeges...

[Anonymous Coward]

I read that as Taxi. Which would be a lot cheeper and take less time than typing 40Gb with your thumbs.

Re:If you used text messeges...

[delinear]

Theoretically I have unlimited free text messages, but I'm pretty sure my phone company wouldn't thank me for testing this out :)

Re:If you used text messeges...

[JasterBobaMereel]

This is because they know that txt messages are essentially free to them (it costs them more to keep you on the network), and they have a "Fair use" policy that will stop you if you do try and test the limits ...

Re:If you used text messeges...

[Anonymous Coward]

or by voice, free :)
time to start using digital modems with bluetooth voice couplers.

Proposed caps

[Joce640k]

Luckily the EU is investigating this and will impose rate caps on everybody.

Under the new scheme those same 40Gb of data will only cost as much as a Ford Mondeo.

Re:Proposed caps

[jawtheshark]

Actually, anyone who has advertisements enabled on slashdot will have seen ads by abroadband.com. I'm not affiliated with them, I'm just a customer. For good reason: I live in Luxembourg, which is tiny, so leaving the country is easily accomplished. You get plans with unlimited data here, but beware if you leave the country. It get expensive quickly. That's why I took the up the abroadband offer: emergency use in my own country (as it doesn't matter in which country you are) and when I leave the country and can't get access to normal wifi.

While 0,59€/MB might seem a lot, it is a great option to have in case of an emergency. 40GB of data would still be the price of a (entry-level?) Ford Mondeo though. Doing the same with my metered data plan, which is probably one of the most expensive in the country, would cost 3,4 times more, within the country. I don't even want to know what it would cost while roaming.

Still not cheap, but better than nothing.

Re:Proposed caps

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I haven't. Maybe /., like the rest of the corporate web, uses IP geolocation to ensure everybody doesn't see the same web.

(Yeah, I'm a bit bitter, and true, obviously localized ads aren't the same issue as localized content.)

Re:Proposed caps

[TheThiefMaster]

Actually the EU caps only cover calls and texts, not data.

Re:Proposed caps

[DiscoDave_25]

Actually as of 1st July 2010 the EU has enforced an opt out (whilst roaming in the EU) cap of 50 EURO. You have to ask to have this removed and if you don't that's the most you can be charged for a given month whilst roaming. The cap you're probably thinking of is on the charges that can be levied rather than any cap on consumption and you're right that's not yet there on data.

Re:Proposed caps

[Kjella]

Funny, I haven't. Maybe /., like the rest of the corporate web, uses IP geolocation to ensure everybody doesn't see the same web. (Yeah, I'm a bit bitter, and true, obviously localized ads aren't the same issue as localized content.)

What's to be bitter about? Without localized ads they'd only make sense to huge chains and corporations with shops/product all over the world. Now I'm not fond of ads in general, but an offer I can't even use is a complete waste of both my time and their money. Well except hosting and such I can buy anywhere in the world, but that's a tiny exception. And if I wanted to there's plenty ways to proxy the connection...

Re:Proposed caps

[orange47]

so what? how much would it cost to text message space station?
mobile internet prices is about supply and demand and competition like everything else, also probably not an easy thing to do.
otherwise, go develop your own basestations and network and make $$$..
just PLEASE QUIT WHINING ABOUT IT.

Re:Proposed caps

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.t-mobile.nl/service-en-contact/buitenland/internet-in-het-buitenland is not *universally* cheaper, but it is cheaper. It doesn't seem to have made it into abroadband's price comparisons yet.

Re:Proposed caps

[Caetel]

The wholesale cost of roaming data is capped at 0.5 EUR/MB, but providers are under no obligation to pass savings on to customers.

Re:Proposed caps

[jawtheshark]

Seems to be only for The Netherlands (meaning, you have to be their customer in The Netherlands), and as such it can't apply to me. It is much cheaper though.

Re:Proposed caps

[js_sebastian]

Actually the EU caps only cover calls and texts, not data.

The current EU caps (that were further lowered by a few cents per minute today) apply to calls and texts. TFA is referring to proposed EU-wide caps for mobile data. From the numbers they give it seems they would be at around 0.5 Euro per MB.

Re:Proposed caps

[TheThiefMaster]

Indeed. My mistake.

Re:Proposed caps

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop this F Mondeo crap at once, there are readers from all around the blue ball. What's it in metric WV Beetles?

Re:Proposed caps

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm getting ads for BMWs, legalzoom and buisness cards. Just like I get on the other 40 sites I visit regularly. I've never even heard of abroadband.com.

Library of Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

How much does the library of congress cost in terms of libraries of congress transferred?

You don't need to move that far

[Chrisq]

£240,000 will get you a decent 4 bedroom house in Wakefield", or a 6 bedroom house in Blackburn.

Re:You don't need to move that far

[mcvos]

It'll get you a 2 bedroom apartment in Amsterdam.

Re:You don't need to move that far

[Anonymous Coward]

I work with a solicitor that does conveyancing, 3 bed houses in Wallasey (and parts of Liverpool) go for 40-70k regularly. Nice 4 bed ones go for under 150k.

Re:You don't need to move that far

[Stormthirst]

But then you'd have to live in Wakefield or Blackburn...

Re:You don't need to move that far

[Anonymous Coward]

Or a 1 bed somewhere near sydney!

Re:You don't need to move that far

[mcvos]

Without even a room to put it in?

Re:You don't need to move that far

[chomsky68]

Or half an estate in Ferndale

Re:You don't need to move that far

[Chrisq]

But then you'd have to live in Wakefield or Blackburn...

True enough, but the original poster was talking about prices in Texas ... and for those prices he didn't mean Corpus Christi. Wakefield or Blackburn are a good comparison to Huston.

Re:You don't need to move that far

[Chrisq]

Or half an estate in Ferndale

I thought you were kidding, but a quick webcheck shows thatit's not much of an exageration

Re:You don't need to move that far

[noelp]

Having lived near the first two, and now living in Houston, I am genuinely intrigued as to why you think it is a good comparison....?

Re:You don't need to move that far

[Coren22]

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=ferndale+Maryland&gl=us&t=h&z=13\

Not nearly in that Ferndale...more like 3 br townhouse.

Re:You don't need to move that far

[RockDoctor]

I would have thought that Dunblane or Whitehaven or Hungerford would be better comparisons with Houston than Wakefield or Blackburn. On grounds of the count of gun-toting maniacs.

Mobile companies overcharges their services...

[Pecisk]

...news at 11.

Get a grip. It's called capitalism. Sooner or later it is just Feodalism with few improvements. Want a real change? Ups, as communism is invalidated by bloody attempts to impose it to people, we don't have really a choice have we.

Re:Mobile companies overcharges their services...

[Philbert de Zwart]

I think market regulation is not the same as communism. There has to be a middle ground between American-Koch-Brothers-style free market capitalism and Soviet style communism.

Re:Mobile companies overcharges their services...

[fnj]

What improvements?

Re:Mobile companies overcharges their services...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is. Europe.

Re:Mobile companies overcharges their services...

[ShakaUVM]

>>Sooner or later it is just Feodalism with few improvements

I prefer Foodalism myself. It's a much more delicious tyranny.

Re:Mobile companies overcharges their services...

[indeterminator]

The money for purchasing all those subsidized phones has to come from somewhere.

Re:Mobile companies overcharges their services...

[Pecisk]

Ohh, do you mean those subsidized phones which subsription costs (not talks, not data transfer) 3x a year? Or even if I own my phone roaming costs are still insane?

Re:Mobile companies overcharges their services...

[Archtech]

Not only is market regulation compatible with capitalism; it is essential for it. Just as rules and a referee are essential for boxing. Without any rules at all, capitalism quickly devours itself, and destroys the (somewhat) free market that spawned it. Microsoft is (or at least used to be, for a while) a fairly good example of what happens to a market that is insufficiently regulated: pretty soon there is only one serious player.

Stop and think for a moment of all the laws, regulations, and other rules that prevent you from being absolutely free - even in your economic behaviour. How many agencies does the US federal government maintain to control business activities? Yet it's all ultimately in vain, because to accomplish anything the regulators must be in contact with the companies they regulate. Then the "money gradient" comes into play: many of the people who are supposed to be regulated find ways of influencing those who are supposed to be regulating them. In a culture that values money above all, people with very little money are supposed to control the actions of people with far more money. It's as obvious as a simple circuit diagram that money changes hands (in some shape or form) and the regulation becomes, let's say, milder and more congenial.

Eventually you reach a situation where - to cite an extreme instance - the SEC goes through the motions of investigating allegations against Bernard Madoff, and claims that it found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Re:Mobile companies overcharges their services...

[Bucc5062]

That sounds like being between a Rock and a Hard Place. Today's world does not seem to provide positive common ground to choose from.

Re:Mobile companies overcharges their services...

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent point - because this really is a binary decision. Bare naked capitalism or communism. Only an idiot would suggest that there is an entire universe of middle ground options that could include regulation, state ownership of infrastructure etc etc etc.

So yeah - I guess we're stuck with what we've got and should just suck it up like good little sheeple.

Re:Mobile companies overcharges their services...

[hedwards]

If the consumers are that stupid they deserve it. The problem though is that companies like AT&T don't offer plans that don't include the phone. Meaning that you can use your own phone, but they just pocket the cost of the phone. Meanwhile none of the carriers permit you to get 3G with a phone that wasn't designed for their network. With Verizon and Sprint refusing to activate any phones that don't have their logo on them even if it's an identical model.

Re:Mobile companies overcharges their services...

[tepples]

Today's world does not seem to provide positive common ground to choose from.

Which is why one must find common ground not of the world but from above. This is where faiths come from.

Re:Mobile companies overcharges their services...

[indeterminator]

The problem though is that companies like AT&T don't offer plans that don't include the phone. Meaning that you can use your own phone, but they just pocket the cost of the phone.

From another point of view, one could say that they give the phone for free, and it's the service you're paying for.

Meanwhile none of the carriers permit you to get 3G with a phone that wasn't designed for their network. With Verizon and Sprint refusing to activate any phones that don't have their logo on them even if it's an identical model.

Regulation is probably the only practical way to get that solved.

hardware prices

[georgesdev]

40GB of disk used to cost the price of a house

'or the same as a three-bedroom house'

[Anonymous Coward]

you'd get a big mac and fries for that in London.

Pity the poor Luxembourigans

[Anonymous Coward]

In Luxembourg you go for a walk and you can roam into three different countries. You will still be paying the same currency to the same company but your email will now cost euros instead of cents. Everyone has to keep their roaming turned off on their phones the entire time.

At least in the UK we are protected by the channel. Mind you why can I get a years of mobile internet data for £10 here but in the USA its £30 a month?

Re:Pity the poor Luxembourigans

[jpapon]

It's more like $20-30 a month.

And you can really get (un)limited mobile data for 10 pounds a year? That's amazing.

Re:Pity the poor Luxembourigans

[xaxa]

It's more like $20-30 a month.

And you can really get (un)limited mobile data for 10 pounds a year? That's amazing.

That seems to be a one-off promotion, or else a very broad interpretation of what "unlimited" or "internet" means. However, it does show the level of competition -- there are at least a couple of networks offering similar deals.

For normal deals, £5/month seems to get about 500MB and £15 unlimited data (and texts, and some minutes). That's with three.co.uk (who own infrastructure, but are smaller than the bigger infrastructure-owning operators), the virtual operators have different deals.

That is absolutely nothing compared to SMS rates.

[NtwoO]

With a standard 160 char SMS consuming 140 bytes (7 bit GSM encoding) and at a rate of 20ct per SMS on some Prepaid tariff plans, you are looking at an excess of 61 million for 40GB.

Cheap at half the price.

[Anonymous Coward]

£240,000? That's cheap. When I first used the Arpanet, we were charged £300 per MB of data shipped across the Pond.

The joy of local SIMs

[cheros]

If you're not aware of roaming tariffs your company hasn't briefed you well. However, given that Blackberries seem to roam much cheaper it proves that such tariffs are a rip off..

I went to the UK, and for £1/day I had proper 3G connectivity - nicely shared out over a local access point :-).

Roaming is the last route by which telco's can rip off their customers (well, apart from SMS charges, but they have it least the advantage that it stops marketing people from abusing something you cannot block).

Re:The joy of local SIMs

[orzetto]

Roaming is the last route by which telco's can rip off their customers

More likely, rip off someone else's customers. When in a foreign country, the big difference in price is given by the local operator, who has no interest in marketing itself to you since you will never be their customer, and who knows you need your mobile because you are far away from home, more likely to need the GPS and such. Your own telco is only relaying to you the foreign telco's bill.

Re:The joy of local SIMs

[cheros]

AFAIK, there are carrier agreements in place that set those tariffs in a "if I don't hurt you that you don't hurt me" style fashion. Your argument doesn't hold up if you compare how the roaming tariffs differ between operators. The main chunk you pay is to your local operator who charges you a premium for having the nerve to step over a border.. Telcos *love* travelers because it offers lots of opportunity to charge for all the stuff they can no longer do when you're "at home", like receiving calls (over which you have no control), SMS (which is already a fantastically overpriced service and which actually does NOT costs more to carry as it's a control signal) and the big killer of them all, data. The last is really dirty, as it's the cheapest to carry.

There is another dirtzy one under cover here: Blackberry vs iPhone. I know people who have both and travel. Despite receiving the same messages, the Blackberry costs were $90, the iPhone costs were $400 in one month. That stinks of backdoor agreements.

The good news is that data charges are also the easiest one to avoid if you mainly travel to then static locations - I'm OK with not receiving email when I travel as it gives me some peace (if it's urgent they can call). I have a SIM for most of the countries I visit, and I stick that in a HTC which turns itself into a local access point (if I don't find local WiFi). As the Net doesn't care about location, all works as normal..

But...but....thin clients are the future, right?

[Tomsk70]

None of this is news - and yet it's the key factor that Google, Yahoo, Amazon and any of the cloud providers won't mention; in the same way that they don't mention connectivity being the primary reason a chromebook might not be the ideal solution.

It's all very well citing Wi-Fi as a solution, but when you're not in a city, or in a basement, or on a train, or any of the other many, many places you might be that doesnt' get a signal, your cloud-solution may as well be on the moon. Add to that the costs mentioned by PCPro as if they're news, and suddenly thin-clients look just as dodgy as the last two times they were pushed as 'the future'.

Pay it, don't pay it - just shut up.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sick of people bitching about the cost of bandwidth. Either pay it, or don't pay it (it's an option). If you think it's expensive, go somewhere else. I don't want to hear it. I'm sure this will get modded down but it's the truth.

Re:Pay it, don't pay it - just shut up.

[Montezumaa]

Go where? Where I live, the only option is Verizon Wireless mobile "broadband" or dialup. That is it. AT&T quit rolling out DSLand refuses to cover us with UMTS(still, it would be as much of a raping as Verizon Wireless) in my area, Verizon doesn't even cover Georgia, on the land-line side, Comcast only offer cable television service, and AT&T and others are trying to fuck us(through legislative pandering and FUD aimed at the local governments) out of rolling out our own fiber network. So, just who the hell should I switch to?

Do not even start to give me this shit about, "Oh, well just move to an area that has "broadband" coverage." Why? This is 2011, the internet has been an important staple for at least a decade, and it is pretty much required if you attend school(from kindergarten to collage graduate level education), and it is a must if you work(at quite a few places, and that list is growing). So, I am just do interested in why you believe I should give up my land holding(30 acres) and my home, both of which I own outright(aside from high taxes) to move to an area that will charge me ten times as much for a much smaller home and no land.

If this were 1998 or 2001, I could understand that companies might still be working on rolling out "broadband", but the roll outs have stopped. It is not like I live out in a remote area of Georgia; there is a major interstate highway that is less than 15 minutes away. Part of that travel is through residential roadways, then a jump on a major US highway, then to the interstate highway. We are not in the middle of the Smoky Mountains, with no roads within 30 miles.

The fact is that the free market has failed because regulators have turned a blind eye to major problems within the industries they monitor. That is the main function of the various government: Regulation. When the telecommunications industry was busted up(the old AT&T or Ma Bell), things improved, even if only slightly. It took some time, but Ma Bell reorganized into a behemoth that is run by one of the worst corporation in the United States(Southwestern Bell), just under the old Ma Bell name.

So, please, feel free to enlighten me on just whom I should choose for my mobile and/or home broadband provider. I am, with all seriousness, interested in your genius plan.

The new regulation works though...

[jpapon]

My provider (Simyo) just created new EU roaming plans because of the legislation. I can now get 50 min for 4.99EU and 50MB for 4.99EU, useable in any EU country. While still not particularly cheap, that's really not bad at all. 150MB is more then enough to check maps and email over the course of my upcoming three week vacation, so I won't even hesitate.

Not to mention, they have a server side roaming data cap which is opt-out (thats right, by default it is ON) set to 59euros.

After my experiences with AT&T in the US, I can't even begin to express how pleased I am with this change. Two years ago I took a summer trip to Europe from the US and brought my iPhone... They wanted something ridiculous like $200 for 50MB. Over the course of two weeks I made about 100 minutes of phone calls and used 10MB of data, and came home to a $900 bill.

I'm so glad I jailbroke the phone, moved to Germany, and now get to benefit from reasonable consumer protection legislation...

Re:The new regulation works though...

[timbo234]

This is only because of the EU regulations though. And it only applies inside the EU, go outside with a German sim card and you'll be charged eye watering amounts.

I was charged over 40 euro for downloading 2mb of data un the Ukraine last month on my German o2 contract.

Re:The new regulation works though...

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it when people bitch about stuff they signed up for because they didn't actually read what they were agreeing to.

Dumb shit.

Re:The new regulation works though...

[jpapon]

I knew that it was going to cost me that much. I just needed to use the phone. The real problem isn't that people don't know about the cost, it's that people have no choice in the matter. Somehow the cell phone companies are in collusion to maintain the roaming charges ridiculously high. I really don't understand how the free market hasn't solved this yet.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Economy harmed

[mattr]

There may be a debate about whether Internet connectivity is a human right or requisite to citizenship.
However it should be clear that low bandwidth is a constraint on economic growth, education and advancement.
Mobile bandwidth is not just about updating Facebook on the train, especially as all kinds of computing and communication can be done outside the office, or when on a business trip, at a customer's office, etc.
I submit that lower mobile tariffs will greatly increase a region's competitiveness in many ways, and this is not just about country vs. country. With android and ipad style terminals becoming very popular, outdated concepts such as "roaming" become medieval rapacious toll-gates on the highway.
Astoundingly my HTC Evo 4G cannot do global cellular voice roaming which my last phone (NTT Docomo) did. Global roaming in Europe a few years ago cost me about $500 for 1 week. I would prefer to use the Android Skype client but 4G global roaming, if available, would be far more.
I submit that city, region, state and national governments should quickly attempt to remove these trade barriers, and cities on their own should attempt to create barrier-free roaming agreements with each other. It is juvenile from a civilization perspective and an economic perspective for carriers to refuse interoperability and enforce rapacious fees when it hurts the governments and populations that make it possible for them to make such a profitable business.

Re:Economy harmed

[Aquitaine]

There may be a debate about whether Internet connectivity is a human right or requisite to citizenship.

There may? Only in speeches of pandering politicians and UN bureaucrats who declare anything that people want to be a 'human right.'

Low bandwidth may indeed be a constraint on economic growth, but making the case that low mobile bandwidth is a constraint is pretty difficult.

Roaming, mobile broadband is a luxury. With so many wifi spots around, there just aren't that many people for whom having service like this is really necessary, much less a human right.

I submit that city, region, state and national governments should quickly attempt to remove these trade barriers, and cities on their own should attempt to create barrier-free roaming agreements with each other. It is juvenile from a civilization perspective and an economic perspective for carriers to refuse interoperability and enforce rapacious fees when it hurts the governments and populations that make it possible for them to make such a profitable business.

Oh please. In other words, 'I demand the pinnacle of modern convenience everywhere that I go, the costs of providing that service be damned.'

Imagine that you're a telco. You've invested hundreds of millions in network infrastructure and your primary method of recouping that investment is through local subscribers with semi-predictable revenue, which companies and investors tend to like when they're spending enormous amounts of cash on running and expanding their network. A telco in another country - let's say just for this example that it's a small country - comes to you and wants a deal whereby their subscribers can get on your network and your subscribers can get on theirs. If the two networks are equal in size, then maybe you both have similar prices and fees, but if they're not, the larger company is giving away more in a deal like this because they're offering access to a huge network but only gaining access to a small one. The people who will be accessing your network in this manner are most likely not nor will ever be your subscribers, so you don't have a lot of incentive to keep them loyal.

It's very similar to when politicians raise taxes on rental cars and hotel rooms. The people who pay them aren't their constituents, so they can get away with much higher taxes -- except in the case of a telco, both sides are actually getting something, and like I say, mobile broadband everywhere you go is a lot less vital to the economy than rental cars and hotel rooms.

Cherry Picking

[MrL0G1C]

To be fair to the operators, PC Pro do seem to have looked hard for each carriers worst option. I say this because my 1gb from Vodaphone costs £15 so £15*40=£600, I've installed ad-block and no-script and the Gig has lasted over a year so far!!! Also the other operators have very similar prices.

Join us.

[Anonymous Coward]

kerajinan jepara furniture

Re:But...but....thin clients are the future, right

[RobbieThe1st]

That's a point, but I hope Google succeeds. Why? Because it will *have* to mean better/cheaper mobile internet, due to the points you mentioned.

Maby when enough people get thin clients, get charged huge amounts, and complain to whoever deals with that sort of things, maby then things will change. But for now, people aren't at that point, so things won't improve really...

Re:But...but....thin clients are the future, right

[Tomsk70]

I used to think that about Windows licenses. Then I was hopeful that client access licenses would eventually vanish - even now, I have trouble accepting that I can buy software for one machine, and software for another, but I have to pay more to use the connectivity that I already paid for when I bought them.

The key issue is that there's *too much money to be made*.

Re:That is absolutely nothing compared to SMS rate

[Richard_at_work]

IF you were stupid enough to transfer 40GB over SMS, you can pay the price for that stupidity.

Tower of Babel

[tepples]

Europe, where as I understand it one can't leave an area the size of a U.S. state and function properly without learning another language. Or what am I missing?

Re:Tower of Babel

[indeterminator]

Europe, where as I understand it one can't leave an area the size of a U.S. state and function properly without learning another language. Or what am I missing?

I'm not sure how much you need to function properly, but in most places in Europe there's someone around who understands english.

Re:Tower of Babel

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Learning other languages broadens the mind.

In America, means of production own YOU

[tepples]

state ownership of infrastructure

Which meets some people's definition of communism: public ownership of the means of production.

Re:In America, means of production own YOU

[aBaldrich]

Means of production != infrastructure. Marx 101.

Re:That is absolutely nothing compared to SMS rate

[blueg3]

That's nothing. If I transmit data across the country in my usual way, by writing it out in hex on the back of a postcard and mailing it (one byte, two hex chars per postcard), it costs me almost $300 / kB just in postage alone!

Global roaming services

[manekineko2]

I recently was looking into services that can be used for global roaming, and these are what I turned up in my research, in case anyone else was interested:
abroadband (already recommended by someone else here) leverages Telecom Austria's existing roaming agreements to offer worldwide roaming at a flat .59 Euro / MB. Downside is you have to buy your sim card in Europe.
Tru has a really interesting business model, and is becoming a MVNO in multiple different countries with the same SIM card database, such that one card lets you make calls and access data as a local in the 3 countries they service so far (USA, UK, and Australia) at .10-.35 / MB.
There also are a bunch of MiFi based services like Droam and Xcom Global Mifi that are quite expensive.

Learning a language to get a job

[tepples]

But does "broadening the mind" put a roof over our heads and food over our tables in the short term? If someone gets laid off, he needs to find a job where he can speak the language.

Re:Learning a language to get a job

[CharlyFoxtrot]

I can't empathize, I'm from a country with 3 official languages: (Flemish) Dutch, French and German. If you're on a higher education track in school you'll learn at least two and probably 3 of those (to varying degrees of fluidity) plus the lingua franca English. I have no trouble whatsoever crossing borders. Learning at least one language other than the main language of your geographic location and your mother tongue should be obligatory I think.

Falling like dominoes

[wjcofkc]

First the cost of voice fell. Then the cost of text messaging bottomed out. Data and the ability to take your phone anywhere in the world and call anyone in the world are inevitably next.

Re:Try Australia

[aleph]

Drifting from the point of the article, but just for reference a 3 bedroom house in Sydney costs $600,000 easily, and in many suburbs well over a million. And at present the 1 Australian dollar is trading for $1.07 US dollars. They haven't had their property crash in Australia. Yet.

$600k for a 3br house? You're talking like 90+ minutes from the city, right? ;-)

$400k+ for a decent 1br+study apartment in the inner suburbs.

Re:That is absolutely nothing compared to SMS rate

[waimate]

You also need to include a sequence number, as the postcards cannot be guaranteed to arrive in the order you sent them. Unless you use the strategy of sending an acknowledging postcard before the next postcard is sent, but that will double your transmission costs and substantially lower your throughput. A sequence number would also allow you to detect missing postcards.

Re:That is absolutely nothing compared to SMS rate

[blueg3]

Damn it. I of course thought of that as I was writing, and thought I could get away with simplifying the story. :p

Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo Roam

[texaport]

I think we ARE in Kansas any more: http://e-referencedesk.com/resources/state-song/kansas.html