*grins*

cheers, sher! *breaks out the baileys* ;)

There is only one phone in my apartment: my cell phone, which I hardly ever use.  I canceled my landline after I got broadband, because I only ever used the landline for dialup.

Interesting note: theoretically, my landline bill every month was supposed to be $26, but with all the BS state/federal fees, it was $40.  My dialup bill was $15, for a total of $55 a month basically just to get online.

My broadband is $58 a month, and I get basic expanded cable tv included with it.

I think I made a wise decision.  *nod*

Various companies price things differently.  The way Comcast works is that if you have broadband internet and no cable tv, it's $58 a month, but if you have broadband AND cable tv, it's $45 a month for the broadband plus whatever you pay for the cable.

So for about 8 months, I was paying $58 a month for broadband with no cable.  Comcast said they'd give me basic expanded cable (which is about 70 channels) for $13 a month, so I'd get the broadband at a reduced price of $45 plus the cable.  I'd be paying $58 a month either way, so I took the cable.

DSL is less expensive - about $35-40 a month, I believe - but it's only offered through the same company through which I had my landline service (Verizon), and I prefer not to give my money to that company anymore.

Peter wrote:

That still sounds fairly expensive? I thought broadband was *way* cheaper in the US, then it is over here?

Broadband is obscenely expensive unless you get it thru your phone company (DSL) and are willing to sign a contract (usually one year) to have it. I have a cable internet connection and digital cable for which I pay thru the nose. If I'd let the cable company put in a wireless home network for me, I'd be paying almost three times what Jaime pays and none of the equipment would belong to me. Since I'm not a complete technological incompetant, I set up my wireless home network myself so the router, the bridge, and the cards all belong to me.

I pay $45(+tax of course) a month through my cable company for a cable internet connection, then basic cable and a couple digital channels on top of that.

So, converting to American money, at the last exchange rate I knew of, that makes it about $35 after the taxes I pay.

For my broadband I'm paying £24.99, or $46, for a 750Mb service. Could go down a package (500Mb - $33) or up one (1.2Gb - $56), and then my phone line goes on top of that. Get a discount on the overall as I kept the same company for both.

Heh.  I have DSL for under $30/month, though I also have to pay for my landline (which runs around $20-25, IIRC), which I actually do use, from time to time.  I've got pretty good speed on this DSL; about 1.4 Mbps, normally.

Cable is a bit more expensive... I think you can get it for $50 or $55 for the lowest end service, but $60/month is fairly standard.  That goes up to... er... I think 5 Mbps, and includes the basic 70 or so cable channels.  Of course, then, you don't need a landline then, if you don't use it, so the cost is similar from that analysis.

For a while, I think they were offering even higher speed connections in my neighborhood (they had even been considering fiber for a short time), but then they realized that people simply don't need any more speed.

I should mention, though, that I'm in one of the best wired neighborhoods of a major city.  Nearly everyone around here has some form of broadband, so that may slightly drive prices down.

Ender

Cable and DSL are about the same price over here, typically in the €40 to €60 category for the standard offers (~768 kBit/s, ~1 - 4GByte/month). Cheaper offers at ~25€ offer 256kBit and ~250-500GB/month.

Affordable connections above ~2 MBit/s are very rare. I can only think of one provider right now, and that was only a test and they won't expand service all over the city.

4MBit+ DSL lines are available of course, but only if you feel like spending 400€/month ;) .

the "cell phone" - "telefonzelle" connection is funny. for german speaking people only, but nonetheless.

oh, and bleargh to everyone, as the saying goes...

Looks like ADSL is available up to 3072/512, the faster lines are SDSL lines (same speed in both directions) and are for businesses.

At work I've got a 768/768 line with a fixed IP  address (actually 8 of them) and unlimited traffic, which costs 115€ / month (excluding VAT, which businesses don't pay anyway). It explicitly allows server use as well, which is usually disallowed.

A flat fee 2MBit/s SDSL line costs ~200€ and 9MBit/s (120GB/month) are available for ~600€. There's even a 18MBit/s line on offer, but they don't list a price for that one... damn ;)

Money talk is always depressing, so I'll switch back to weather. It was very foggy this morning. A 15 minute trip to work took almost half an hour so I wound up being 10 minutes late to work. I wasn't the only one tho so I didn't feel so bad.

Broadband talk tends to be depressing in Austria as well ;)

Which can also be said for the weather... but it's fine today. Unseasonally warm (+5°C) and clear and sunny...

Cloud, rain and stupidly strong winds here in the UK.