Cord Cutters Lop Off Internet Service More Than TV

[Hum]

For all the fuss over Americans dropping their cable subscriptions in favor of Internet video, another type of cord cutting appears to be more common.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans canceled their home Internet service last year, surveys suggest, taking advantage of the proliferation of Wi-Fi hot spots and fast new wireless networks that have made Web connections on smartphones and tablets ubiquitous.

Last year around 1% of U.S. households stopped paying for home Internet subscriptions and relied on wireless access instead, according to consumer surveys by Leichtman Research Group Inc. Just 0.4% of households in the last year canceled their pay-television subscriptions in favor of getting video entertainment over the Internet via services such as Hulu or Netflix.

Dropping home Internet service isn't a great deal for heavy Internet users, however. While smartphones are fine for email and social networking, wireless data plans can be expensive and easily drained by even a single streamed high-definition movie. Free Wi-Fi is more widely available than ever, but cutting the Internet cord means users have to rely on cellular access at home.

Still, frustrated by rising cable and Internet bills, some subscribers are testing whether their smartphones and free Wi-Fi might be good enough. Others, unable to afford both services, are having to make do without easy access to streaming video for entertainment and education, underscoring the persistent differences in how people of various economic levels go online.

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[Dashel]

Ah, the 'PostPC' market. (ie the increasing proletariat).

[+Red King Subscriber²]

I think that has a lot to with ISPs being complete *****s - charging large prices and imposing unreasonable bandwidth caps for sub-korea internet speeds in USA.

[sava700]

I have comcrap and its pretty good but the price is way too high for what speeds I get IMO. For a online gamer you can't just cut the cord - even 4G has some latency issues at times not to mention the bandwidth limit per month is easy to hit. I prob go thru about 100Gigs a month on average so yeah no really something I could do at this time or any other.

[Hum]

I want to start my own ISP. :p

[srbeen]

I have comcrap and its pretty good but the price is way too high for what speeds I get IMO. For a online gamer you can't just cut the cord - even 4G has some latency issues at times not to mention the bandwidth limit per month is easy to hit. I prob go thru about 100Gigs a month on average so yeah no really something I could do at this time or any other.

Everything before LTE is analog comms, so latency is a problem. LTE networks are 100% digital, so it should be very close if not better than hard wired. I have a coax line thats 20/2 to my house, my friends SGS4 gets 50/10 with a better ping. To a cell tower. several kilometers away.

He's capped at 6GB tho. Over that is 5 cents a KB. His plan is $46 taxes in a month from the original iPhone launch... New 5GB plans are $95 now that cell phone companies have no obligation to 'grandfather' any price plan. This is the last 'term' hes gonna be allowed to keep is $46/6GB plan before the same service he was provided since 2007 literally DOUBLES in price and loses features.. Oh Canada!

[Growled Member]

I think that has a lot to with ISPs being complete *****s - charging large prices and imposing unreasonable bandwidth caps for sub-korea internet speeds in USA.

I think so too. Most of them are just ridiculous.