I hope that wasn't a surprise to anybody.
My son sat down tonight and explained to me how we can get rid of broadcast TV, cable TV, telephone service and a variety of other things for $60 per month fiber optic internet connectivity.
while I’ve already done the internet and phone combination and I’m aware of movies and some shows available for free I’m unaware of how to get broadcast shows and cable viewing without paying extra subscriptions - what am I missing?
Umm..would you mind sending your son over to my place tomorrow night.
The $60 will do what he told you, and it is a very good deal...But it isn’t on a completely fiber (ethernet) system unless you live in Knoxville or Houston.
The cable and telcos all have legacy coax and twisted pair technology mixed in with fiber in their networks, which greatly reduces the speed and reliability in relation to an all fiber network. One test for determining whether someone is offering you an all fiber network is if the upload and download speeds are the same.
Speed on an ethernet system is also blazing fast - you can get up to 1 gig in Knoxville and up to 10 gigs in Houston.
Although I agree with your son's assessment, that is not a state that is likely to exist much longer. I am amazed it has persisted as long as it has.
The problem, you see, is that every one of the services you listed is taxed to the gills, although most people are blissfully ignorant of the extent those taxes, overt and hidden, affect their monthly bills.
The moron politicians and bureaucrats, for other agendas, have encouraged the universal web access to the professional idle, the generational welfare recipient. The manipulators have yet to figure out a way to tax ALL uses of the internet without creating an indefensible exponential increase in additional welfare diguised as taxes. Both the users and the taxpayers would rebel, no question.
But the first step has already been taken by the totalitarians, controlling the "internet switch" under the guise of homeland security.