Usage levels are becoming increasingly irrelevant. In the early days peoples' usage was progressing faster than the networks could cope, but not so much anymore with the likes of BT, TalkTalk and Sky having plenty of capacity, now being able to offer "truly unlimited" (unthrottled, unshaped) broadband on 80 meg connections, something that would be impossible on the backhaul networks of 10 years ago.

Edited by Oliver341 (Sun 18-Oct-15 14:55:39)

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Usage levels are becoming increasingly irrelevant. In the early days peoples' usage was progressing faster than the networks could cope, but not so much anymore with the likes of BT, TalkTalk and Sky having plenty of capacity, now being able to offer "truly unlimited" (unthrottled, unshaped) broadband on 80 meg connections, something that would be impossible on the backhaul networks of 10 years ago.

Yes, cant agree more with what you say and something I personally thought about when I made my original response in this thread when someone wondered about those who may be subscribing to the 80/20 package as 'heavy' users

I always thought that the basic arguments (in the past), about heavy usage and bandwidth hogs was taking away the onus of the ISP's and their networks, and placing it on the customer and 'sort' of blaming them for actually using what they were paying for.... all those sort of discussions in the forums years ago flooded back when I read that 'heavy' users comment

I guess the way we are all gobbling up bandwidth these days, the Linux distro's must be bigger than ever as obviously that is what must be accounting for all the usage?

In reply to a post by broadband66:

I'll reiterate, a teenager on an iPad or similar doesn't require 4K or HD to watch a film.

Nothing to do with hogging bandwidth.

We have unlimited evening and weekend calls but only use it once a week. It's not compulsory to use what you pay for!

By your logic, a teenager doesn't require a colour picture either. Black and white would suffice, right?

720 is the absolute lowest watchable quality these days, even then it's dramatically less detailed than 1080P.

Also, you do realize that for teenagers, people in their 20's or even 30's, the most common way of watching TV is via their computer? Scheduled programming is dead - give it another 30-40 years for the older generations to die off and scheduled programming will be gone too.

Downloading each episode/season of popular TV shows is very common - just go look at netflix figures, or torrent site figures for the popular shows - that's where the bandwidth is going.

1080P WEB-DL perfect quality copies of all new shows, straight to your high definition tv/monitor/phone/tablet.

2 months behind.

A teenager doesn't need to watch anything. They could get out their chalk and slate and draw pictures.

Our viewing is via an HD Ready Plasma that is supplies by Freeview (no HD) and Sky+ (No HD) and is more than acceptable. Most modern TVs are not set correctly for the colour balance, contrast, etc and results in an unnatural picture.

Not a great deal of difference between SD and HD on a small screen.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Not a great deal of difference between SD and HD on a small screen.

On a 1080 pixel set of 32" size, I can see quite a dramatic difference between HD and SD (even high bitrate SD). These have 2,000,000 pixels (1920x1080)

On a HD Ready (720) set, at 32" size, the difference is much harder. These have 920,000 pixels (1280x720).

Agree completely about colour adjustments, many TVs are still set to 'shop demo' mode, yuck.

Small screen eg tablets.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Small screen eg tablets.

On an iPad Mini 2 (high DPI screen) I can see the difference between and SD and HD movie, but probably because the SD movie has been over compressed. Perhaps deliberately to be able to sell the HD version as higher quality.

In reply to a post by dave2150:

Also, you do realize that for teenagers, people in their 20's or even 30's, the most common way of watching TV is via their computer? Scheduled programming is dead - give it another 30-40 years for the older generations to die off and scheduled programming will be gone too.

Downloading each episode/season of popular TV shows is very common - just go look at netflix figures, or torrent site figures for the popular shows - that's where the bandwidth is going.

1080P WEB-DL perfect quality copies of all new shows, straight to your high definition tv/monitor/phone/tablet.

Oddly I had the same chat with my older sister just a few months ago!

I wouldn't even give it 20-30 years.... I'd say 10-15 at most! I don't watch ANY live TV at all, it's ALL on-demand. And I am 35 (36 this year)

Also I can see the end of the TV licence in the near future too!

" little judy streaming her boy band videos in HD from YouTube,"

And my point was Little Judy watching HD on a tablet (probably) was a waste of bandwidth!

Your main point is well founded. I didn't argue with that. 40 down should still be more than enough for most families.