My parents live in a rural area and yet they have decent DSL for internet and Satellite TV. There are options in quite a few areas.

My neighbors dad lives in Lowman Idaho in the middle of nowhere Idaho. You can't get more rural and mountainous than that and yet he still has internet and TV. We even Face Time him over his wifi connection in his log cabin.

I guess some areas are just behind the times.
That would be very frustrating. I can live anywhere as long as there is an internet connection. Don't think I could say the same if there isn't.
Can't you get DSL? That is what most folks in the country get around here.... and usually you can get it from a smaller local company. Grandma and grandpa have a DSL connection for like $16 bucks a month. Not the fastest, but it meets their web browsing needs. They can even do Netflix on their apple TV.

I do... but where I live doesn't have any tiering and where I lived before (comcast zone) didn't have tiering at the time.
Recently, I reduced my cell phone cost by $100/month and I never come close to using my data. My wife and I only pay ~32/line on our big family plan instead of the 80+/month for each line before.

The only tiers I was aware of were consumer plan vs business plan in the US. This has been the basic breakdown since broadband first became available. Now I understand the monopolies are testing the waters and attempting to gouge people in specific areas with their "better" service.

I was the second person on Comcast High speed internet back in the 90's in my area.

The amount of data consistently went up over time. The last time I was on Comcast I was paying for their internet alone and the service was for 3Mbps. One day it just went to 6Mbps. I didn't pay more for the upgrade in speed/bandwidth.

We moved and I was surprised that the consumer plan where I now live was 15Mbps. Over the last 5 years it has gone to 20, then 40 and now 60Mbps.

Our town voted to put fiber throughout the city on its own broadband system, but was blocked by the state when new legislation was passed. But with the net neutrality thing moving along, perhaps our town can finally get the fiber it wants. But even so, our service still is getting faster with each passing year.

I know the popular narrative in the US is one of crumbling Broadband infrastructure, but I think that is inaccurate if one looks at actual numbers.

Seems like what started out as the smart TV revolution will now be turning into tech cycle obsolescence

Ending the monopoly could fix this silliness.

Capped internet?
When is this allegedly happening?
Bandwidth keeps going up.
Internet speed keeps going up.
New tech is always making it bigger.
I still remember my Atari 300/1200 baud modem.
Those were the slow old days.
Nothing but up since.... unless we allow gatekeepers, which isn't going to happen.

Still mad I could never get Youtube working on my Atari 800.
Now this!!!!

Does it? I haven't notice on our kids iPad2.
Battery life seems fine.

Don't think I will be buying a TV for Smart features anymore.
The features will all become obsolete
I will just get something like Roku or other devices that will keep pace with the time.

I guess some folks are suggesting you can heat up on side and guide it into the atmosphere so it will burn up on re-entry. I didn't know that this is what they are talking about. Wink Wink Nudge Nudge... say no more.

Nobody buys local Michigan Cherries at Cherry Festival in Traverse City. They haven't ripened yet.
Perhaps one can get dried ones or some preserves made from Michigan Cherries, but the fruit comes from out of state.

Does poking holes space junk make it disappear or make more of it?

That is what will happen to San Francisco... not Tokyo. San Francisco.

You pay for the data plan I assume in a T-mobile plan.
All they are doing is allowing more data for streaming for a website like pandora which might soak up a lot of peoples bandwidth.
They are not gatekeeping the rest of the internet and extorting money from web businesses.
T-mobile is simply offering more service in the form of an extension of bandwidth.

I think I need to wrap myself in the flag.

Widespread use of whatever drug will select for the population that is resistant.
Happens throughout the biosphere.