This is pretty much how my current home town works. What it leads to though, is around 50,000 property owners financing everything in the city - roads, schools, parks, leisure centers, social programs, libraries, etc. You may think that sounds fair enough, but we get over 2 million tourists a year, who outside of a 9.8% room tax, pay nothing towards the infrastructure they use during their vacation.

And this is pretty much what my ISP tells you if you call to complain about their 150Gb per month cap. "Use our on-demand services and it won't count against the cap." Same with their VOIP service (which I thought wasn't allowed). Bear in mind that their overage charge is $1.50 per 1Gb.

A few years back, most cable companies offered a $10 package that was the local network affiliates and cable access/shopping/religious and government channels. Those seemed to have disappeared. My local cable company did carry such a package but never advertised it, you had to call to get it.

And so they should if they keep electing the same old crooks.

The Guardian article refers to it as a "10 year program" which would put it's inception in the Bush Jr. years. As for the EU is better argument, it looks like my own country's government was a prime mover in this. Way to go guys.

I've always had a feeling that the similarities between the Blake's 7 Federation badge and the Star Trek Starfleet logo aren't entirely co-incidental.

I live in a town of 80,000, out in the middle of nowhere. The only reliable Internet is from the cable company. There is DSL, but it's slow, only available in a pretty restricted area and goes down for days at a time. Being a town of mainly minimum wage service workers, OTA is very popular. There are antennas everywhere. This didn't escape the notice of the cable company. What they've started to do is to buy the local network affiliates and then turn down the transmitter power as much as they can. Their first acquisition was the CBS affiliate. They turned the power down to 250W. At my house, 4.5 miles away from the transmitter, the signal was barely at 30%. Their other tactic is the 150Gb monthly data cap with a $1.50 per Gb overage charge. All aimed squarely at preventing people from streaming. All for $51 per month for 12Mbps down / 1.5mbps up. Don't even get me started on how it hinders start ups and damages the local economy.

The problem is, a lot of those people who squawk loudly about their right to arm themselves to the teeth will quite happily turn around and support NSA snooping, TSA over-reach and anything else they feel makes them safer from "terrorists". Personally, I wish they would fight as hard for the 1st and 4th as they do for the 2nd.

Yep. I was a semi-pro cricketer in the Derbyshire League in England back in the day. As a fast bowler, I was encouraged to "tamper" with the ball. One method was to pick up some dirt along with the ball when fielding near the crease. That way, i could keep a little in my pocket and use it to roughen one side of the ball to cause it to swing. Picking at the stitches to raise them on the seam of the ball was another. I'm sure all the same tricks are present in baseball too.

"The insurance costs will be higher just because if anything happens the insurance company has to buy you a new car"

The annual premium for my $45K (new) Infiniti is just over $80 more than my for my wife's $24K Toyota. Go figure.

"Do people even buy games in boxes any more?"

Yes. Those of us who are unfortunate to live in local cable company monopolies. Our data cap is 150Gb per month with a $1.50 per 1Gb overage charge. Where possible, I buy games on disc. Between Netflix, Hulu, steam, X-box content, etc. it's way too easy to blow through 150Gb.

No doubt the local versions of the content. In the UK, it could have Freeview (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeview_%28UK%29) built in. It would also have BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD and maybe a TV Catchup app.

And one of my remote workers gets through 4Gb to 5Gb per month and she has the privilege of paying $56.99 per month for that. Just because this pricing doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it's a bad deal for everyone.

Interesting to see the average usage at 24Gb to 28Gb. When our local cable company was trying to bring in a 30Gb monthly cap, their argument was that 95% of their users went through 2Gb a month or less, effectively subsidizing heavier users. Total bollocks argument of course, but that's another story. The age demographic tends to skew high here and a lot of people only use their Internet connection for email. even here at work, people will reach for the Yellow Pages book before using Google. Those people would be a good target for this sort of service.