Broadband rip off ?

I was just chatting to a friend about this whole broadband rip off - and he asked the question - so what ? Well the truth is that today it doesn't really effect 80% of us, but it might be that your one of the few it does.

If your paying for 8mb or above, you should be able to watch HD TV streamed over the web to your PC (which in turn can be connected to your HD TV) companies like BBC, DivX are all working on making this possible - however if your 8mb is really only 2 or 3 mb then you can't watch it without severe buffering (it pausing to download the next chunk) or it having to be in lower quality.

"...The typical Internet connection is 2 to 3 megabits per second, says Laszlo. The minimum needed to stream HD-quality video is 5Mbps. Laszlo added that even if bandwidth were to be increased, computers with lower graphics processing power may be unable to display the richer details that HD provides. ..." - full article

Point is that for music - you don't need much more than 2mb for reasonable quality, unfortunarely its proved those of you paying for that aren't getting even that ...

Unfortunately in this case you don't get what you paid for people paying for 8 often get less than 4 ... you can stamp your feet but there is very little they can do about it - and frankly when ever I have bought broadband I have known I am not going to get it ... it depends on many factors including where you live (how far from the exchange etc... ) but shouldn't your ISP, before you buy it, before you expect high quality HD to be streamed over your unlimited (by the way, its not always unlimited) connection ... shouldn't your ISP should tell you the truth?