just a well I live in new zealand for $ 75 nz $ that be $40 us, I get Phone Voicemail Caller ID Call waiting tolls calls free only national up to one hour, Broadband 30 GB per month
I envy you. I REALLY Envy you. And I'm not the only one -- the Woz [Apple co-founder] is reported to be moving to Australia, taking up citizenship just because of their broadband initiative.
In the U.S. broadband prices start around $40, whether ADSL or Cable. Either can have iffy reliability &/or performance depending on where you live. Unlimited phone service over cable starts around $30, & basic cable with minimum channels starts around $30-$40 as well. Once you start adding the rest of the cable channels, then the premium channels like HBO, Showtime, & Starz you're looking at $100+ -- with all the taxes & fees etc., with average speed broadband [not the fastest], it's real easy to get close to $200 per month & still not have every channel.
You might expect at least a decent picture or signal for that price, & you'd be wrong... To free up bandwidth for Pay Per View, which can make up the majority of the hundreds of channels, the cable companies very highly compress the digital video they provide -- most movies for example are more compressed, have lower quality that what you'd put on your typical smart phone or tablet... A typical SD movie in digital format on a premium channel like Starz is 528x480 poorly encoded mpg2 with a bit rate of 1,846 Kbps -- a DVD is 720x480 mpg2 with an average bit rate of 6,000 - 8,000 Kbps. The few HD premium channel movies are similarly highly compressed -- an HD movie comes in ~7 GB, what you might get on a retail DVD, while a 2 hour SD movie is ~1.8 GB. Assuming you use a high quality source, Neither is comparable to the quality of a movie encoded to AVC with a bit rate of ~1,200 Kbps, which is what you'd typically get with one of the GOTD converters using something like an iPhone template/profile.
Cable companies & their employees are pretty much universally loathed. I've got a Cablecard tuner -- they use what looks just like a PC Card for a laptop [it uses the same case or housing] to unscramble the cable channels [all channels except those already broadcast over the air are scrambled for DRM], so we can use win7's Media Center like a DVR [Digital Video Recorder], like a Tivo without the added monthly fees. Researching cablecard tuners, Tivos etc. on-line, the biggest concern or worry I found was having Any cable company make a service call. Stories like one poor guy who had a $700 entertainment center [the furniture/cabinetry holding his HDTV & video/audio equipment] totally destroyed are not uncommon. I know before they come out I have to disconnect *Everything* & *Hide all the cables* because they always want to re-wire everything, usually damage something in the process, & are prone to take my cables with them when they leave. Because of their DRM, Cablecards have to be turned on, which simply involves the cable company sending a special signal over the cable to activate the things -- it's not uncommon for something so simple to take ~1 month worth of hassles... it took a month in our case, along with ~40 phone calls, 2 trips to stand in line at the local office, & one service call so the alleged tech could tell the office what they had to do -- I had to disconnect everything, hide the cables, move the furniture etc. so this guy could come out, look at the cablecard tuner, & send a text message on his cell phone. To be honest the whole thing was such a hassle I got an RMA on the tuner 3 days into the ordeal -- I only wound up keeping the thing because I was too cheap to feel good about the high restocking fee.
