This is one of my biggest fears and one of the main reasons I've yet to upgrade to the PS4. I've got to have a bit of a rant about this, so here goes:
I've been with BT for about eight years now. From my experience they're generally very reliable and in all that time, I've probably been down for about a two weeks – and that includes a house move. I can't really fault them on that. Internet connection does occasionally 'drop out' on my Home Hub 1 (yes – I still have the original) but it's usually for a matter of minutes.
Where BT do let you down is on price and options. They're very expensive in comparison to rivals. Anything which seems okay value gives you ludicrously outdated 1990's style download 'limits'. I'm currently on the slightly more expensive 'Option 2' which gives you a limit of 40GB per month. I hardly do anything online (surf a few forums, maybe the odd YouTube game video e.t.c) and my usage is regularly up in the mid 30's every month just on that. Last month, because I had a few days off over Christmas, i used 42.5GB and they've sent me an e-mail happily informing me that's an extra £5.20 to come out of my account. Option 3 gives you unlimited but in terms of cost, you'd better consider remortgaging the house...
At the turn of the century we were told Broadband was the way to go… Much faster and more reliable than dial up e.t.c we were all told… True, but after a couple of years Broadband, even though it's more expensive, slowed down to the same pace. What happened there?! Today, my internet speed is barely any quicker than my old dial up connection some fifteen years ago and I’m paying more for the privilege. Now ISP's boldly tell us Fibre Optic will cure this but surprise, surprise – it's yet more money again. Anyone see a pattern developing, yet? Where will it end?! Give that a few years and no doubt that'll slow to a crawl…
Imagine my existing 'Option 2' package with a PS4? Sorry, it won't be happening! Something will have to give.
True, I can move to Sky which offers unlimited broadband much cheaper and I could swap to them easily enough. However, I am aware of reliability issues and that just like any other ISP outside of BT (that owns the lines), if you have problems you better be prepared to wait a long time for it to be resolved.
I have absolutely no idea what to do at the moment. Swap to Sky Unlimited Broadband, save some money but risk facing reliability issues, or upgrade my existing BT package, keep the reliability but effectively bankrupt myself in the process. If I do neither and just stick to what I have now, there's little chance my PS4 will ever be used online – in which case it seems a bit of a waste of money in getting it considering few gaming producers/developers don't seem all that bothered about the people who are quite happy playing single player on discs… I really do fancy trying out this 'online' business to see what all the fuss is about, but the issues I have with the internet does prohibit this.
This is my biggest gripe about modern gaming with it's heavy leanings towards the online side of things. Not everyone has cheap, completely unlimited and fast internet resources. Nobody at Sony, Microsoft e.t.c appear to grasp and understand this situation. It wouldn’t be too bad if there was no bias and there was as much gaming from a disc as the online content. This is why my eyes really do roll when I see developers and producers of games insisting on the current approach of going down the route of online multiplayers and DLC's rather than the traditional approach of simply selling a new game on a disc that everyone can have access too when a new idea comes along.
So folks, there we have it! My conundrum!
