Jan 112014
 

Just before Christmas 2013 I cancelled my TV licence. I had it because I was on Virgin Media ‘bundle services’ for internet broadband, telephone landline and TV. Back in 2011, buying internet broadband was like grocery shopping i.e. buy-two-get-one-free special deals. So I was sold ‘buy broadband and telephone and get TV free’ deal. I took this as a sign of the end of my analogue TV, and the start of digital convergence into my lounge space. The ‘bundles’ deal turned out to be non economical as I had to buy a new TV and the licence and also pay for the landline calls and subscription. Somehow the death of analogue TV has not killed off the TV licence. Also, it turns out that folks just turn to mobile rather than use the landline.

Then in early 2013 mobile companies were offering ‘unlimited or eat as much as you want’ internet. Within less than 3 years, internet broadband shopping turns from grocery shopping to buffet-style eatery i.e. eat however much you want!

Now I only have one device i.e. a smartmobile for mobile and internet, and one bill and one company to deal with. Instead of paying for a TV licence I am paying for a mobile insurance. Heh! I don’t even have a health or life insurance and yet I am paying for a mobile insurance. Just goes to show how dependent I am on my smartphone or more precisely how technology, especially the internet has changed and is changing my life-style whether I like it or not.

The term internet itself is following a new style or trend. It seems that it is ‘stylish’ to use the term ‘cyberspace’ these days. I use the term ‘stylish’ as it’s a matter of taste or preference, depending on who you are or where you are coming from, and also what you are used to. So far I have the ‘internet or www or the net or cyberspace’ for this ‘interconnected technology’.
Perhaps this description, extracted from govinfosecurity.comcovers it all ;

The Internet is part town square (where people engage in politics and speech), part Main Street (where people shop), part dark alleys (where crime occurs), part secret corridors (where spies engage in economic and military espionage) and part battlefield.”