Broadband dissected, well not really

Monday, February 25. 2008

Broadband Internet is something you kinda take for granted in many parts of the world, but being relatively new to it myself, at least in the home, I am still amazed at the different speeds available and other services that come with it from your ISP.

Before we came to Europe oh so long ago, hmm, about 10 months ago, we were only on dial-up, 56 Kbs which is so painful especially when you want to upload photos to flickr, watch videos, or even just chat with family using Skype. In Germany we had ADSL with about 8 Mbs, and here in Spain we have to make do with 512 Kbs. Now that I've got broadband I doubt I could ever go back to slow dial-up, and it means we can share our connection across three laptops with no problems.

Anyway I raise the subject because I was reading about broadband in the UK, if you haven't heard the government wants to increase broadband uptake to compete into the future against other developed countries. It seems despite the relative affluence of the UK they are falling behind in the technology stakes, or so some would have you believe. I don't know where ESA would be if it weren't for British satellite designers but that's another story.
What's really interesting though, and I wish other ISPs would consider doing the same, BT over there include a certain number of wifi minutes in each of their plans as part of their partnership agreement with FON. If you haven't heard this system allows broadband users to share their connection with strangers in return for the ability to roam away from home. Wifi which was touted as the new way to connect many years ago hasn't really taken off.

Here at home I have a wireless router so I'm able to use my laptop in every room of the house and even on the front verandah. It makes quite a difference to my productivity, I can sit on the couch and thrash away an email, late at night I can sit in bed with a glass of milk and cookie and watch some YouTube. Makes for a more pleasant life.

So, if you live in the UK and want broadband things are gonna get a whole lot better and you'll want to checkout BT's broadband speed test to see if your phone line is capable of running the service.
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in Technology   Comments (4)

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  1. Costa Rica SEO said,

    Monday, February 25. 2008 at 09:07 (Reply)

    I used to run open WiFi. My neighbor used to use it on occasion. Not normal open WiFi of course. I hacked a router, installed Linux on it, and cranked up the power to something that the FCC probably wouldn't have liked. I put a bit of filtering to make sure my computers had very high priority and everyone else had low priority, but it was still open and free to use.

    Here my Internet is just too slow to share. If my wife gets on YouTube with the laptop then my work slows to a crawl. I miss high speed Internet sooooooo much. I have 1MB now, which isn't terrible, but it's just too slow for the type of work I do. I need to start house shopping closer tot he city. I want fiber optic ;-)

  2. Carl said,

    Monday, February 25. 2008 at 09:11 (Reply)

    I know that feeling well, I didn't in Germany but here with only 512k I really notice it and my other half does the same as you, watches videos, I can't even send an email when she does. I wish more of the world was as sophisticated as the UK and the States. Spain is still playing catchup from years of neglect.

  3. Filot said,

    Monday, February 25. 2008 at 10:12 (Reply)

    Gracias por tu visita Carl, tienes un interesante blog! me inscribo a tus feed, chao saludos.

  4. Jillian said,

    Monday, February 25. 2008 at 21:27 (Reply)

    Oh yeah, I jumped on the high-speed bandwagon long ago and haven't looked back. I'm so used to a fast connection, I get jumpy if it takes a page longer than 3 seconds to load.

    BTW, I love that people are responding to you in Spanish! Now you have to continue lessons so you can follow the discussion! :-P

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