Friends in Europe and Australia are quite envious of my typical Internet speeds. I pay a bit more than they often do, but then again I’m told that many European cities have a half-dozen or more ISPs to choose from, rather than… one. Compared to the costs of internet in Asia, my monthly costs are a bargain.
300 baud modem? Sheer decadence. When I got started they were still chipping ARPAnet from a block of solid silicon. Once your request for processing time went through, it’d take you a solid day of morse coding to send one piece of spam.
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My internet isn’t cheap, but I believe I have several options. I use Comcast, but AT&T is always sending me letters. There is another company in the area, which I used to use when I lived in the next city. There s a satellite dish on my roof, from the last owner, that I think I could use if I wanted to.
For the necessities of life – reading email, browsing BoingBoing, even posting photos on social media – 10mbps is plenty fast. IMHO regulations making this speed affordable (even free) for everyone should be a higher priority than regulations pushing higher speeds.
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FCC will fix America’s shitty internet by declaring fast internet access unimportant to Americans
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Ever? More like usually.
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I’m happy riding the low tier of FIOS.
If I pay an insane amount of monies, I can get Gigabit internet.
However:
FIOS isn’t available everywhere.
My bill is higher than what it would be in a properly civilized country.
There are a lot of services that depend on connections being at least 10 Mb/s. If the new baseline was 25 Mb/s, 4k streaming might become more ubiquitous. (Of course, that does mean buying into DRM. Suck it Skylake users!)
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I don’t understand much of what you said, but isn’t it unusual for one’s Upload speed to be faster than one’s Download speed?
Umm, yes.
I should probably become a ContentCreator™ before my ISP wises up and starts treating me as a consumer of content.
As for low tier…
50/50 Mbps
Verizon Internet speed gets you where you want to go online, fast. 50 Mbps is a popular option for homes with 1-3 Wi-Fi enabled devices. Enjoy your everyday online activities on a quick connection. Do your weekly online shopping. Check the daily news. Send and receive large email files. Stream music, TV shows and videos. Verizon speed makes the day go by just a little bit faster.
150/150 Mbps
150 Mbps is plenty of power for work and play. Fuel multiple devices like smartphones, laptops, tablets, and online gaming systems. Backup your data to cloud storage, or share work presentations by day. Download HD movies and play online games by night. Verizon Fios speed keeps your work/life balance in check.
300/300 Mbps
More devices may need more speed to thrive. 300/300 Mbps Fios Internet speed works best for larger families, or homes with heavy internet usage. There’s no need to battle it out for bandwidth. Keep a fast connection even when everyone in your home logs on at the same time. There’s plenty of Verizon speed to go around.
500/500 Mbps
Interested in supreme Verizon Internet speed? Check out our 500 Mbps plan. If you’re a serious online gamer, a movie buff who downloads all the latest releases, or a work-from-home employee that needs a super reliable connection – this is the Fios speed you need. Power multiple devices and stream the largest content with ease. Ask about availability near you.
Thanks for the information. What I meant was, I didn’t know what DRM or FIOS is. I looked them up, so I’m good, now. I think I have 200 Mbps from Comcast/Xfinity.
Recently I was dropping my TV service from my cable for just internet and had a 200 Mbs connection that I liked quite a bit.
When I canceled the TV part I was told they didn’t have a 200 Mbs service as they were Specturm now and then the rep started a QA script asking how many devices I have hooked to my wireless. Was driving me crazy and confused me at first as I was fearing they were doing something like charging per device now. I had to explain that our house was wired for Cat-5 in the year 2000 and we have way too many machines to inventory in my head at the moment and just want the fastest connection they can muster. Seems that turns out to be 300 Mbs so I’m very happy now.
The way customer service tries to help you into a service tier is very annoying,
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here’s the bit about drm.
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We were evicted from our hole in the ground, had to go live in a lake.
I recall using a 60lb terminal with a tiny monochrome screen and one of those modems where you plug your phone into this gas mask like contraption. I don’t even think it was 300 baud.
(Although NashRambler has got one on me)
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On the other hand, all the futurists are talking about self-driving cars taking over, for which they need 5g everywhere. Yet they’re not even filling the potholes, and in some cases taking up the asphalt because it’s cheaper.
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What, no IPoAC?
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Nice, I did have my share of weird terminals back in the day including a thermal portable that had acoustic coupler (Gas mask thingy) but it was 300 baud. Ah the joy of logging into a BBS with a thermal paper trail.
I wouldn’t let him babysit my dingo.
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Submitted my comment, like Pai gives a shit.
Here’s what I’m paying for, the best I can get in my location.
Here’s what I get about half the time now.
If I upload anything (say, take a photo with my phone and it syncs to my cloud storage), all traffic stops until the upload completes due to AT&T’s crappy modem. I’ve mitigated it somewhat by getting a firewall with traffic shaping and limiting uploads to 500Kb/s so there’s room in the upstream connection for other packets.
Next week, a local fiber company is deploying infrastructure just a half mile from my house. There are only a few houses between mine and the edge of their build-out, so probably not worth them expanding this way but I’ve asked just in case.
If only there were grants and other incentives for companies like that to provide service to more people. Instead, we get proposals to walk back definitions so multi-billion dollar companies can continue to sit on their asses while we fall further and further behind. I sure am feeling great again!
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Are the offers for fiber service; or do you have the choice of moderately fast and expensive cable, pitifully slow and slightly cheaper DSL; and painfully high-latency satellite?
It’s fairly typical(for anyone who isn’t too far from the DSLAM) to have the choice of either cable or DSL; but that’s ‘cable or, um, cable’ if you actually want speeds that aren’t very late 90s.
