Saturday, November 07, 2015

Yet another broadband rant!

So, Mr "Call Me Dave" Cameron announces that all UK homes will be able to request and get a minimum 10Mb/s broadband connection by 2020 - and it will be - in his words - "affordable".
Not exactly sure what affordable will be. I guess the ISPs will add a premium on for us poor rural types - even though I pay for "up to 17mb/s" now..... Of course, I don't get that - in fact, this morning, in a somewhat ironic way, I get this -



0.13mb/s????
It has been pouring down here and that always affects the internet in the rural backwoods, but seriously? 

And does Dave really consider 10meg a decent guaranteed speed? Yes, its better than my usual speed and better than the 2meg we are all supposed to have had by now (do you see a pattern?  Promiser a faster speed, move the promised date forward then no need to deliver it ever! Just keep moving the date on!)
The problem with any increase in speed is that many websites simply add extra media and crap to their sites which need more speed and it becomes a vicious circle. I am from the era of 14.4k modems. Sites were just text - or, if really cool, they may have had a rather low quality picture. No videos etc. Media might have included a tinny looped tune but nothing much else.
Now, many sites expect you to sit through HD video before you can even use them....

As the connections improved, so the websites became more "featured". This always happens. Designers try to cram in every trick they know - to the detriment of those with slow internets. We are already punished - for example, the various streaming services are not available to us. Even the good old TV catchup services - which incidentally used to allow you to download them overnight so you could watch an episode of a programme - are unavailable because they just buffer and buffer until you give up.

Bored of the internet now. When we all had 56k dial up, everyone was on an even field.

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