Ok here’s the deal. I’m completely sick of how far behind the United States in in terms of internet connectivity. Bandwidth, just like roads, should be available to everyone and not just to a select few. When I started getting on the internet oh 7-8 years ago, the United States were still clearly in the lead when it came to surfing speeds and downloads. I remember being the first one out of my group of international friends that had a semi decent cable line. Before that everyone had either dial up or isdn and both of them took forever in terms of loading times.
Just a simple jpg could take several minutes to send. I know what readers of the earlier generation are thinking: so what’s the big deal? you wait for it download and then check it out. Well, the problem is that quite frankly I don’t have time to sit and wait for anything that’s meant for instant viewing, especially not in the year 2007. Most industrialized countries by now have internet infrastructures that make that of the United States look like the special olympics of connectivity.
Maybe it’s just me, but I personally think that the internet infrastructure should be as fast as possible and I’m going to list a few reasons why. The first reason I think our backbone needs national expansion is because high speed connections are needed by just about everything any internet users comes in contact with. You want to watch a video on youtube? A slow connection will make that experience half as much fun while the stream constantly has to be buffered. What a about voicer-over-IP? Yes that would be another reason to have a strong internet connection. What if I want to send my friend 30 pictures from my digital camera (which by now takes pictures several mega pixels in depth)? Same situation. A slow connection will make it take all day, a fast connection will have it take just a few moments.
I understand that the United States is a very large country, and having a universal system in place is a very challenging task. However, we have a road system that connects every city and state, we have phone lines that reach to every house is it so much to ask to have a high speed internet in place? One might argue that just like all kinds of areas in the US have bad roads, so is the case with the internet. That’s a valid point. However if a certain road isn’t kept up with maintenance wise, let’s say it gets ridden by potholes - this will not affect the entire American automobile industry. It will just affect the small geographical area where people use that part of the road. The internet doesn’t work like that. If it’s ‘roads’ (the backbone of the internet) aren’t properly maintained, everyone will suffer the consequences and have to deal with a slow connection.
The point I’m trying to get at here is the fact that a slow internet hampers development. We live in a society where video content already rules many peoples daily lives and the delivery of this content is dependent on TV stations and Internet Service Providers. ISP’s are the ones having the problem of delivery, TV is already in everyone’s living room.
I live in South Florida where I would think that due to the dense population an infrastructure that provides such services is in place. Instead, residential customers still have to make due with a mere 768kbit/sec upload speed and up to 8mbit/sec download. I have friends in Europe that are getting 50mbit connections, and upload also isn’t capped to the point where it’s more of a nuisance than a service. We have 64bit PC’s, Quad Core Mac’s, High Def every where you look - yet we’re still creeping along on the internet as if it was 1985. The way I see we’re all equipped with Lamborghini’s, but we’re all driving on gravel roads. Hope that gets taken care of like, now!
This article was written by Arno - Author's Website
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I agree on a lot of respects here, I think what is happening is that we have a massive company “Comcast” , along with companies like “Bellsouth & AT&T” making it hard for companies to compete in the market of bringing connectivity as they make it impossible to impede on certain territories. When the major corporations stop the strangle-hold on technology, and the governments stop trying to regulate the internet, with technology like “Carnivore” which is basically a system that reads everyone’s email, then we will start moving faster. Until then I suggest getting cable internet service, upgrade to the business level, get a static IP, and order powerboost from comcast if you have it. Other than that, I have seen some ads for satelite internet that promises up to 50MB connections over a dish, but just like something like DirectTV, you may not like it when it rains outside.
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