Faster internet?

[ZAPPER]

This may be old news http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-04-05-speed-usat_x.htm

[DiablosuX102]

"The sky's the limit," says CableLabs CEO Dick Green. "There are a lot of high-data-rate services lurking out there — including a lot that we haven't even thought of."

I'll bet that dude had a hard time getting through high school.

[Roundabout]

Others envision a host of other applications. For example, businesses could easily arrange video conferences with high-definition TV. Consumers could download an entire HD movie in about five minutes vs. today's 22 minutes.

Time to fire up BT and eMule...

[Cobra]

I bet we won't get anything over 4Mbps cheaply in the UK until 2010. Broadband prices are ridiculous here and those that aren't have bandwidth restrictions on them. BT Broadband is such a rip-off.

We currently have a 1Mbps connection and pay £32.99 per month for the pleasure. That's a bit overpriced now - it's dropped to about £25 per month but still...

Compare that the prices in the USA...

[waheed]

I also have 1Mbps connection (only recently) and am paying £25 per month (uncapped). I still think its too much.

2Mbps is out in the UK.

I heard (i think its Japan or China, not sure) have 8Mbps connection for only like £5 per month.

[Cobra]

The Japanese get some ridiculous broadband speeds as standard. In the USA there's enough competition to make it a good deal for the customer. In the UK though we have little competition due to BT and people are used to being ripped off.

Just look at petrol prices - 86.9p/l where I am and 99.9p/l in the North of Scotland...

[waheed]

Well, most of petrol prices consist of tax. Actual cost of petrol is like 10p/l.

[AlecWest]

I'm in the U.S. and, at yesterday's conversion rate, I pay roughly £22.18 per month for 7mbps cable broadband. But, just across town, the local telephone service is installing fiber-optic lines and making claims of ultra-high speed Internet within a year for even less money. And, some wireless providers are even suggesting they're about to drop prices and increase access speeds.

Our cable people thought they'd be the only game in town after proving they could beat DSL providers at their own marketing game. But with fiber optics and wireless services coming into the fray, they might find themselves playing "catch up" in the not too distant future.

But, I wonder ... how long will it be before the speed of our Internet connections surpasses our hardware's ability to keep up with it? Hmmm...

[Faustus]

The may be enough competition in the US but at the same time companies are scared to invest money in new infastructure so the US lags behind in many areas as far as total speed avalible to the problem when compaired ot MANY countries. Its sad really. We made the damned thing.

[Tool Man]

I'm paying £24.99 per month for 750K cable broadband.
But I got a nice letter this morning from NTL to tell me that I'm being upgraded to 2Meg.......FREE.

Although the upload is only moving from 128K to 200K...
But hey....it's for free

[rhegedus]

We currently have a 1Mbps connection and pay £32.99 per month for the pleasure. That's a bit overpriced now - it's dropped to about £25 per month but still...

Pipex do a 2meg for £33

[SquirrelDip]

I guess we're pretty lucky this side of the pond... I pay $25cdn per month - getting over 4Mbps.

[yoda313]

Hello,

But, I wonder ... how long will it be before the speed of our Internet connections surpasses our hardware's ability to keep up with it? Hmmm...

Don't they have gigabit adapters??? How fast does that actually equate too versus trusty old dialup???

And anyway - won't they be able to make jumps like the usb 1 to usb 2 thoughput increase???

There's always a way around it.

Kevin

[zzyzzx]

The article mentions noting of the expected costs, which I somehow doubt can compete with $5/month dialup.

[yoda313]

Hi,

Yeah but I can't handle dialup anymore so broadband is worth SOME extra costs.....

Kevin

[gll99]

My cable broadband from Rogers was 3Mb/s and they offer a free upgrade to 5 Mb/s if you purchased a modem for $99. They call it internet extreme. I bought one and it's great. When I d/l stuff from large companies like Microsoft patches, large trial software or streaming videos I get response in seconds rather than minutes and the d/l takes minutes rather than hours or days. Whenever it's a bit slower I know it's a slow connection at the other end.

I tried the internet light 128 kb/s for a while and was frustrated by how slow it was. It was too close to my old 28 and 56 kb/s modem speeds.

The kind of speed they are talking about in that article would allow excellent quality streaming video but even with the current capacity that I have most sites don't offer streaming video as good as I can handle.

[lordsmurf]

The article mentions noting of the expected costs, which I somehow doubt can compete with $5/month dialup.

I can access free dial-up, but refuse to use it.
Would rather be offline.

Dial-up = headaches and wasted time

[jimmalenko]

God, both the US and UK get it good in terms of pricing IMO. Very, very few ISPs offer truly unlimited deals - many say unlimited*, with the disclaimer that after 10GB per month you get shaped and so on. Or there's the cable deals for $29.90 per month (somewhere near 3Mbps on a quiet day), with a paltry 200MB downloads per month. This goes up to 10GB for $129.95 per month, with your choice of a per MB charge, or shaping back to dialup speed once the limit is exceeded.

Here's the price list from one of the consistently cheaper ISPs, who offer truly unlimited broadband:

256/64 $49.90 per month
512/128 $74.90 per month
1500/256 $129.90 per month





EDIT:

Although I just found a 1500/256 plan that has throttling back to 64k after 50GB for only $80 per month

Pity I can't get ADSL to my home phone line

[ViRaL1]

God, both the US and UK get it good in terms of pricing IMO. Very, very few ISPs offer truly unlimited deals - many say unlimited*, with the disclaimer that after 10GB per month you get shaped and so on. Or there's the cable deals for $29.90 per month (somewhere near 3Mbps on a quiet day), with a paltry 200MB downloads per month. This goes up to 10GB for $129.95 per month, with your choice of a per MB charge, or shaping back to dialup speed once the limit is exceeded.

Here's the price list from one of the consistently cheaper ISPs, who offer truly unlimited broadband:

256/64 $49.90 per month
512/128 $74.90 per month
1500/256 $129.90 per month





EDIT:

Although I just found a 1500/256 plan that has throttling back to 64k after 50GB for only $80 per month

Pity I can't get ADSL to my home phone line

Makes me feel bad for bitching about paying $45 for 6Mb