Speed Thrills, Shopping Stumbles and More
By Robert McGarvey
I was a fool, I’ll admit it.
For years I sniffed about the non-importance of high-speed Internet access and I clung to my 56K modem, insisting that was plenty fast enough for the e-mail which makes up the bulk of our ’Net usage.
Then I got a postcard in the mail from my telephone company with an offer for $49 per month high-speed DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) access. I was about to toss the card when, suddenly, the many minutes I sat at my monitor daily just waiting for something to happen began to flash before my eyes.
Was I really wasting an hour or so a day—just waiting?
I read the fine print and, hold on, the minimum speed provided by DSL in my area is 384 Kps—maybe 8 times faster than a 56K modem—and, often, the system will deliver download speeds of 1.5 Mbps which is so much faster you don’t want to do the math. Figure an average speed that’s around 30 times speedier than an ordinary modem.
Oh, there is a hitch. Those rocket speeds are for downloads. Uploads—where you send a monster file to somebody—are slower at about 128Kps, or only two to three times faster than a conventional modem. But how often do you do that sort of mega-file transfer?
I did more research. A DSL line, in a kind of telco magic act, doubles as two lines, with one for data (i.e., a hook-up to the Internet) and the other for voice. So in signing up for DSL I could get rid of one phone line and, at the end of the accounting day, actually save a few dollars by subscribing to DSL.
I made the call, signed up, and now I cannot quite fathom how I ever worked without high-speed access. Big faxes that before tied up my data line for many minutes now thump into my mail box in seconds. I read online articles as fast as paper articles because now there’s no waiting for the next page to load.
Before, I printed out reams of web pages for research material for stories I was developing; now I bookmark the sites and click into the facts I need.
But probably the best bit is that DSL is always on—meaning there’s no frustrating wait for a modem to successfully dial into a network. Right there, I save a good 15 minutes daily. Checking e-mail means just clicking the program into action, and the results show up in an instant.
Is DSL the only high-speed solution? Nope. Cable companies across North America are touting their systems, which provide connections at up to 10 Mbps, at monthly rates usually under $50.
Which is better? For most of us, that’s never an issue because, in most neighborhoods, at most one of the high-speed options can be found and a good deal of North America still offers nothing beyond a pokey 56K analog dial-up connection.
Want to see what’s on offer where you are? Surf over to GetSpeed (www.getspeed.com) where a few keystrokes will get you a complete menu of what’s to be had in your locality.
Another option: just call your local telephone company and cable outfit and see what they’re doing.
Either way, if high-speed access can be had where you are, get it. And like me, you too will wonder how you did without.
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