ADSL
Bit of a rant coming up.
In the mid 90s I went to an IATA conference in Montreal, about the use of the Internet by Airlines. One of the keynote speakers was an Internet pioneer (whose name I am embarrassed to say I can't remember). This was about the time that ADSL was taking off in North America, and he rubbished the technology because he said that the speed must be the same in both directions. I didn't think much about it at the time, but now, ten years later, of course I realise what he was getting at.
Up until a few years ago the fastest residential connection we could get was 56 Kbits. Then we got ADSL at 512 Kbits down (ten times faster) and 128K up (only twice as fast). This made browsing much faster, but uploading not much faster. Last year we got 2 Mbits down and 256 Kbits up. Later this year we will probably get 8 Mbits down and 512 Kbits up. This is the first time it will have been possible to run a web site on an ADSL link, and will make uploading pictures and music less of a drag, and may even make video practical.
I recently had a shock when we ordered a 2 MBits SDSL line for work, which costs GBP 4,500 per year, compared to GBP 240 for ADSL, but we needed a line to send emails from so ADSL wasn't an option.
End of rant.
In the mid 90s I went to an IATA conference in Montreal, about the use of the Internet by Airlines. One of the keynote speakers was an Internet pioneer (whose name I am embarrassed to say I can't remember). This was about the time that ADSL was taking off in North America, and he rubbished the technology because he said that the speed must be the same in both directions. I didn't think much about it at the time, but now, ten years later, of course I realise what he was getting at.
Up until a few years ago the fastest residential connection we could get was 56 Kbits. Then we got ADSL at 512 Kbits down (ten times faster) and 128K up (only twice as fast). This made browsing much faster, but uploading not much faster. Last year we got 2 Mbits down and 256 Kbits up. Later this year we will probably get 8 Mbits down and 512 Kbits up. This is the first time it will have been possible to run a web site on an ADSL link, and will make uploading pictures and music less of a drag, and may even make video practical.
I recently had a shock when we ordered a 2 MBits SDSL line for work, which costs GBP 4,500 per year, compared to GBP 240 for ADSL, but we needed a line to send emails from so ADSL wasn't an option.
End of rant.
posted by Stuart at
20:58
1 Comments:
Was ADSL intended for business though? I always assumed it was a residential solution in which case the limited upload isn't such a big deal. I don't really understand the whole thing but I know that around here the only consumer options are ADSL or cable and I'm hearing fewer complaints from the ADSL users. We get 2.5 down and 640 up with 60gig/month traffic.
I get your point though that 10 years ago I had no idea that I'd ever need any upload capacity. Of course I had no idea I'd ever need a hard drive larger than 800MB either..
By
Mike, at 06 May, 2006 04:57
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