Every Broadband isp should elect 2 MB/s as optimum Performance per Operating Desktop & Charge Most Minimum for 2 MB/s. Telco:FREE. TAX Free. Mere $2.75/Mo as Mandated by LAW. Cable, Say Twice THAt.

Suddenly Paradise of Waste Goes Heavy on Equipment. NExt: stop mandatory insurance. VECHILE,HEALTH NOR RENTAL.

ALL FOOD you can Gobble....ALL Noise you can Make. Artistia' Supreme ahhhh..

vondrashek | || | || | | | | || | |

I have been complaining about this fact for a while. Braodband is no more with the kind of data we need to transmit these days. ISPs have not risen to the occassion and have been sitting back and the consumer has had to endure horrible service because of contracts in residential buildings so there is no competition. This is what I have observed at least in the states, I'm not sure if the author was discribing a completely general picture or a UK thing or a US thing... But I totally agree. I'm glad that the FTC is at least making moves to enforce a new bandwidth of 4M at least to be considered broadband, as with my 1Mb and up to 15Mb, often I get less than 1Mb where I live and I'm paying almost 50 bucks. So I cannot watch netflix and download anything else of consequence, like a new game in the background. It would be nice if we can mark the priories of our connections uplink and down when they start. That would be a helpful service feature.

I found it quite funny/annoying to read this article with comments from the man from Demon.

In the last 6 months, Demon have become somewhat of a joke when it comes to their services.

I'm a long term customer of Demon and have had an ongoing row with them about my Business Broadband provision, since they were taken over by C&W I do not understand what I am paying for!

Until Demon and any other ISP's get their marketing and customer services houses in order I don't think they are entitled to comment on what they think customers want!

From my point of view, I need a service that at the most basic level works, connection at the right speeds, Fair Usage Policies that WORK and overall better diagnostic procedures that solve issues quickly.

I'm certainly not getting this from Demon currently and even after exhaustive calls to their various Teams I'm no better off!

I expect it's goodbye to a long standing relationship but the truth is, unless your business is situated in a major city then your choice of ISP is worse than extremely limited!

There is no race it never started, ISP's are quite happy to take your money and due to the infrastructure we only get 1mb if we are lucky.

You must be writing from London or somewhere with adaquate bandwidth because from where I'm sitting the bandwidth race has hardly begun.

I get 4Mbps downstream from Sky and it has been stuck at that speed for at least 4 years. I'm not in a rural community just in a normal town with an BT Infinity exchange enablement date of sometime in the future that keeps getting pushed back.

I take all you points as fair but bandwidth for many (majority) is still a big problem.

Just out of interest for anyone reading, Sky have no fair use policy, it's totally unlimited so if like me you're a heavy p2p user Sky is a good bet.

Just did some test on pingtest.net and I have 0 packetloss to china/russia/australia/south-africa/mexico/chili/brazil/US/canada/israel/jordan and the only route I get packetloss is the one to iceland (1-4%).

So I have to wonder if the guy from demon doesn't need to look at his own infrastructure if he thinks that packetloss is the big issue these days.

I'm guessing it really is not the big issue with decent ISP's, and I'd sooner look at long-distance speeds as an issue (and I do not mean the inevitable loss because of latency).

And the issue for internet in general is of course the censorship and tracking by governments, something where ISP's can also show some spunk by not accepting the crap and showing their teeth in court, and fortunately some do. (demon for one isn't exactly known for that though if I recall correctly.)

Did you realize that backbone carriers of data still charge per byte? These are the companies that ISPs must get their data from. They pay them per byte of data. This alone is a SERIOUS problem. This is what keeps the bandwidth low, and what keeps connectivity out of more rural areas.

Some good stuff written there.

I remember the days back in 1994, armed with an Amstrad 2400 modem I picked up in Game. I signed up for an 'internet' connection with the ISP Direct Connection for about £10 a month and that gave me a static IP. I was then able to use email (though I didnt know anyone else back then with email hahaha)usenet and IRC.

All very black and white. I didnt get the visual internet we know today till the next year when I got a Multitech 19200 modem. Big phone bills ahoy!

Yes Trumpet Winsock, manually configuring and installing faster serial ports, Netscape 1. Took quite a bit to get it working. They let any moron on the web nowadays!

Great days!