Back on the Broadband!

We after about 6 weeks of having the internet dribble down at dial-up speeds the Martians are finally back on broadband!

It’s was amazing to see the difference between dial-up and broadband.  Dial-up is not just slow and annoying but a lot of the time you are unable to establish a firm grip on the web.

In today’s super fast internet world using dial up is like trying to lassoo a racecar with a wet noodle.  It was an interesting, and infuriating, lesson in how the internet has grown over the last few years.  I remember dial-up when the web first made an appearance – and sure it was a bit slow but there was not a lot of data heavy content on sites.

Now websites have more content, and more complex context at that.  The simple flash banner or video is common place these days and the code behind the scenes is crammed full of extra functions that were merely a twinkle in a web developers eye a few years ago.  This is to be expected.  With faster connections and better browsers more can be crammed into a site without affecting download speeds – on broadband.

I found a lot of the time that dial-up would drop off, stall or the browser would simply give up due to insufficient data being received.  This worked both ways.  Uploading a couple of hundred kb of file to our mail system turned into an hour long game which involved a lot of finger crossing and fervant praying.  This is the sort of stuff that we take for granted these days.  Click, done!

So come on Telecom!  Get the hardware in place so NZ can catch up with the web.  Dial-up is not an option in this day and age….