Is bandwidth still a limit?

Sorry to bang an old and well beaten drum here, but once again 2 points
spring to mind here.

Firstly those who claim bandwidth is not an issue live in and believe the
WWW stretches from east to west coasts. Their view point is blinkered by
this fact. Any one who has tried to access the net after 5pm in the UK or at
the week end when the free connections start to cut in will testify life
hits the slow lane big time. Which is why inspite of AOL's very best efforts
to get me to part with £14.99 a month for 'free' connections I still pay for
my calls. All it takes to bring information exchange to a grinding halt is a
back bone to go U/S. Life slows generally here when America goes on line to
surf. Usually about 9pm GMT which coincides with the days work being
completed in the office (east coast) and an hour or so to kill before
hometime!! Then when the west coast kicks in.....................it is more
of a case of banned with no room for the width. Not a complaint, a statement
of fact.

Secondly, once again assumptions are made by technical people using state of
the art equipment, in hi tech city environments. For instance I could have
(the fittings are there on my wall) ISDN connection but that would cost me
£57.00 a quarter just for rental, over and above the line rentals, every
call after that is a double charge as twin lines are used. Cable is not an
option as no cable company will run a cable to me 5 miles away from the
nearest cable connection. Inspite of that they mailshot me on a regular
basis and I reply on the freephone number every time saying I would love to
be connected when can they do it? silence deepens on discovery of my
location. Other choices are not available as the valve powered and steam
driven telephone exchanges are not capable of handling the speeds. I am not
unique, our telephone network is suffering from the same malaise as
California power companies. A lack of investment. These days in the effort
to supply extra lines BT have got into the habit of putting in splitter
boxes, this gives a 2 for one situation, then another box goes in further
down the line, works fine for 'phones and faxes, the problem is the moment a
bit of java or heavy banners attempt to navigate the bottleneck, modem
switches off, nothing there.

"No problem sir! we will turn up the gain on the line"

1. who keeps turning it down?
2. why?
3. does not work for the web, but emails can get thru.

Can we start to live in the real world and not corporate offices in uptown
America please? Not paranoid, as that is a situation when you only "think"
the deck is stacked against you.

Ulaan Baator?????????????? give up, where the heck is that?

OK so I'm having a bad day, I think everyone is ignoring my March invoices.
smiles
Paul Davis


























Paul Davis

Received on Friday, 11 May 2001 06:47:29 UTC