| Cruising
Backwards at 56K |
| Where is that great world the Internet gurus promised us,
that world where information is easy to find and instantly
available at the touch of a button? |
| From where I'm sitting, the Internet is getting slower by
the day and my abilities to use it as a tool in my daily life
is dependant on my spending larger and larger amounts of cash. |
| Hmmm. Maybe that was the gurus' plan all along. |
| Whatever became of the modem, that miraculous little piece
of technology that allowed us to dial into another world and
do such cool things as "download" and "surf?" |
| It had such potential in the 1990s, when modem speeds jumped
from 14K to 32K and ultimately, if you paid a high enough
price in those days, to 56K, the top of the line, the creme
de la creme, the answer to fast Internet access. |
| But in the last five years the modem has gone nowhere. 56K
modems come as a free standard on any computer you buy nowadays,
but they are fast becoming worthless. As the Internet has
grown to include video, sound, MP3 music files, real-time
television and radio broadcasts, and huge, impressively complicated
graphics, the 56K modem hasn't grown a byte. |
| If you're paranoid, you will say that this is all part of
a bigger scheme to force people to spend more money. Maybe
the reason the 56K modem hasn't been updated in years is that
technology companies want us to buy into DSL, cable modems
and T1 lines. |
| Well, it seems to be working. My wife, Katie, has told me
in no uncertain terms that if I don't speed up our access
to the Internet she will be moving into the basement of her
office building, where she can tap into their monstrous pipeline
and download and surf with instantaneous results. |
| As the Internet grows faster and larger, even our office
computers have begun to notice. When we installed a DSL line
at The Observer a few years ago, the result was dramatic:
complete ease of use of the Internet at all hours of the day. |
| Today, however, it's getting slower, even after we doubled
our DSL speed last year. Now I have my computer consultant
recommending that we move on up to a T1 connection, which
a few years ago was as fast as you could go. |
| While you expect technology to develop and outpace itself
over a period of time, the Internet is out of control. Imaging
buying a car that has a maximum speed of 100 miles per hour,
and then finding that the car could not keep up with the minimum
speed of traffic after only five years. |
| That's what Internet technology is like. But do we really
have a choice with the Internet banking and investing, clubs,
shopping, family photos, personal and professional Web sites
that we have incorporated into our daily lives? |
| Maybe this is exactly what those Internet gurus intended. |
