I'm on a 1 Mbps plan (wireless). I can get up to 3 Mbps, here. That's as good as it gets. The only benefit is no data cap. I just got a Roku TV and I can stream some low-def programming OK. But yeah, it sucks paying $40+ for what I see some get for less and faster.

DSL in Rural/Mountain areas is damn near the Dial-Up of old.

I've stayed in a number of hotels over the course of my travels where the wireless connections offered below the 28k rate. So yes, it does occasionally matter to us intrepid travelers.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
Still a few folk who are remote enough that copper line access is all there is for them.

Until two years ago, we had no hard line access at all (unless you count dial-up). No DSL, no cable, only wireless options. The best was 7Mbps/2Mbps, @$70/month, with no data cap. Then a big new development down the road prompted Centurylink to lay a nice big fiber pipe up this way. We benefitted by getting a fiber-provisioned remote DSLAM, so now we have VDSL, using our existing copper that was laid in 2000 for phone lines. I get 40Mbps/5Mbps and am ecstatic with that. Still no where near the 100Mbps that "most" people have.
 

I had a client who had dial up in their hotel way past when they should have. What made it funnier was they had the dial up ports on the opposite corner of room from where table was. When I used to go up there (and had a dial up capable Dell) I would travel with a huge phone cable I got from radio shack so I could actually work at the desk

Otto Pilot is right about the traveling and "free" internet access in places. I often get speeds below 1Mbps, and sometimes they are less than the 52k from days of old. Times like that are when really big avatars are vexing.

As others mentioned, it's why the simpleness of Sigforum software is nice. For real fun, fire up the Lynx browser. You'll still be able to do pretty much everything here.

I have 25/5 mbps. Good enough to stream to TV, have everything in the house hardwired except my cell phone (PlayStation, computers, TV), can't figure out where to plug in Ethernet cable for phone.

I have sprint which is snail speed unless you are on Spark network which is 100mbps. So the warnings do help me as I do most reading while eating lunch, or in the field on hold or otherwise waiting for something.

Also Avatars are supposed to be 60x60 !

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:

quote:

Originally posted by mkueffer:
Anything less than 1.0 Mbps would be considered dial-up speeds. Most folks have 100 Mbps in the home if not 1.0 Gbps. All orders of magnitude and relative to where you are.

Speedtest says the average download is 55 Mbps.

What are your speeds based on?

I suspect sites like speedtest don't get a true random sample. There are still a lot of folks who are mostly oblivious of such matters and would never think to do a speed test. My guess is folks who really care about speed, and are more inclined to pay for it, are the ones who use sites like speedtest.

My first non-dialup connection was in Union city CA in 2000. 128k aDSL.

Currently sitting at 100 Mbps down/10 up for $45/mo. This weekend AT&T will hook me up for Fiber 1000 down/1000 up for $70/mo. I am in Round Rock so Google Fiber has not reached here from Austin yet.

House was built in 2004. Last year AT&T went in and tore up half of the neighborhood for fiber. Then they stopped suddenly, leaving the other half hanging. Still wonder how they'll get their ROI given the hard digging they did.

I'm out in BFE and my options are dial up, satellite and a local place that uses a wireless setup with a fixed antenna. It's only 1.5-3mbps but it works well. No data cap but it only streams standard def. $70/month but I'm glad to have it.

quote:

Originally posted by Leemur:
I'm out in BFE and my options are dial up, satellite and a local place that uses a wireless setup with a fixed antenna. It's only 1.5-3mbps but it works well. No data cap but it only streams standard def. $70/month but I'm glad to have it.

I'm in the same boat, except we don't have a provider that does the fixed antenna set-up. But we do have cellular LTE coverage. So right now, I'm using LTE.

Home is not dial-up, but is satelite and therefore I pay a premium if I download too much stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by mkueffer:
Anything less than 1.0 Mbps would be considered dial-up speeds. Most folks have 100 Mbps in the home if not 1.0 Gbps. All orders of magnitude and relative to where you are.

Who are most folks? 100Mbps is rare. 1Gbps is pretty much nonexistent.

when the power goes out, I still have dial-up (for a while) and nothing else. So, I'm set up on a free dial-up service just in case. Battery operated laptop, so I'm good.

It's part of my prepper planning.