Topic: High Speed Internet Access (The Snail Race)

[chorleydave]

I am in my local library, using the "High Speed Internet Access".  I was trying to order a statement through online banking, but gave up after the "High Speed Internet Access" took twenty nine minutes (yes 29) to get me logged in and to my account screen.  My 56K dialup connection at home takes about 25 seconds to get me there.

I then decided to drop in here.

56K dialup time = approximately 15 seconds.

"High Speed Internet Access" time = three minutes.

I'm going back home now.  I can proably be at home, have a brew ready, and be on the next site I plan to visit, while this "High Speed Internet Access" is still thinking about it.

[Hiatus]

Ha, it's probably because no-one (ok, not many people) use 56k anymore.

Everybody has "high speed internet" so it's slowing it down.

I dunno...that's my theory...

[Clive]

The reason it's so slow is because the computer you connected to at your local library was not only networked to all the other machines in it, but also to all the other libraries in your area.  That's how my library works anyway and the connection speed is just as dire.

[chorleydave]

It makes you wonder why it is described as "High Speed Internet Access" when it is actually slower than the 486DX, 16MB RAM and 28.8kbs modem I was using about five years ago!  

[Simon]

It probably is 'High Speed', providing you're the only one using the network!  

[cher45]

Clive is right about it,probably many,many pcs connected through that one line to the Internet.I have a home network on broadband and with 3 PCs browsing,playing games,etc I don't see a drop in speed.Maybe some,but it is so minuscule it is not noticed.

BTW
I can download a 250mb ISO file in 15 minutes  

[Barra]

Maybe you should have given the library pc a bit of a clear out. I've got a friends pc here at the moment due to it having problems connecting to the internet, though the min reason was to put a bit of protection on it as even the xp firewall had not been enabled. I thought the slow speeds were down to me not being used to 56k dialup now I'm used to 2mb dsl.
I was looking forward to comparing the 2 pcs, mine with the athlon 1.2 and 512 sdram and theirs with the intel 2.4 and 512ddr.
Still slow at my house with popups galore. So slow I thought I would do a speed test, well 3 actually and the best I got was 22kbps down and 14kbps up things were not looking good.After adaware se finding 470 spywares knocking about, installing a popup stopper and norton finding 5 viruses pc is now back up to speed.
Still prefer my ME to XP though