After electricity and running water, the internet has become the most important utility for most people in the western world. The home telephone and television are still relevant to many people though both have been replaced somewhat by the internet.
I removed the phone line from my home a few years ago as I only used my mobile phone to call people. The house line seemed to only be used for being annoyed by spam marketers and people generally call mobiles rather than house phones now as they know there’s a better chance of speaking to the person.
Likewise, I’ve not actively watched television for several years. In my house in the UK I have a large 47” television in my living room though it’s only used for playing video games or watching movies.
The internet has become more important because speeds have improved so much. Speeds have improved to the point where the internet is becoming the hub for entertainment, communication, information and more. It’s easy to forget how important the speed of the connection is to how you use the internet. 15 years ago we all connected to the web using 56kb modems. Photographs downloaded in stages and video…..well video wasn’t even an option.
Broadband changed everything. It can be considered a major event for the internet as it helped shape the internet for years to come. Web designers took advantage of improved speeds by building more graphic intensive websites and websites like YouTube made watching video online the norm. Companies such as Virgin Media in the UK now offer broadband connections up to 100mb. It really is a different world because of it.
You Need A Good Connection To Work Online
As someone who works on the web, there have been countless occasions where I’ve been frustrated with the poor speed of an internet connection. I am sure you all have too. 99% of these frustrations happened when I was away from my home connection and that remains true today.
The best example of this was when I was travelling in Thailand in 2003. I had been working online for around 3 years and had between 20 to 30 small content websites and a few discussion forums. Checking my emails and maintaining these websites on the road wasn’t a chore – it was damn near impossible. The majority of internet cafes had 20 to 30 people in them using computers. I remember vividly the dirty keyboards and dusty CRT monitors that were being used.
Hotmail was the most popular email provider so when you went into the internet cafe at least half the people were checking their email. This was no easy task. Hotmail wasn’t the slickly designed website it is today. It was full of banner ads and took an age to load. This wasn’t helped by the fact that everyone in the internet cafe was sharing a 56kb connection! Due to this, it normally took a few minutes just to check one email. The owners of the internet cafe no doubt rejoiced at this since they charged by the hour.
Fast forward 9 years and things are much better on the road, however it can still be frustrating at times. I’ve been backpacking through South America over the last few months and good connections weren’t always easy to come by. I spent about 6 to 7 weeks in Peru and Bolivia between September and the end of October this year. The internet connections in Peru were bad though in Bolivia it was really disappointing. I got around 100kb/s in most places (though bizarrely when we did a short 25 minute flight within Bolivia, we got 29mb/s upload at the airport!). It made checking emails and working a pain in the ass to say the least.
Argentina, Chile and Uruguay are quite developed so I was getting at least 5mb/s in most hostels and hotels. That’s a good enough connection to do most things on the web though there was still times that connections slowed considerably if lots of people logged on.
After spending a night in Chile, we recently travelled back up to Colombia. We’re staying at a friend’s house for free (the 2nd home of our friend’s parents to be exact). It was a great gesture from them however there is no internet connection. In this day and age, this isn’t a problem. I got a USB modem and put 70,000 pesos on it (which is approximately $38.50). This was supposed to give me 8GB over a period of one month….or so I thought. I asked my girlfriend if the card was loaded and she said yes so I loaded up Gmail and Hotmail to check my emails. She then told me that I had to text the operator (Movistar) in order to choose the monthly package.
Unfortunately, I got a message saying that there were insufficient funds. The mobile application (Mobile Partner) stated that I had used 8mb whilst loading Gmail and Hotmail (Outlook). I expected this to have used up 1 or 2 thousand pesos at most. No. I wasn’t that lucky. Movistar advised us that we had used up all 70,000 pesos. WTF!! $40 was gone in just under a minute of using the internet.
Despite our protests, their only solution was to reload again. We decided to pay 4,000 pesos to get one day of access. This had a limit of 200mb. I’ve not had to worry about my bandwidth for over 10 years but I made a point of not viewing any videos and photos. Despite this, after an hour and ten minutes of checking emails and messages, I had used up all 200mb.
I couldn’t believe it I used so much by simply responding to emails and loading up websites in order to reply to mesages (on Flippa and via one of my discussion forums). Dropbox and GDrive had been switched off but I suspect something else had been downloading in the background as I was able to continue to use the modem for a day despite their limit rule and it took me hours to use up another 200mb.
It reminded me how important a good connection with no bandwidth limits is to working online. Yes, you can work online with slower speeds and bandwidth limits, but it really holds you back from being productive. Downtime can be a good thing too as it allows you to read books, plan out articles and projects etc but when you actually need to work, slow speeds will hinder you.
How do you deal with slow internet connections?
Kevin
p.s. If you want to know what happens when the internet goes down, check out the classic South Park episode Over Logging 🙂
Very very interesting post Kevin, I’m leaving my Malta next Sunday with Chiang Mai being my destination for the next few months. My top concern, aside from finding a good apartment, is having a fast internet connection. I really hope to find a good combination as it’s a crucial thing for digital nomads like us, especially when we need to administer sites and not just do some writing every now and then.
Chang Mai is nice. 3 of my friends stayed there for 6 months last year (I met them at the end of May in Vietnam just after they had left).
A USB modem is a good backup though I reckon you’ll be able to get an apartment with a solid connection no problem too. though that will depend on your budget too.
Using a USB modem to connect isn’t too bad however it has some limitations due to the small bandwidth limits – specifically having to avoid videos and not being able to make phone calls.
Good to hear, I’m hoping for the best but a USB modem as backup is a good idea and I’ll keep that in mind.
I think you’ll be ok. Thailand’s a lot more developed than it used to be and mobile phone connections were always good. It’s a good place to pick up some electronics too.
Cool, I’ll be sure to post an update on Fit For Blogging, a report along the lines of the one I did earlier about Malta.
Cool. Looking forward to it. Malta looks beautiful. Would love to visit.
I just left a long comment on your post about Malta but when I clicked submit I got the error message “Invalid security token.”. Strange as Jetpack comments is normally ok.
Oh that’s a real shame, I just tested the comments and you’re absolutely right, something’s wrong there. It’s most likely a plugin conflict, gonna try and fix it right now, thanks for pointing it out. Hope you can still get that comment posted once its fixed.
Yeah definitely. Once it’s resolve I can leave a comment.
Also, I noticed we’re both using the same theme. I’ve not done a huge amount of customisation here but if there’s something I’ve done you want to use yourself, please let me know and I’ll send you the code 🙂
Thanks! I’m actually using the eleven40 theme not minimum, but they’re both Genesis child themes as you know. I’m really loving Genesis and can’t wait for 1.9 to come out.
I haven’t done much customisation myself, but the offer stands from my part as well 🙂 It’s interesting that we launched both our sites practically in the same month, so it will be interesting to see how they both grow. Back when you had WP Mods it was one of my reference points as I built WP Mayor 🙂
Anyways, I’ve resolved the comments issue, had to disable WP Super Cache, will see if it plays nicer with W3 Total Cache instead.
Ahhh I thought you had just customised the minimum theme. I looked at Eleven40 before minimum too. Great design.
Thanks for the kudos. I really enjoyed updating WP Mods but I felt it was time to move on. It’s now part of WPHub. The owner, Michael, is a top guy, and is doing great things with that site. I still write about WordPress so I’ve added WP Mayor to my feed list 🙂
Yeah I only relaunched this blog properly the other week. I had let it stagnate for years because I was always busy with other projects. I want to get it established now.
I’ve still not added a cache plugin here as yet. I normally use W3 myself. Will need to install it when I get time.