My Brother in law has spent most of today complaining about his Internet connection.  It was the first time I have spent anytime with him alone so I was glad of something to talk about.  He has to use a USB dongle to access the Internet which keeps losing the connection and his download speed can be as slow as 6kbps.  He doesn’t have a LAN line connection to his flat which means that he can not even get any fixed telephones never mind decent Internet.

His main usage is to talk to friends in Japan, he lived there for a while with his wife and is still learning the language from his friends with a weekly lesson.  As he doesn’t have a LAN line he doesn’t have any telephones connected to a wired connection in his apartment.  Using his mobile it would cost a fortune so a VOIP phone system is perfect for him to talk to them.  With the unreliable connection the voice quality he gets can be very low and often he has to reschedule to try another time.

I think it is amazing the way the Internet has advanced; why I was young no one I knew had DSL Internet now it is standard for most people.  What will be the next step up from DSL.  Apparently one of my brother in laws friend currently has a super fast business Internet connection to his house, but with the availability of dsl business connections to the public restricted it will be a few more years until connection like that become available wide spread.  I don’t doubt that it will happen though, with the ever increasing demand put on the Internet and the need for people to share experiences over the net ever increasing soon we will need a faster up load connection.