The Thirst For Higher Speeds

My move to electronic communication can hardly be described as voluntary. Simply put, a testy magazine editor demand that I use email if I wanted to do business with him.
So I quickly scrabbled to collect the requisite hardware and researched the few email services available in that pre-internet era. All required hooking the computer to the phone line with a “modem,” a device for exchanging data with a remote computer.
I ordered my first modem.
The clunky 1.2k (a measure of its speed) modem arrived, and after a period of learning, I was soon emailing the editor. True to his word, he assigned several articles.
In time, other opportunities declared themselves.
When my wife was diagnosed with a rare brain abnormality in late 1991, the pokey little modem opened a portal into electronic archives of medical literature. This access to cryptic terminology permitted me to research her condition well enough to reasonably discuss options with the neurosurgeon.
Slowly, the creep of technology nudged me to a newer computer with a built-in 56k modem, more than a 40-fold speed increase. With the internet in its infancy, however, this dial-up speed satisfied my simple needs of researching, writing and transmitting articles.
But the cyberworld’s insatiable gluttony eventually demanded more speed than my telephone dial-up connection could deliver. It frequently choked on the bloated antivirus and software updates that came at regular intervals.
Necessity finally compelled me to abandon the dial-up and adopt cable internet at a higher price. But this move immediately boosted my speed from the modest 56k to a lightening-fast 700k. Bulky software updates no longer hijacked the phone line for hours at a time. Data transfers between office and home became practical and efficient.
Unlike telephone dial-up, cable stays connected to the internet at all times. Unfortunately, this exposes the computer to hackers, malicious viruses and a host of other internet maladies. Consequently, more safety precautions are required, all taking time and expertise to install and maintain. Speed comes at a cost.
Nevertheless, the availability of high-speed internet made our “must have” list of features when we decided to move to another home. Since then, speeds of 2,000k and better have been common.
For a number of reasons, however, I’m now switching from cable to DSL, a telephone line connection that doesn’t require dialing. But there’s a major hitch: my DSL operates at about half the speed of cable. This perceived shortcoming was so significant that I resolved to cancel the new DSL service the day after I activated it.
But a week’s experience has neutralized my complaint. And I must admit that I seldom notice the extra few milliseconds of delay. I’m keeping the slower-speed DSL for now–and the other features that motivated my purchase.
Speed and money share an amazing similarity: the perception that more is naturally better. But once basic needs have been satisfied, excesses of either tend to spawn their own set of problems.
Copyright 2005 James McAlister
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