Survey: Internet Connection

[Ba r r y]

Even the web and usenet is so much better on broadband, ANY broadband.

Barry

[Lawrence L'Hote]

I have cable and wireless router hooked to the cable modem.. There is some degradation during peak cable use hours but it's worth the $$$$. Only thing faster that I've used is the WiFi 'hotspot"down at the public library where they have a fiber-optic feed. Life's too short to wait with dial-up..

Larry

[Silvan]

You've *got* to try this modem I have sitting here. Fastest modem I ever used.

Since I'm probably not going to manage the drive all the way to Bedford anytime soon, maybe I can mail it to you if you email me your snail addy.

[Larry Blanchard]

Agreed. And make sure it works with most browsers and OS's, not just M$ and Windoze.

Oh yes, I'm on 56K and will be till the price of DSL or cable can get close to my current $9.95 a month.

[Rob Mitchell]

Check out

data as of January was 55% broadband, 45% dialup at HOME. Growth of broadband is about 10%/year roughly. These are US figures. Canadian numbers are probably more skewed in favour of broadband.

At work, 81% of users have highspeed.

As for content, a picture is a good thing if it is really necessary, like a picture of an article I am bidding on on ebay. A huge flash presentation that is automatically displayed for me is annoying even with broadband. So is sound.

You can do alot with pictures, even for users with 56K dialup accounts if you process all your pictures to reduce the number of colours and resolution. JPEGs, or PNGs don't need to be 32bit colour multi-megabit for most things. Good clear pictures can be a few K compressed and that should take only a second to download.

If you have video, use RealVideo which lets you embed multispeed datastreams to support low speed and high speed alike.

I second the request to support more than just MS Explorer (I'm Linux)

I run a commercial website and you can be successful with a clean, clear presentation, lots of content, and graphics and pictures where needed.

Rob

[leonard]

[Mike Marlow]

DSL. Love it.

[Olebiker]

All the telephone company is required to provide is voice-quality communications. There is no requirement for any minimum data transfer rate. I work for a state utility commission and hear folks complain bout this quite a bit. You can call all you want; we don't have the authority to require more. The only thing that is going to make the telephone companies provide better internet service is for competition to force it to do so.

Dick Durbin

[Todd Fatheree]

I got cable when it first came to my neck of the woods about 8 years ago. We're looking to move to a new house sometime soon, and broadband access is at the top of my "need" list. There's just no possible way I'm going from

3,000,000 bps to 50,000 bps (at best). Unfortunately, web designers, like public school teachers, have to work to the lowest common denominator. So, when you're testing your redesign, either test it using a modem or configure your web server to throttle the bandwidth accordingly.

todd

[Todd Fatheree]

At this point in time, it probably doesn't make sense for your ILEC to do anything about data transfer speed. It's just not in their interest to do so. They would just as soon you get tired of dialup and move to DSL. Why should they make an investment in improving data on the phone lines when they see the direction broadband is going? In 10 years, I suspect there will be maybe 10% of internet users in the US on dialup. I just wish the satellite internet service would get to be usable so I would be free to move out to the country.

todd

[John DeBoo]

[igor]

Thanks for the comments. As you know, it is state-by-state. Maybe you've seen a NARUC survey or just know that most/all states still only require voice quality. I have not been in that "business" for a few years and was extrapolating as to what I thought may have happened since then with the regulators, w/ or w/o a state legislative push. Gore tax and all those charges to support universal service. I figured by now that some state governments, in order to support "economic development", etc. would have required basic data quality at some level. Seems my thinking was too wishful. Anyway, that is why I suggested going up the chain if the PUC/PSC didn't/couldn't help. Could a state impose a data standard - directly OR indirectly - that would effectively require 54K (versus 56K) connections? Or, would that be considered something off-limits to state regulators under the 1996 act or some FCC rule? Not a biggie; just wonderin' -- Igor

[Joe_Stein]

Dial up here. Specifically, peoplepc.

56K modem. Currently connected at 45.2Kbps (sometimes up to 48). I had cable before too. Miss it too. Cannot afford it since retiring. Joe

Jeff P. wrote:

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Good graphics are good. Clutter and music and I hit the stop button.

Broadband has spoiled me. Years ago with a 14.4 modem I would hit a link and go get a drink of water, take a leak and come back.to see it finish. Long times were acceptable. Today, I would not wait 30 seconds.unless at least part of the page was loaded and visible.

[Mark & Juanita]

DirecWay satellite broadband. Live too far out to get DSL or cable.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety

Army General Richard Cody

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[rcook5]

I'm on cable, but I know a lot of people on dial-up. Also keep in mind those throughput numbers are theoretical maximums. Real world performance is a lot less.

If you feel you need a lot of graphics you may want to provide an alternate layout for people with slower connections. You can do a text-only version of your page or you can use thumbnails the reader has to click on to enlarge. Also keep in mind that some folks are visually impaired and some people run with graphics turned off to speed loading.

Now, to the real point. "Tons of graphics" is a lousy design standard, no matter how fast the link. Newspaper people have a term for that kind of layout: "Full French circus". That is _not_ a compliment. Too many graphics make a site harder to read, slow comprehension and make the reader lose interest faster. (How do I know? Because there have been a ton of studies done on readability over the last century. We've learned a lot about how people absorb and interpret visual information.)

The Japanese aesthetic of sparseness is much more likely to be effective than a whole bunch of graphics.

Think first in terms of content, breaking it down into closely related elements on different pages. Next think in terms of the design and layout that will support your content. Finally, think in terms of the graphic elements that will be part of that design and content.

So how much graphics is too much graphics? That depends first on your audience, second on what you're trying to communicate and third on what kind of meta-message you're trying to send your readers.

Think those things through, sketch out some site maps and basic page layouts and see how you'll tie it all together.

This is at the top of my mind right now because I'm designing a semi-personal Web page that has to bridge contrasting -- and sometimes conflicting -- areas of interest for rather different audiences.

--RC "Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells 'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets fly with a club. -- John W. Cambell Jr.

[rcook5]

It's a time-decay function. The longer it takes for the page to load the more users you will lose. 6 seconds is where it starts getting noticable and the percentage you lose doubles every few seconds after that. At 30 seconds you're probably losing a significant number of potential viewers.

There are ways around this. One of the easiest is to use a fast-loading page with no graphics that displays information in text while the main page finishes loading. Often this is the same text that is on the main page, just with no graphics, background, etc.

But the rule is: The sooner you start giving them some useful content, the more of them will stick around.

--RC "Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells 'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets fly with a club. -- John W. Cambell Jr.

[Jeff P.]

Yeah, I remember those days.

I hit the "back" button faster than you can bat an eyelash when a site has music.

[Jeff P.]

Dreamweaver gives an estimated load time for your pages but I test them anyway with my auxilary dial up line that Roadrunner provides. I've found the times in Dreamweaver quite accurate. My goal is to keep all load times in the 15 to 25 second range for a 56k connection.

[Jeff P.]

Just out of curiosity, how do you like Directway and how's the quality of service? Price?