Anyone on this forum already knows more than the general public on broadband. For the majority its complete confusion, but that will resolve as the DSL forms gradually disappear in favour of FTTP. Given a lot of the country can now get FTTP, I suspect in 10 years DSL (including FTTC) will have gone in 99%.

As you've seen web browsing only needs sufficient speed. The bigger effect on the web browser is a much faster CPU in your device, as processing web pages to show them to you is really limited by the speed of your computer, not the network.

Downloading anything (files, software, video) is where you often see the benefit of speed, and this includes the big patches for laptops, desktops, tablets, phones etc.

I remember now, it went from half a Mbit/s and then to 1 and then for me around 3.5 if I was lucky. No way could i cope on ADSL now, that is why I changed to the wireless network even then, so now would be impossible. but I did stream HD on ADSL on Netflix.

Dial up brings up memories, I used it to dial up a couple of bulletin board systems on my Amiga, still in contact with a couple of people from them. That sound when my supra modem dialed out and hand shook. I remember being told i was not supposed to use the Supra as it was not certified to work on BT lines. I got a Amiga 4000/04 second hand and got a US robotics courier with that, did use it with the PC for a while, but I then went for a internal one. I still have the courier one here and a load of internal ones.

I was a fair bit older than 15, when I was 15, we did not have computers, the first computer I saw was a Acorn BBC, just a couple of months before I left school

It is crazy, in not that many years how technology have changed, my phone is more powerful than my first PC which was a 166 cyrix.
My Mac has a chip that is based on the chip that was in Acorn Archimedes and so have every smartphone phone or the majority of them anyway.
Broadband, is way faster now than most of us need.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I remember now, it went from half a Mbit/s and then to 1 and then for me around 3.5 if I was lucky. No way could i cope on ADSL now, that is why I changed to the wireless network even then, so now would be impossible. but I did stream HD on ADSL on Netflix.

That was before Openreach became an entity, but the 0.5 Mbps was a BT restriction, there was 0.5 Mbps, 1 Mbps and 2 Mbps services, the higher two were insanely fast. Then we had "rate adaptive" ADSL up to a theoretical 8Mbps. Some of these delays is why the government created LLU and companies such as C&W and TalkTalk rented space in a local exchange, and offered ADSL2+ years before what became Openreach.

Most of that is why this site was founded, I remember getting 0.5 Mbps with Pipex and it was revolutionary, as it was half the price of BT's Openworld service that came with the frog/stingray USB thing that was unreliable. Of course this site started as ADSLguide.org.uk and switched to thinkbroadband.com later.

Dial up brings up memories, I used it to dial up a couple of bulletin board systems on my Amiga, still in contact with a couple of people from them. That sound when my supra modem dialed out and hand shook. I remember being told i was not supposed to use the Supra as it was not certified to work on BT lines. I got a Amiga 4000/04 second hand and got a US robotics courier with that, did use it with the PC for a while, but I then went for a internal one. I still have the courier one here and a load of internal ones.

I've used more modems... 2400 bps dialling up bulletin boards, and the microsoft BBS was very useful for patches even in the Windows 3.0/3.1 days. Then moved upto 9600, then 14400 then 28800 and eventually a "56k" which most of the time ran at 33600bps.

I was a fair bit older than 15, when I was 15, we did not have computers, the first computer I saw was a Acorn BBC, just a couple of months before I left school

We had 6 BBC micros when I got to the upper 6th, the school was given a single Archimedes, and then had to buy a room full of Windows 3.0 computers from RM to teach the National Curriculum computing to the coming year. Completely confused all the teachers. The upper 6th taught the teachers how to use a mouse!

It is crazy, in not that many years how technology have changed, my phone is more powerful than my first PC which was a 166 cyrix. My Mac has a chip that is based on the chip that was in Acorn Archimedes and so have every smartphone phone or the majority of them anyway.

The chip in the Mac might use similar instructions from ARM (first = Acorn RISC machines, then and now Advanced RISC machines) but the instructions have moved on a long way. Apple's internal design house have done some incredible things with their design licence.

Broadband, is way faster now than most of us need.

One of your sweeping statements. Do you know what I need, or what I do? No, you don't. I work with people that move hundreds of gigabyte files around, and they want to work from home. Some have moved house to get to an Alt Net with faster upload than Openreach will offer.

That might seem obscure, but in 70 million people in the UK there is a lot of room for the obscure!

Edited by jchamier (Fri 10-Apr-26 17:30:22)

RM ? Research Machines ? I remember them … met them investigating a weird intermittent REIN fault a private school.
(The caretaker only plugged in the faulty video player on the weekends, only had a three way electric lead … the REIN was feeding back through the tizzy, weekdays he needed the spare power for another device)

frog/stingray USB thing that was unreliable.

Really ? That wasn’t my experience ….

Research Machines (RM) now that's a name I've not heard of for 30 years or so. I remember using the RM Nimbus at secondary School in the 90's! They are still going but are a shadow of their former selves.

"One of your sweeping statements. Do you know what I need, or what I do? No, you don't. I work with people that move hundreds of gigabyte files around, and they want to work from home. Some have moved house to get to an Alt Net with faster upload than Openreach will offer."

I think Adrian was referring to home users not work users from home.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

RM ? Research Machines ? I remember them … met them investigating a weird intermittent REIN fault a private school.

Yes, the Oxford area manufacturer. They made some x86 non standard hardware, and then started making standard 386sx machines that ran Win3.0 and 3.1 really well.

frog/stingray USB thing that was unreliable.

Really ? That wasn’t my experience ….

The problem was USB 1.1 on many motherboards wasn't well tested, and this was in the days of the pentium 75 and similar, with chipsets from Intel, VIA and elsewhere. Many many driver updates required for some boards to even get the thing to work. Depending on line length it needed the full 500 mA and some mobos just couldn't provide. USB is an awful networking interface. Not a great decision for a demarcation. Token Ring would have been better.

The Draytek 2200USB was a great product that solved the problem, took the USB attached Alcatel and gave you a NAT router and standard ethernet connection.

Wires-Only from OR solved it finally.

In reply to a post by CJT:

Research Machines (RM) now that's a name I've not heard of for 30 years or so. I remember using the RM Nimbus at secondary School in the 90's! They are still going but are a shadow of their former selves.

The Nimbus name started with the propiatory x86 hardware that wasn't PC compatible but ran DOS; and then they reused Nimus for the later hardware that was standard memory map and run Windows 3 in 386 Enhanced mode.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

I think Adrian was referring to home users not work users from home.

Plenty of home users who are self employed in the UK in the last 20 years; I gather from various news sources more than in most of Europe. Perhaps something to do with our tax laws.

My experience was that when called out on faults, the Alcatel Stingray was never the cause of the problem. Since they were all engineer installed, internal wiring issues were rare, incorrect exchange jumpering, not an issue, you did it yourself on the install. 45db attenuation or less ….

We got some juicy faults occasionally though … a rectified split pair over 300m long, you could get fixed 1meg sync with one CBUK ID (the correct one) then it would drop, and you’d get a fixed 2meg sync with a different CBUK ID showing … web pages from both as they were both BT Openworld circuits.

Testing for sync out in the network meant gaining sync with a USB modem plugged into your work laptop 😀

As a separate team, we got the time to make a proper job of these strange faults.

…. self install put the kibosh on that … internal wiring issues, incorrect set ups, (we gained the nickname ’socket jockeys’ from the copper engineers even though we did both).

Over a quarter of a century ago <sigh>