Bandwidth restriction by the ISP directly is something most U.S. users don’t have to deal with – yet. But other countries have had to deal with monthly bandwidth limitations more or less since broadband was first introduced in their part of the world.

Here in the U.S., Comcast is gunning to impose monthly data restrictions widely, however there’s a problem and a huge one at that. There’s no way for the customer to check what they’ve used. This is like having a car without a fuel gauge or a cell phone without a battery life indicator. Comical? Yes.

Here are some things that are even more comical.

If you use any online banking at all, every time you login to whatever system you use, you’re blasted to “go paperless.” The supposed benefits are that it saves trees. Not true. All it does is save the bank the cost of mailing a bill to you. Regardless of that, what’s the point of going paperless if it puts a draw on your monthly bandwidth restriction that would potentially cost you more?

Want a better example? No problem.

Video web sites like YouTube and Hulu tell everybody that you should watch them instead of regular television. So let’s say you do. Do you have any idea how much draw all that video Flash content has? Quite a bit.

And the best example of all:

Our own President want to make sure that the entire nation has a minimum 10 megabit connectivity speed for all broadband connections. This is a good idea. But then all this means is that you’ll tap your bandwidth limit faster, so it serves no benefit.

It could be that our very own ISPs make this massive speed-increase effort by our own government to drop like a brick by widely imposing bandwidth restrictions. They have a saying in the military to describe this scenario: “Hurry up and wait.”

Do you have a monthly bandwidth limit where you are?

If you do, do you have some sort or metering program that tells you what you’ve used? If so, great! Comcast doesn’t.

Have you found your bandwidth restriction to get in the way of doing things you want to do on the internet?

Let us know by posting a comment.

This may offer a bit of comfort to some with slower broadband connections. For US internet users, your tax dollars have now proven that the speed of broadband is 50% slower than what it’s claimed to be.

For those that would say, "Did we need to spend a bunch of tax money to figure something out everybody already knew?" In fact, yes. The problem needed to be identified in absolute fashion so plans can be made to actually do something about it. Saying something is slow and proving it as such are two different things. And now it’s proven.

A few other things have been proven as well.

First, what ISPs claim to be "fast" really doesn’t sound believable anymore due to the fact more and more US customers are saying, "I paid for ‘fast’ internet and I’m not getting it." When you download web pages, files and so on at the same speed you did with your "slow" broadband, you feel cheated. And you are being cheated. Fast should be legitimately fast, and it isn’t.

Second, internet today is no longer a luxury. For many it’s increasingly becoming a necessity. While it’s true you can go through daily life without it, it is becoming more difficult to do so and in the long run can cost you.

A simple example of this is paying bills online instead of mailing them out. The current cost of a US stamp is 44¢, and this doesn’t include the cost of envelopes. If you mail out 10 letters a month, that costs you $4.40 each time. Sending out bill payments online is completely free, and for payments that you cannot pay electronically, the bank will cover the cost of the postage and mail it for you.

This is just a single example as there are obviously many more.

The US is grossly behind the times when it comes to our broadband speed. The last time I wrote about this, the US ranked 15th in the world, with an extremely poor last-mile average download rate of 2.3mbps.

Thank the FCC for at least identifying our slow broadband as a legitimate problem. Plans to improve the network in the US will start soon in 2010. This is very late to the party concerning other countries are beating the pants off us right now in the broadband dept., but at least the problem has been identified and steps will be taken to resolve it, hopefully in short order.

Does your ISP make "fast" claims that they can’t deliver?

You pay good money for speed concerning your internet connectivity. Are you getting it? Post a comment and let people know.

Fortunately in modern times most states and towns in the United States have wised up and have informative web sites. But unfortunately these web sites can still be difficult to locate – even with a Google search.

Not to worry, there’s a really good web site to help you out with this:

StateLocalGov.net

I really like this site because it’s more than just a one trick pony, so to speak. When you look up information on your state, you are not only given the state’s web site, but town sites, governor sites, attorney general sites, city guides and more. This is definitely one to put in your bookmarks.

Some reasons why it’s important to know your state and/or town’s web site

• Forms – As most people are aware, local government is run by paper, paper and more paper. If you need a permit for anything, you need to fill out a form. If you need a license for anything, you need to fill out a form. That’s just the way it works. You can save yourself a lot of time if you seek out the forms you need yourself and printing them out.
• Construction time tables – Got construction on your local highways and interstates? Who doesn’t? Most state web sites will list all projects, when they will start and more importantly when they will end (as in get finished). Florida, for example, has MyTBI. All road projects are listed, including current and future. This directly impacts many people’s commute to work each day. Those in the know are better off than those who don’t. Your state’s web site most likely has a similar site of its own.
• Vehicle registration renewals – Re-registering a motor vehicle in modern times usually can be done 100% over the internet these days without any need to go to the DMV.
• State job boards – Where do you find state jobs? On the state’s web site, of course. Most state jobs are not listed on any major job web sites so you have to go direct-to-site to find them. HOT TIP: You can try CareerOneStop if you can’t find state job listings on a state-specific web site. All states are there.

How is your town doing?

Does your town have its own web site? If so, is it informative and easy, or difficult to find what you were looking for? What would you change about it, if anything?

Happy Monday, everyone.

If you live on the eastern part of the United States, you most likely woke up to a crapload of nature’s white goodness this morning and make have been forced to stay home from school or work.

Your only thought is probably, "Oh, great. (sarcasm..) When will this be over?"

Here’s a few links to help you out.

If you haven’t heard, Weather Underground now has a new faster, slimmer alternative version of their popular web site at www.wund.com. Admittedly I like it a lot. True, it doesn’t have all the features the regular site does but it loads way faster. Go there, punch in your ZIP code and get the latest weather reports.

The National Weather Service (www.weather.gov) also has a portion of their site that specifically shows winter and freeze warnings at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/. When you go there, pick your state from the drop-down menu above the map.

Intellicast also has a watch and warning center you can check out as well.

So go ahead and put the kettle on and check your weather reports, it’s going to be a long day.

One would think since the USA created internet (yes we did) we’d be top dog as far as adoption of broadband is concerned.

We’re not. In fact, we’re in 15th place. On average, the fastest download last-mile speed is 2.3mbps.

Just to give you an indication of how slow our connectivity speed is, Japan (who always kicks everyone’s ass in tech) has an average download speed of 63mbps. To us that’s nothing but a pipe dream. We think 20mbps is a godsend. Bear in mind the 63 is an average download rate in Japan – not the fastest speed.

Can you imagine the stuff you could download at an average 63mbps rate?

A very sobering thought.

In the US, the state with the best median download speed in Rhode Island at 6.8mbps. The worst is Alaska at 0.8mbps.

At the present time there is a an Act on the books the government is looking to pass called the Broadband Data Improvement Act so we can at least get enough capacity to have nationwide 10mbps download and 1mbps upload by 2010.

Unfortunately that’s the best we can look forward to – but at least it’s an improvement should the Act be put into effect (which it should).

[Source: ChannelWeb]