Lightning fast...

I remember my first Internet connection, all 33.6 Kbps of it. The warbling sound, the seemingly endless wait for a connection. And even when you would finally managed to connect, there were still the several seconds of load you had to endure for most sites. The past millennium, it feels like ages ago.

And in many ways, it is. A lot of things have changed since then, but one particular thing that hasn’t is the branding of Internet connections as “lynhurtig” (meaning “lightning fast”). For example in this lightning fast Internet ad (PDF) from TDC. As long as I can remember, consumer-level Internet connections have been branded as “lightning fast”. It has never been true, given that lightning is a near-instantaneous delivery of enormous bandwidth (watts). But at least we are getting closer.

It struck me, just as I was downloading something from my web server that I was actually downloading two megabytes every second. That’s quite normal today (In Sweden, that would probably not even be considered fast), but it’s like a revolution compared to what we had a few short years ago. I don’t think the possibilities of the Internet will ever cease to amaze me. It’s just… wow.