Quick Survey - How's Your Internet?

[hunter]

42. Just fast enough to stream one video...

... at something between video cassette recorder and DVD quality.

I could probably push the connection higher, but that's good enough. Our television is a movie player. We don't have, or pay any attention to cable, satellite, or broadcast television. I'm not even sure the broadcast television channels are set up. Our television is not connected to the internet except through the old model Nintendo wii and composite video.

Comcast and AT&T offer faster service, but I hate doing business with them. In my private life I can do as I please. My internet connection started out as a Pacific Bell copper pair connected directly to a local ISP; that was before AT&T reconstituted itself and Comcast offered their own brand internet services in our city. I haven't changed my connection. AT&T probably has to deal with our line as an exception, which amuses me.

Personally I think some adequate level of internet service ought to be available to everyone, for "free," paid for through a combination of income taxes, taxes on HDTV services, and low fees and taxes on for "for profit" internet services such as commercial television, "smart phones," and high quality "internet radio" streams. Ordinary "dumb" voice-only cell phone service would be available without subscription or fees to anyone who had a phone, similar to the way public sidewalks and streets are available for walking or bicycling upon.