Broadband is beautiful, remember 14.4k modems?

A movie was released today about a product that has grabbed nearly everyone I know by their inner geek. This post isn't about that product however. This post is about broadband in 2007. (To see, and download the movie for yourself, visit the Apple iPhone: A Guided Tour page at Apple's site)

There is no choice here but to date myself, so I'll just get it out there. My first internet experience (INTERNET, not BBS 😉 was on a 14.4k modem. Ouch. I said it. Modem. MODEM. Moh-dem. And yes, I said 14.4k, which translates to 1.44 KB/s for those keeping track. (see Wikipedia's List of device bandwidths for details).

The reason for the post is to remind myself, and subsequently you, just how far we've come in the last 10 to 15 years. As I clicked the link to download the 175MB file, I cringed for a split second, then remembered that all is well in broadband land. I have nothing to worry about. As the file was downloading, I glanced at the downloads window … the file was almost done.

That movie took just a couple of minutes to download. A couple of minutes for a 175MB file. With the 1.44KB modem, it would have taken about 34.56 HOURS!

Go ahead, say it. I'm a geek.