April fools or not?

[Inkblot]

This story was in my local paper last week - but it was in Friday's edition so would be a day late for an April fool joke

http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/6508002.Vange_man_was_first_in_UK_to_use_broadband/

I didn't get broadband until 2001 but I'm sure it was around before 2000?

[Simon]

Not sure that it was residential before then, Inky.  I first got it in about 2002, I think.

[Rik]

And before that, ISDN...

[Inkblot]

How quickly we forget the old times of dial-up, I started at 1200baud but moved on fairly quickly through 2400, 9600, 28800 and finally 56k before going broadband when it was available here - I'm guessing late 2001 but it might have been early 2002.

I can still remember getting up at 5am to download an NT4 service pack as the process was going to take 3hrs or more and the connection used to reset after 2! These days? 5 minutes tops assuming MS can pump it out fast enough

[DorsetBoy]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/broadband-the-first-decade-1929515.html

It has revolutionised the way we live, allowing friends and families across the world to chat and share photos instantly, watch television programmes online and download films and albums at the touch of a button. Credited as one of the greatest aids to modern democracy and free speech, it is also vilified for creating a generation of couch potatoes and cyber-criminals.


Yet just 10 years ago, broadband internet as we know it did not exist. When Mark Bush became the first person in the UK to get it installed at home, he was just looking forward to staying online longer playing games. But now, like the vast majority of people in this country, the father of three from Basildon in Essex uses broadband internet as his "first port of call for anything".

Telewest launched home ADSL – asymmetric digital subscriber line, as it was known – in the UK on 31 March 2000, with Goldsmith Road in Gillingham, Kent, the first street to receive the technology after the trial at Mr Bush's home.

[Rik]

I can still remember getting up at 5am to download an NT4 service pack as the process was going to take 3hrs or more and the connection used to reset after 2! These days? 5 minutes tops assuming MS can pump it out fast enough

I remember those days...

[Ray]

ADSL was enabled on my exchange on 10/12/2003.

[Inkblot]

ADSL was enabled on my exchange on 10/12/2003.

30/09/2000 here which makes us one of the early ones. We didn't get broadband straightaway though as we were in the process of moving which took until mid 2001, that's why I guessed 2001 for me to have broadband.

So it really is only 10 years since broadband became available! The article wasn't written as an April Fool but I did wonder as sometimes they report the previousl day's news

[Rik]

2000 here, I started out in 2001.