Most of us are online every waking moment one way or the other. Computers are on the whole day, our smart-phones are constantly connected and pushing data. As soon as internet is down we’ll “freak” out and our daily routine is disturbed.

This past week I spend days fretting over my internet speed. Internet is not cheap here in the Netherlands, I pay an average of 60 euros a month for a broadband cable connection. The package used to be 50 Mbit down and 5 Mbit up. Since then my provider has upgraded the speed to 120 Mbit down and 10 Mbit up. There is no data limit, fair use mostly.

For the upgrade I got a new modem from the provider which is supposed to handle gigabit speeds. But since the new modem my download was around 30 Mbit only. After calls to the helpdesk and lots of forums posts, I discovered my router can’t handle gigabit speeds from internet to the network. Also wireless has a lot of overhead which makes it real slow compared to the actual speed.

So I ended up researching and buying a new router within three days while I usually plan and save for any computer related purchases. I had a friend drill a hole in the wall so I could connect through cable with the router instead of wireless. I did countless of speedtest through wireless, cable or directly to the modem so I could form a good image of the average speed.

I know I’m coming of crazy, I mean a lot of people don’t even get 30 Mbit download while I complain about not getting more then 90 Mbit. But fact is once you get used to very fast internet speed you’ll notice a slow down right away. Internet speed is addictive you’ll only want more and more. Streaming HD media needs to play without a flickr, torrents need to download in a blink of an eye and web pages must load on the instant.

I asked a couple of people to take the speedtest to give an impression. The speed shown on Aruba is not reached with home connections so far I know. Only large companies have it. The next one in Preston is the slowest which the user knows about. Third connection is by a “home user” which means they have no idea about internet speed. And last would be me, who spend money, time, research and friends favor to reach that speed.

Ten years ago when I came to Holland I was ecstatic with a broadband cable connection having just left from Aruba that only had 56K modem connection back then. And now I’m a high demanding internet user and I’m sure a lot of you guys expect a lot also from your internet connection. This is prove that internet has become as unmissable as electricity in our life. If your had to chose between your TV or internet, internet would win hands down.

Feel free to take the Speedtest and share your results in the comments section.