Shropshire and Broadband? Do the two actually go? Seemingly people in Telford can get speeds of up to a gazillion meg but those of us in rural Shrewsbury have our emails delivered by a snail who's close to retirement. The age of the computer has been with us for a long time now so why are some Shropshire residents having such poor broadband speed? Indeed, do you care? Maybe, like my dad, you're still a pen and paper person and have only just switched from video to DVD.
thebestof Shrewsbury has quite a few IT boffins (see here) and they say that it's someone's distance from their nearest phone exchange that's often the deciding factor. I'm on 1meg - which is pretty weak - but some Shrewsbury folk are on just 0.5meg. There's a good article on the Top 10 Broadband website from the Shropshire Star, which makes comment on BT's basic infrastructure.
And now "they" are talking about fibre optic cables, which will apparently allow us to receive emails before they've even been sent.... Or something pretty spectacular. I don't understand it but I know I want it. I don't like friends laughing at me and my piddly 1meg. I want them to stand back in awe and hear my PC purr with broadband excellence. Then maybe I can finally download films and music too.
Or are we just getting greedy? Will we ever be happy with the information superhighway? Or, as my dad, says, "Load of cobblers. And what's this about a Channel Five...?"