Has Broadband Become a Utility?

Back when the Internet first became a reality for home use, it seemed like a bit of a luxury. Sure, there were practical applications such as researching a paper for school or e-mailing a relative, but there were plenty of other more practical ways of accomplishing the same goals.

Slowly but surely though, Internet service became a necessity for most people and made the jump from luxury to utility. As it did, we required faster and faster speeds and so began the age of broadband. Again, at first broadband seemed like a bit of a luxury, but now it almost seems like a necessity. So, has broadband become a utility as well?

I think it has for my family, at least. Sure, lots of broadband applications like gaming and movies are not exactly necessary for day to day life, but pause for a second and imagine your life without broadband. You wouldn't be able to watch those videos of your nephew that just got uploaded to YouTube without buffering for hours. You wouldn't be able to easily download files from work when at home. Uploading pictures to Facebook would take so long you'd have to plan it in advance. I can't imagine any of that any more than I can imagine life at home without water or gas service!

What do you think? Has broadband become a utility? Let us know in the comments.

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Comments

[Martin Brückmann]

It has, indeed.
At work, of course, but also at home.

And it has become an essential part of work life for many people, enabling telecommuting.

As far as environment is concerned, for those teleworkers, the balance is more than positive : less transportation means less Carbon Dioxide emission and less energy consumption.

For quality of life too there is no doubt this is a good thing : working from home means less hours spent in traffic jams, etc...

Now, for those who use the Internet just for fun, or at least only during their spare times (I mean from home), please DO NOT forget to disconnect at least your WiFi Access Point activity while you are not at home, and for those using WiFi at the office, DO NOT forget to disconnect those while no one is ther to use them.

Have you imagined how many GigaWatt of electricity are spent, daily, to feed all these wireless network transmitters, when they actually do not need to be connected all the time ?

Just put your hand on your wireless network router, feel the heat it generates, and you will understand easily that these devices are real energy vampires.

So, please, try to avoid WiFi whenever you can (also for health reasons), and disconnect these network devices when you do not use them (also to prevent hacking into your private network).

Thanks,

Martin