Though I have the impression in my country, Germany, things are getting more difficult concerning DSL instead. I'm on a connection that has no limits - no datatransfer and time limit. A real flatrate.

But there are many companies that only offer limited rates - 2 GB datatransfer per month or more, which is ridiculous, because I use 2 GB per day at times. I'd really have to limit myself to live with 2 GB per month.

I have the impression the development of broadband connections stagnates in Germany because of these limits you even have to pay much money for.

But it's maybe because the Deutsche Telekom still has somewhat of a monopoly here. Other companies have a hard time being a competition to them.

it's worse in britain, i can tell you now. For a start, coverage of ADSL is...limited (even more so than cable) as BT takes the rather stupid approach of only upgrading some exchanges when a certain number of people have registered as "interested" to have ADSL. I call this stypid because, if people know that ADSL isn't available in their area they're probably going to look at alternatives rather than wait. Cable is pretty cheap and generally ok (well ntl is) altho even then coverage is by no means complete. They also have "official unofficial" limits (both BT and ntl and probably others) on usage - i.e. it is official but hidden away and you only are made fully aware if they think you are overusing your connection, in which case the most common course of action they take is to terminate it without warning.

When companies marketing broadband bring the prices down to where dial-up currently is for the major services (i.e., AOL, MSN, EarthLink, etc.), the result will be the same as when AOL and other large Internet companies launched a flat-rate plan. Everyone, including myself (I use a $6.95 a month dial-up company - it works for me because I primarily use the Web for blogging, updating my website, e-mailing clients or sending them properties to look at) will get DSL or cable.

For me, the benefits just don't outweigh the cost at the moment. Broadband's a luxury item that's great if you use the Web for entertainment, or if you have a wireless home entertainment network, but it's really not necessary, yet, for business use of the 'net. It's really not necessary for personal use, either, yet, but it will be as computer-run home entertainment centers become more common. Then wireless broadband will become incredibly popular.

Time for me to go. I hear the outhouse calling my name. ;)

Cheers.

nothing worse than a cheerful Luddite

Good stuff. The SBC/Yahoo rate of $27 is the best I've seen (I'm paying $30 with Charter Cable).

Can anyone here provide a link to hard data on how many Internet connections there are now, and how many of those are broadband?

I'm not looking for the Nielsen numbers of people "with access to the Net," but rather # of accounts. I know a lot of 3 and 4 person households with Internet access. Nielsen counts all 4, but usually only 1 or 2 are actual surfers (higher numbers make a better case for selling advertising).

Last time I looked there were about 65 million households and 18 million (and climbing) broadbanders.

TIA.