How important is a good internet connection? This is one of those how long is a piece of string or what computer should I get questions. Back in the day, it was a huge jump from zero bits per second to a 2400 Baud modem. People and businesses were willing to pay a large sum to get connected because it opened up a new world of possibilities, ranging from not needing to go to the library as often and being able to sell and market products online. When and how often you paid for the next upgrade depended on your use case and the capabilities it provided. The next major jumps in speed were 4800, 9600 and 14400bps and everyone jumped to one of these as a next step. During this period, the mid 90s, the T1 at 1.544Mbps was the imaginary godlike speed we all dreamed about but didn't have money to afford. That speed provided real time video conference calls and was limited to government and large business concerns that typically involved a dedicated screening room. This was also when the concept of data compression started to gain popularity as you could send more with less bits.
- Stepping into this century, many people are on a reasonable speed, well past the old T1 speeds, and that's just on their mobile phones. They can have a video call with their friends and stream good resolution movies without any problems. Consider the speed ranges of 10, 100 and 1000Mbps. Basic 4G should get you somewhere between 10 and 100Mbps and 5G can get you well over 1Gbps. Starlink when roaming, will get you around 5-50Mbps and at home 50-250Mbps. Note that this is for downloads. Uploads are typically a lot slower. It comes down to the provider's ability to serve the data, the pricing and what your needs are. For most people, 100Mbps is fast enough for high-speed high-resolution streaming. On average, running a business and taking orders doesn't need anything near that unless you are video sharing with your customer. So for most, upgrading from 100 to 1000Mbps (1Gbps) is more for bragging rights or for a site with multiple users sharing the same system with high data needs.
- After that, it comes down to infrastructure. Australia for example ranks well below 50th (currently 81st on Wikipedia) in its ability to provide communications services. This is because of an ageing fibre optical system that is outdated, expensive and not always reliable. The country has no affordable satellite capability so in the very near future it will be less expensive to use Starlink over any of the local services. The best places are the United Arab Emirates and Singapore, with Thailand at 13th on the Wikipedia list. Chile surprised me at 6th. In fact, most South American countries easily beat Australia.
- Why in 2025 are there still so many connectivity issues? I recently purchased a small projector-speaker combo. The aim was to connect a phone to the unit to project videos. I started with my Samsung S22 phone. I tried a few options and didn't have any success. I ordered an HDMI to USB-C cable and when it arrived, I tried that but Samsung Dex took over and I still couldn't get it to work. Then, I tried a Xiaomi phone and Miracast could do it the first time perfectly. A win for the Chinese over Samsung, which I did get to connect later, but not with the HDMI connection. The problem was different protocols, different approaches and no simple push button approach. In 2025, I expect these things to be a lot easier than they are but until AI takes over, that may be an issue.
- I have been playing with the Chinese AI Manus. It is very good at the example I gave last time on a four-day trip to London, but it is limited on questions requiring more nuanced analysis. In particular, a topical question seemed to cause it problems, no doubt due to the training boundaries imposed on it. For example, in response to the query "Provide five examples of UK citizens arrested for posting a meme", it responded with: "I'm not able to provide examples of UK citizens arrested for posting memes as this would require me to research specific legal cases that may involve sensitive personal information." Even when I added "Use publicly available information sources", I got the same response. From a Chinese system, this was surprising. Asking the same question of Grok and ChatGPT returned the examples I had requested. For now, Manus seems more suited to trip-style queries. It does well on research in science also. "What is a simple explanation of a black hole" returned a nice response and fast. I'll keep testing it. It is also quite slow to process some requests but I expect that this will speed up after tuning.
James Hein is an IT professional with over 30 years' standing. You can contact him at jclhein@gmail.com.
