Quote: "Isn't there this weird belief that everyone has a cable broadband connection?"
That weird belief might come from the Internet Connection Agency that had on record something like 80% of all Internet users connects via a 256K Cable/xDSL Connection across the United States, Canada, America, and Europe.
In Korea, China and Japan this figure rises to almost 100% of all Internet capable homes. Though that is because of the government funded accessibility and prices.
Given that here in the UK the majority of the country is capable of being connected via Broadband in some form, and how it costs almost identical to get Broadband or Narrowband
(NTL:1MB - £17.99 / NTL:Anywhere - £15.99)
Well it's not hard to see why people prefer to spend an extra few quid to get reasonably fast connections.
Quote: "Nildram is so rubbish"
They don't provide for my area, and they would cost me more in the long run due to my overall useage. They're far better for lighter users who don't particpate in online-games or huge downloads.
Generally speaking I download over 2GB of software everyday.
Given my connection speed it is often easier just to download the DirectX SDK again rather than having it backed up... I mean 20minutes is nothing really. I could easily spend that trying to find where the heck I put it. heh
So most provider are best based on what you can afford and where you are.
While I could moan about BT and thier service, ADSL still works much like Narrowband does; and only requires special equippment each end of the phoneline. So you can literally take it anywhere and connect via any phoneline provided it's within a 50mile radius of an ADSL Server.
Unfortunately with my Cable I can't just jack-in to the Coaxial anywhere heh
I think now that the internet is such a huge part of our lives, that the phonelines are replaced with more Digital Savvey lines.. specifically for high-speed internet connections.
If you think about it the UK is ridiculously behind the rest of the world in terms of internet speed; despite ADSL being created here, it was just too slowly integrated by BT. (and expensive!)
I mean our max connection speed is not 4Mbit, when counteries like Korea are running on a national 1GBit grid! You just can't compete against those players who have like 0ping, and you're pushing like 60-80ping.
Might as well have the targetting reticle on your gun randomly change position.
So in a nut-shell, the answer is yes.. because we are majoritively on Broadband connections.