A nice man from BigPond turned up today and installed cable internet for us, so we now have both cable and ADSL internet connected at home. I’ve been running tests using speedtest.net and the difference is remarkable.

Our ADSL is supposed to be ADSL2+, the fastest available, here’s our speed test result (with my Mac connected via ethernet).

And here’s the cable result (with my Mac connected via wi-fi, not even ethernet).

The iPads are running around 40Mbps, iPhones around 17Mbps, not quite sure why the phones are a little slower, but to be frank it’s still a lightyear improvement.

The gamers, YouTubers, Apple TVers and other bandwidth sucks in my house are going be like pigs in clover.

Oh, and just to make the political point – I for one am not interested in the slightest at the idea of a maximum of 25Mbps as proposed by the Liberal opposition. Even if my cynicism about the TV lobby is unfounded. Let’s do a count of what devices are online right now (I can hear some of them from my study), by my reckoning:

• 3 iPhones (including me checking Twitter to avoid working)
• 3 Macs (including me trying to get some work done)
• 2 iPads (I hear at least one playing Hi-5 YouTube clips)
• Playstation with Call of Duty in full battle

And this is a lighter than normal load, our eldest daughter, one of the major net consumers, is not here. Whilst there’s no question we are a geeky household, nobody can tell me we are particularly out of the ordinary these days. Why on earth you would introduce such a low ‘cap’ on the nation’s ability to access the internet is beyond me.

Image: jpctalbot