journal features

farewell to 5 Gbps Internet

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Kokubunji, 2024.12.15

We bought a new washing machine, which was delivered last week. The previous one we bought used more than four years ago for quite a good price, so we were probably due. The new one was normally fairly pricey, but Mari managed to get it about a third off. One of the ways she managed this was by putting us on different mobile phone coverage. Another way was to change our home Internet provider. She pointed out that the new maximum throughput was "only" 1 Gbps. I asked what it had been all this time and she said 5 Gbps. I said, "Our equipment in the house can only do 1 Gbps under ideal circumstances." Another funny wrinkle of life in Japan: having waaaay more Internet bandwidth than you can actually use.

Anyway, I ran some tests and we're reliably getting 500 Mbps to a single testing device (laptop, smartphone) so there's no appreciable limit. We could probably have twenty people working remotely in this place with simultaneous online meetings and be just fine even with both kids watching Netflix and gaming.

rand()m quote

On the endless saga of Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto; "It shouldn't have had to come to this. I'm so tired of getting up every morning and wondering, 'What will it be today?' I'm so tired of giving the benefit of the doubt again and again, only to be let down again and again.... Somewhere a responsible adult has to appear, draw a bright moral line, tell the truth and say unequivocally what won't be tolerated. Somebody has to do the right thing."

—Denzil Minnan-Wong