The internet is changing lives - for the better.

I can't imagine life without the internet now. The thought of having to go to banks and queue for hours with children in tow to pay bills, etc sends shivers down my spine. So maybe I'm not such an old-fashioned gal after all!

The internet is not only convenient, it is also an excellent tool for money saving, advice and research, price comparison websites helping people to get the best value for money on everything from car insurance to food, and forums like these, helping consumers in their daily battles with the big businesses that seem intent on ripping us off. I couldn't imagine going back to the days before the internet, and email.

Being able to communicate on the same astral plane as my mother-in-law.

Hopefully.

happywriter,

I imagine it'll probably get worse in the future. The amount of data now being thrown over the Internet is astronomical, I'm sure in part due to the high number of videos/streaming available. The Internet wasn't really designed for this, so I'm sure at some point it's going to max out and we're going to struggle to get decent speeds.

On top of this, we are pushing high frequency signals down very cheap copper wires (unless you're on fibre optic). These also were never designed to carry signals anything near like those of broadband, so these are going to be another bottleneck.

Ultimately the Internet has probably taken off a bit quicker than it was ready for, and now forms a huge mass of a spiders web with all sorts of irregularities.

Will fibre optic wires help with the mother-in-law communication?