It was the late 1990's when I was first exposed to the Internet. How amazing! Simply by turning on a machine and instructing it to dial a phone number, I had access to the rest of the world at my hands; it was astonishing. The initial realization of just how powerful the Internet possessed was beyond comprehension at first.

During those years, America Online (AOL) was the dominant company to use as a connection to the Internet. As incredibly exciting it was, I quickly learned that to access all this information, I had to discriminately choose times of the day in order to travel throughout cyberspace. It seemed the evenings, at prime usage, I would sit for a half hour dialing into a busy signal, which as time went on increased to even longer waiting times. It became very frustrating. Eventually AOL added more local access phone numbers to use and service improved some and life was good again.

As the years passed, it seemed my journeys through cyber land were becoming sluggish. While I was still able to dial in and reach my destination, the travel time was rapidly increasing. The spinning hourglass and I became very well acquainted. I figured perhaps my old trusty computer was becoming outdated and I upgraded to a newer model. After getting the new machine hooked up, my Internet connection did improve some, but the hourglass continued to be my travel partner, particularly basking in the slow motion opening of graphics.

Last year my family and I moved to a new state and the high speed Internet access was being offered at a really good introductory rate that would be given for a year, in fact much cheaper than we had paid for our dial-up service. We figured we'd use it for a year and then if it got too expensive, we'd go back to a dial-up plan. Installation was a snap. The new cable company gave detailed instructions on how to put the equipment together and how to connect it to the computer. It was incredible how the time it took to download web pages was slashed!

After experiencing the rapid access that a cable connection allows, there is no way we'd ever go back. The speed that this high speed connection gives has become a necessity. With the World Wide Web becoming increasingly larger, with higher standards imposed as technology progresses, the dial-up connections are quickly leaning towards becoming obsolete. There is no way we would return to dial-up, the extra cost is worth paying. With processes moving to the Web, our family has become dependent on maintaining a good Internet connection.

Oddly, I don't miss my old friend the spinning hourglass, although he still does join me on one of my cyber trips from time to time.

Learn more about this author, Leigh Goessl.
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