How Does the Internet Actually Reach Your Home?
Weekly Wheaties #2548
In this newsletter:
📝 Post: How Does the Internet Actually Reach Your Home?
🗞️ In Case You Missed It: Google Updates
🗞️ In Case You Missed It: AI Updates
😎 Pick of the Week: Editorial Craft
📦 Featured Product: Ride-On Electric Mop
📝 How Does the Internet Actually Reach Your Home?
If you would have been reading this 20+ years ago, about 5 minutes before hearing “You’ve Got Mail!”, you would have heard something similar to “beep-brrrr-scree-shhh…“
There have been many ways to access the internet over its lifespan, and it’s still changing. This could be dependent on your physical location, as well as if it is for a business or residential location. To help understand the how and whys of this, I wanted to share a bit of the past types of connections and current ways of connecting today.
One of the first types of connections widely integrated was a standard phone line - Dial-Up. When connecting, the computer would convert a digital signal to analog (literally by converting it to an audible noise), which was transferred over the “phone call.” The phone could not be used simultaneously to make a phone call, as this tied up the line, and if ever picked up, you would hear this analog noise. It was also the slowest connection, but it could be an option for most locations with a standard RJ-11-style phone line.
The next upgrade to internet connections still used this phone line, but allowed the computer to send and receive a digital signal over the same line. The phone line could also be used to make calls at the same time. Speeds were much more improved, but distances were shortened as the signal weakened over longer distances. This signal could not be carried as far as dial-up, requiring an investment in the infrastructure before reaching more rural areas.
Around the same time, Cable connections were also becoming popular (and still are today, too). These used the same cabling for an antenna that carries a signal to your TVs. Since this cable can carry much more information, speeds were increased with each and every upgrade to the cable type, whether on the commercial or residential side (RG59, RG6, RG7, RG11). A downside of cable connections is that the “main line” can have a bandwidth limitation as the network grows, causing some connections to slow as your neighbors are also using their internet and/or streaming content. Xfinity, Spectrum, and Cox are some of the major companies offering Cable internet services.
One of the newer connections making its way to the consumer side includes Fiber Optic. Fiber transmits data via light through glass wires. It is by far the fastest and most reliable option, but also the most expensive. Coverage may vary based on your location. Speeds are usually the same for download and upload, whereas many of the other connections provide faster download speeds than they offer for upload speeds. Here, major offerings come from AT&T, Verizon, and Google.
You’ll probably never get an ISP to admit it, but sometimes your speeds can be dependent on your exact physical location. Your home address may be at the end of a line or close to a split, which could also affect connectivity and speeds. As mentioned with cable, sometimes it’s as simple as what types of connections your neighbors have, too, along with their internet practices. For example, if you work from home, but none of your neighbors do, cable may be sufficient during the day, but not in the evenings.
Another newer type of connection becoming popular, especially in rural areas, is a satellite connection. Rather than your home router connecting to a cable coming from lines run from home to home, your router connects to a satellite mounted outside of your home - very similar to satellite TV. There are a few ISPs here, too, but Starlink is probably the most popular, reliable, and offers the highest speeds.
Another option for rural areas includes 5G Cellular Home Internet. Meaning, a SIM card can be installed in a router (with no other cables) and provide internet connectivity through a mobile service provider. These options are typically limited in the number of devices or bandwidth offered, but can be an easy and inexpensive way to connect to the web. The downside here is that your connection is based on the same type of connection your phone may have, so the signal varies depending on location. In addition to the major cellular offerings from AT&T and Verizon, T-Mobile and Mint also offer plans.
While these are all ways of connecting your home to the internet, there is one other option that is useful for temporary connections, or connecting to other devices while on the go. There are two options here, too. Most major cellular companies offer a hardware hotspot device (see examples from AT&T here). These can be useful from a business standpoint, but for consumers, hotspot sharing may be easier. Depending on your plan with your mobile phone provider, you may have the ability to toggle your “Personal Hotspot” on or off. Here are the directions for Android and iOS.
No matter if you’re connecting through cable, fiber, satellite, or cellular signal, the goal remains the same: fast and reliable access to the web. When we were using dial-up, waiting on something to load could take minutes, while today, According To Tech Developers, Computer Loading Bars Are Almost All Fake. Hopefully, as these connections advance, we won’t even notice them. Maybe the next ‘big thing’ is already loading…
🗞️ ICYMI: Google Updates
Sometimes, lawsuits in one country have other effects in another. Recently, the EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop. This feature works for both sending and receiving, but is currently only supported on the Pixel 10 (for now).
As Google prepares for more AI growth, the head of AI infrastructure told employees that the company has to double its serving capacity every six months in order to meet demand for artificial intelligence services.
Lastly, Google launched an agentic checkout and more AI shopping tools to potentially compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Shopping Research Mode.
🗞️ ICYMI: AI Updates
As an MIT study finds AI can already replace 11.7% of the U.S. workforce, a recent executive order launched the Genesis Mission, “a new federal AI initiative being compared to the Manhattan Project for AI that aims to do the same thing, but for AI-powered scientific discovery.”
In the House of Representatives, two U.S. lawmakers introduced the AI Fraud Deterrence Act to crack down on deepfake scams. If passed, this would “enhance penalties for those who use artificial intelligence to commit fraud [and] increase the maximum penalties for various kinds of fraud that could be committed with the assistance of AI, including for the impersonation of a federal official.”
On the social media side of things, TikTok will let you choose how much AI-generated content you want to see. By going into Settings > Content Preferences > Manage Topics, you can also set how much content you are served from 10+ other topics. If “AI-generated content” is not an option yet, ensure your app is updated or check back later.
😎 POTW: Editorial Craft
When I previously taught high school, I famously always said, “I don’t teach English,” because my grammar was typically poor (and still is). At least when speaking. I use Grammarly in my writing sometimes, and do make it a habit to have it reviewed when able. Either way, I will always double-space, and am a fan of the Oxford Comma - as you should be. If you don’t think it matters, I submit to you how the incorrect use of it cost a Maine dairy company $5 million. Here are some other editorial quirks you may find of interest:
OpenAI says ChatGPT will listen if you tell it not to use em dashes
Younger Americans aren’t using semicolons. Does that matter?
📦 Featured Product
With Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping come and gone, maybe you need to do a bit of cleaning around the house? If you have kids (or adult kids under 160lbs), how about a 12V Ride-On Electric Mop? To be clear, this shouldn’t replace your mop, nor does it offer a vacuuming feature. But from the reviews, it appears that most kids and smaller adults love it for inside or outside. Most kids enjoy helping around the house as able, and this will just make it more of a game!
