Ofcom: UK internet usage has surged to record levels

[philehidiot]

I wonder what is classed as "internet usage". In the broadest sense you could say I never stop using the internet as my phone is always connected to it and always exchanging data. Beyond that you could differentiate between spotify use of streamed and already downloaded songs as an example. Or does using my kindle (which is connected to the internet, yet I am reading an already downloaded book but constantly synchronising my progress / looking up words) count or not count? What about playing COD? It demands an internet connection even in single player but is offline but online. And don't get me started about smart TVs....

It gets very complicated. Almost as complicated as the question "how many computers do you have in your house?"

[Corky34]

I could be wrong but i think they measure usage in terms on bandwidth consumed, going on that article i posted earlier in the last week of April London downloaded and uploaded 112.37 PetaBytes in a week.

[Ulti]

I've been very happy with how well my internet has performed (Plusnet 66Mb fibre). I think it may have only dropped once or twice from memory and thankfully it was never during the work day. Considering I live in zone 4 Greater London, it's somewhat populated here.

I know for my gf on the other hand who is on Virgin, her internet has gone down more than a handful of times. I remember back when I had Virgin and they'd throttle me, I vowed never to give them money again. Advantage of Virgin are the speeds when it works though but as I'm only living with 2 others in the house, 66Mb download is more than enough for us.

I did notice streaming sites seemed to be a bit more temperamental than normal though - I think even YouTube and Netflix would sometimes have to buffer and admittedly I never binge watched much on Netflix but I don't remember ever having to buffer.

Working in software, I've been pretty happy with how work has been - never had any downtime due to issues.

What I have noticed however is how crap Microsoft and Android are - I was having internet issues where my USB WiFi adapter would drop connection around once or twice every day or so and the only way to resolve it was to reset the adapter through the windows networking menu. I googled the issue and it seems to happen to lots of other people. Ended up buying a PCIe card which seems to have fixed the issue.

A second issue I can't believe I'm having with is with bluetooth support on Android and Microsoft - if you use a bluetooth headset and you're in a call, your sound quality will be crippled. Your expensive bluetooth headphones/headset/earphones suddenly sound like some broken trashy earphones you found at the bottom of the wires draw. I don't own any Apple products as I feel they are overpriced so I don't know if this is any better there but I can't believe in 2020, bluetooth support is so abysmal. Again, I googled the issue and it is a software issue with both platforms. Supposedly claims that bluetooth does not have enough bandwidth to support high quality duplex channels for both sound in and out but someone did the calcs and proved bluetooth has more than enough bandwidth. It's just very disappointing that I can't be in a call and just have some music playing in the background with good sound quality.

[ik9000]

another reason why i insist on 3.5mm jacks wherever I can

[Ulti]

another reason why i insist on 3.5mm jacks wherever I can

Assuming that was in reply to me - yes for pure sound quality, 3.5mm is king but bluetooth audio has come a long way in terms of latency and quality. I'm sure the issues I'm facing are purely driver side.