I remember when I bought my first computer, a lightening fast 486. From that point on the 386 that I worked with in the office became intolerably slow and my repeated comments to the IT department revolved around lost productivity, inefficient processing and overall dead time. It worked (eventually) and the system was upgraded to a DX100. Wow! Needless to say, I now found myself needing more power in my home PC and so the story continues.

Where is this leading? Not so long ago we were content to surf the net at 14.4k, then 28.8, 33.3 and have now hit the ceiling of 56k which is where the majority of home users will stay until 2004. Yet, looking at the content of so many high profile web sites you could be mistaken in thinking that we were all supposed to have broadband connections. Of course, upgrade from 28k to 56k and you would be fooled into thinking you had but, believe me, it won't last long. You will soon revert to cursing the speed of most downloads. Broadband would be wonderful if

1) we all had access to it and
2) we could all afford it.

But 1) we don't and 2) we can't. So where does that leave us? Sitting at home watching a progress bar move slowly across a screen in anticipation of the next demonstration of creative genius when all we want to do is read the review on the latest film at the local cinema and book some tickets.

It's easy to see why this happens. Pay a visit to any web design agency where everyone is sitting on the server and the word "loading" flashes up on the screen only to disappear in the blink of an eye. At this speed sites become almost, well, functional.

With our "super fast" internet connection of 56k we were supposed to be, so the saying goes, "only one click away" from the next site, enabling us to fly up and down the high street, comparing products and prices at blistering speed. With the reality being around six or seven clicks it is often likely to be quicker to get in the car and drive there.

The primary concern here, aside from my patience wearing thin, is that if sites today are designed for broadband when most households are sitting steadfastly at modem speeds, broadband will seem like yesterday's news before we even get it and it will still take me 25 minutes to get the film review and buy the tickets.