How do we perceive speed in our everyday lives? Like it said in the reading “Dias P, Arnold M, Gibbs M, Nansen B, Wilken R, 2014, Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy, Asynchronous speeds: Disentangling the discourse of ‘high-speed broadband’ in relation to Australia’s national broadband network, No. 151, pp. 117-126”, I would say in our current generation and society we as a culture connect speed to our networks and technology.

It is the only thing that many Melbournians talk about, which is

• “how fast is your internet”
• “omg my internet is soo slow”
• “my download is so slow”
•  “look at my computer I’ve got 1mb per second”

Constantly a competition into who’s got the fastest internet speed and it all comes down to the broadband providers and how much gigabits we’ve got. In our workshop we talked about, the different types of broadband like cable and wireless and how these two have an affect on how fast is your internet. To put it to the test, I did a speedtest on RMIT universities internet and the results said 46.83 mbps of download and 86.20mbps of upload. This is insane! Which pretty much says that institutions are outliers but it still asked the question is the university on a unlimited plan or one with insane amount of gigabits like 3 terrabits?

The day before I was talking about this kind of thing with a friend, since we saw a advertisement on a tram saying you get a “GIGantic 1000GB of data for a month”. And she asked me why do I reckon they put the 1000gb and not just say unlimited or terrabit. And I said that I think that showing that your internet usage as something as high as 1000 makes the audience think they are getting a huge amount and that they know they’ll never use up, therefore always knowing that they should never have download speed troubles. Which could make them want to buy it, if it works for the company that is… Since “unlimited” is always misinterpreted, because people always think that there must be a limit on an unlimited broadband deal but the customers just aren’t getting told. At least with a number it gives the customers the knowledge of their maximum usage, which they can follow.

So again the question is: Is there a difference in speed, for plans on the same medium eg cable. But one is 1000gb and the other is unlimited. (But we all know that both amounts of usage wont be reached unless you’re a crazy internet user!)