Slashdot Mirror
World's Fastest Internet Cafe
Thyrus writes "An internet cafe offering connections 50 times faster than typical broadband services has opened in Cornwall. Computers at Goonhilly satellite station, on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, are connected to BT's global internet protocol network. That means users can download data at speeds of up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps). It is thought to be the first time such high speeds have been seen at a UK internet cafe. The service will be free to visitors."
First, I am glad they said in the UK, because 100mbit cyber cafes aren't special everywhere.
Also, I notice they have had to tip toe around what it can be used for:
Adrian Hosford of BT said: "It would be possible to use the cafe's computers to download in less than 15 minutes a file the equivalent size of the DVD version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, with its 19,000 illustrations, 629 audio and video clips and 100,000 articles.
It seems like they are trying almost too hard to explain how quick it is, afterall, I never rate my downloads in terms of how many "dvd copies of a paper encyclopedia with illustrations and video clips" I just say its shit-hot.
We need it in terms we can understand like how many TPG/s can we view?
will google earth run smoothly without appearing to break up or pixelate no matter where I zoom or rotate to?
can I wipe out my friends in CS:S by having a l33t connection?
Another article I was reading earlier about this mentions why the special people were chosen to open it:
The new internet café will be officially declared open by Helston Community College pupils Chloe Smith and James Evans, both aged 17, who have demonstrated outstanding acumen in the field of information technology.
from here.
(Yes, sisco appear to be hyping this more than the BBC, but then again they supplied some of the high tech equipment.
liqbase
The world's biggest Adult Theater is opening up next door. Coincidence?
+5, Truth
Is this really the world's fastest? It doesn't seem that fast; in Japan they're getting gigabit connections at home.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
The service will be free to visitors.
61 dishes
For how long will it be free? I can't image the 61 dishes being cheap to maintain?
100Mbps connections are not that uncommon. Besides, it's the overall download speed that counts, and that is often determined downstream from you local connection. The bandwidth bottleneck is rarely (if ever) your local connection speed.
Ok, you have this blazingly fast connection at the internet cafe...
What server, gaming or otherwise, will be able to transfer information that fast back?
I do have to say that this connection would be perfect for the final destination for the "relaying" internet connection in the $100 MIT laptop.
Joe
In other news, if they notice a suspicious looking network cable snaking out to the curb and in through a barely opened car window, it might mean that this former St. Petersburg, Florida resident has moved to the UK, and is, apparently, still not a coffee drinker.
So...it is free for guests, what if I want to move in? Would I have to pay for it :o)
----- I have bad karma for a reason! -----
bistromathics is the answer. Finally, they understand ...
You forgot the "I think not!" part :P
What's the purpose? Reading emails really quickly? I mean what kind of activity (other than nefarious) does one really need that requires that speed, when sipping coffee?
But how much does a cup of coffee cost??
Downloading starbucks latest revenues figures?
are you kidding me?
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
...I can download inordinate amounts of images and movies to.. my screen? Or can you take it with you somehow?
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Is it me or does it look like that backhoe just took a big bite out of the dish in that picture? Wonder how many megabits you can get with a a 5' section missing from your receiver?
An internet cafe can find a way to make money while offering service like this for free to it's customers.
And yet the poor ol' telecoms are having such a hard time making money due to Google stealing their bandwidth.
Bandwidth that both Google and end users already pay the telecoms for.
I first heard of Goonhilly from a hardly-noticed story I once read. Not being a European, I had to look it up at the time to see what the hell it was.
No real relevance, I just like the name Goonhilly.
[
Because it was an already existing center of high speed data connectivity and so they thought it would be a nice perk to set up a few PCs in the lobby and run a free internet cafe. It's not like they took an existing regular internet cafe and then decided it should be 100Mbit.
One needs 100Mb to the desktop to advertise BT and Cisco's superiority in press releases.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
That's an odd name. I'd have called it "Chazzwazzer".
...And does it run Linux?
Why would you need a connection that fast in an internet cafe? Users will be checking mail and news, not downloading "Cornish gone Wild" Vol 3.
Cornwall. Goonhilly. I kept reading those as Cornhole and Goonwall.
Reading Mail Really Fast? Don't bother to use the internet, just do "rm -rf *"... Sorry, I had to tell.. :-)
Unless they're doing better than average, they'll be stuck with the stereotype that their coffee is as bad as American beer....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's not purely a 100 mbit thing. But in terms of unaccountable internet usage, internet cafes generally do not record their user's information, and the opportunity for abuse or misuse is certainly there.
Let's say that someone who's created a devastating virus decides to release in the wild. When it gets down to it, when the authorities *really* want to find out the responsible person(s), it's still possible to track the virus back to it's originating source.
What if the person decided to release his virus through an internet cafe? There are no personally identifiable information, especially if the person waltzs into a cafe he/she has never been into, puts down money, and puts up the virus. What happens then? I realise this could happen with unrestricted free wifi, but an internet cafe is a public area that's open for business - with wireless routers strongly recommending passwords before allowing wireless use, the platform for this sort of abuse is lessening (unless of course it gets hijacked, but that's of a different concern then).
What sort of larger abuse could present itself from larger bandwidth? Especially when your infrastructural guru consists of young, unexperienced techs?
BT's global internet protocol network
That may be the most verbose/obscure way of saying "the Internet" that I've ever seen. And why do they imply that BT owns it?
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Who cares? I can barely tell the difference between my old 4 megabit connection and my current 10 megabit connection. Servers can't even typically send it that fast. It only comes in handy when I'm doing multiple downloads at the same time.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
...
Besides, even old people in Korea get gigabit access in their cybercafes these days :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"Visitors" or "customers"? There is a distinct difference, mainly the latter pays money to the business for some coffee and gets the internet perks along with it.
I was really hoping this wasn't going to get to Slashdot. A puff peice for a rubbish company's lame attempt to join the 20th century that makes everyone concerned look like a total dick.
.... 10 years ago.
"download data at speeds of up to 100 megabits"
Goodness me! Thats almost as fast as the networks in Korea
Those sort of transfer speeds really are making the UK a major player in internet use. I think we're upto 193rd in the world now and with the pace of network acceleration as it is, we should be over taking Eastern Samoa (192nd) sometime within the next decade.
The truth is, network connectivity in the UK is beyond a joke. The easiest way (outside university) to transfer more than a couple of meg is to sent a CD through the post. Even if you are "blessed" with a home wire that can go at more than 56k then you are still stuck with operators who put a ZX Spectrum at the other end and charge you through the nose.
And there's one obvious culprit for who sorry shebang. The same one who restricted the use of ISDN by exorbitant charging, the same one who wants to charge me 100 pounds to "install" a wire I can see already comes into my house, the same one who used to produce CDs that required a full reformat of the hard disk after use, the same one who sat on its fat arse collecting money when the rest of the world was installing better infrastructure. BT.
Win XP Service Pack 3
Slashdot +1 funny -4 Insightful +1 informative -2 Redundant
Karma: Somewhere between SCO and Microsoft
Can't wait to do this wirelessly on my 802.11b notebook.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
So far, everybody's response to you has been sarcastic, but I can see a reason why. With the way cafes are heading now, it's no longer just a place to get a cup of coofee. You can buy music and videos now in some of the cafes in the US. Not to mention the fact that most cafes are already filled with laptop users and not much else. I can imagine a time when IPTV takes hold that you would be able walk in, get your latte and panino/whatever, site down and be entertained over that connection.
Goonhilly? Lizard Peninsula? Seriously?
You forgot to mention that this is the first Internet cafe with speeds of up to 100Mbps that is located entirely within a Lemony Snicket novel...
Yes but how many Libraries of Congress can it download in 15 minutes?
pages show up before you've typed them into the address bar?
I am unique, just like you, and you, and you...
The activity centre was quite boring, as was the tour, and the selection at the cafe. The gift shop was a complete sell-out, they sold telephones! Anyway, the cyber cafe was not a pleasant experience, mainly due to the 'new' keyboards. They're made of pressed metal, like public phones, meaning that you can't achieve any decent typing speed. The keyboard is missing the ALT key, instead they had the bright idea of replacing it with a "www." key. The keyboard was embedded into the wall and was at a very steep slope, making it difficult to get around. There was some arse-backwards system where, if the web browser is closed, it locks out until a technician logs you back in. While the bandwidth makes it seem like a good idea, what good is it, when there is no access to portable media. Quick streaming media is it's only advantage, and when it backs out into the cafe, porn is completely out of the question.
I'm not sure how useful this will be in practice. Just because YOU have the bandwidth to be able to download X bits/second does not mean that the server(s) you are getting data from can upload at that speed. If I could get as much download speed over DSL as my ISP claims, I would be very happy; however, more often than not, the download speed is restricted not by my ISP, but by the server (either due to actual bandwidth restrictions, or due to explicit download rate restrictions enforced by the server).
Even if you could achieve those download speeds, would your hard disk be able to keep up with storing the data that quickly? My computer has trouble keeping up with download speeds of 1 Mb/s.
Somebody go start up a Counter Strike server on those puppies.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
A company I worked for (now closed) delivered 4 gigabits of ethernet connectivity to the buildings it lit in 2001. We designed and built our own gigabit ethernet DWDM injectors to link in-building Cisco 3508 switches with Cisco 6509 switches in the CO. One of our customers was Web2Zone (an Internet Cafe) at 62 Coopers' Square. We never saw the kind of bandwidth spike that indicated they used even 1/1000th of the bandwidth, except when they caught code-red or some such Internet worm. We believed that the limitation was the destination server bandwidth. To compensate for slow servers on other providers, we made extensive use of static page caching to speed performance and reduce our bandwidth costs.
- Fzz
Well, on my Cable connection it did take me about 3 hours to download XP Service Pack 3, so 100Mbps would help cut that down..
Wait, we're talking about Vista right?
ZING!
The article left out one significant item that all are interested in. It doesn't say how much it costs for a person to use their facilities .
Linux Help
for all things on Linux
The whole thing is deeply tedious and the thought of a 100Mbit cyber cafe does little to persuade me to return - particularly as the machines will probably be completely locked down and it won't be possible to do much beyond check your BT-Yahoo email. Urgh.
"Web 2.0" sites tend to constrained by server load, not outgoing bandwidth. With all that extra server-side work, servers are busier than ever. Notice how many more sites load slowly today. Sometimes you'll even see a page load stall because some JavaScript is waiting for an ad server. (Watch the bottom bar in Firefox to see what you're waiting for.)
For overloaded database-driven sites, page load stalls make the Web look like it's 1997 again. Craigslist is really hurting during busy periods.
It has been named the Goonhilly House of Porn. Blank CDs and boxes of tissues will be on sale in the lobby.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
"Goonhilly" is actually Cornish for "Hunting Downs", an area of Downland where people would hunt for food.
"Computers at Goonhilly satellite station, on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall" Is this a real place or a fictional location in a Harry Potter novel?
"Computers at Goonhilly satellite station, on the Lizard peninsula"
Is that next to Sunshine island on the peppermint sea?
I have to say that I wish I could get that kind of bandwidth here.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Since December of last year, Swedish ISP Bredbandsbolaget have upgraded all 10mbit customer feeds to 100mbit downstream (10mbit upstream) connections free of additional charge. For this connection, I pay 350 Swedish Kronor per month, and this news would never turn up on the Slashdot front page.
Bredbandsbolaget serves over 300 000 households in Sweden, a nation of around 9 million. It's not some curiosity out in the boondocks or goonhills or whatever you call'em.
/ Per
that's keeping the average US broadband speeds so low. What company in their right mind is going to ramp up their speeds noticeably higher than their competitors if the potential for piracy is so high? In fact, couldn't offering such blatantly huge bandwidth be falsely viewed as facilitating piracy under laws such the DMCA?
8==8 Bones 8==8
'Ello.. You're probably wondering what I'm doing here at this Internet Cafe Grand Opening. Well, the cheap bastards at GEICO have cut my hours, so I'm going for a bit on the side...So, let's get the word out, eh? Free rate quotes? They suck. Now, yer high speed internet cafe, that's the ticket mate. It's like a party with the whole world invited.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Yeah, and 640 k ought to be enough for anyone.
When I download I notice that the 155 Mbit/sec fiber connection really pulls the data in. I only reliably see this downloading from tucows or while I'm doing a windows update -- otherwise I'd say most of everything we do here is remote desktop, email, web, etc. The 100M connection won't matter much. I bet it would help with games, but it being a satellite station (if that's where the net comes from) I gotta wonder about the latency. Seems to me a T1 would perform better than a satellite 100 meg connection for gamers.
Whatever, another waste of time
Cornwall. Goonhilly satellite station. on the Lizard peninsula.
Is the ministration of funny names next to the minister of funny walks?
Just curious...
It enables them to connect to links like this quickly.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
"The service will be free to visitors."
...and paid for customers.
"Monster Island" was already taken...
Judge: In that case I sentence you to a lifetime of horror on Monster Island. [to Lisa] Don't worry, it's just a name.
[Lisa and others are chased by fire-breathing monsters]
Lisa: He said it was just a name!
Man: What he meant is that Monster Island is actually a peninsula.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
1 - everyone in South Korea has gigapop Internet - same speed as what you just quoted - and they have Internet cafes with similar speeds. Thus it's obviously not the World's Fastest, it's not the First, and it's not the only Cafe.
2 - everyone at University of Texas at Austin, most places in the University of Washington, and everyone else who goes to a reasonable research university has this kind of speed available, including in a number of Cafes on campus.
Oh, but if you want to claim "World's Fastest Commercial UK Cafe not part of a research University or College" - go for it!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Let me tell you a story about the rest of the world, or, well - my little corner of it (namely Stockholm, Sweden).
We have 5 or 6 major internet cafés in this little town, and all but one of them have 100Mbps pipes.
What's the purpose?
Maybe it's because our idea of a internet café is a gaming center with 100+ stations.
Most games these days "require" more than a 512kbps pipe to run properly.
The one I used to work at saw peak traffic of around 50Mbps, regular traffic was around 30 - 35Mbps.
When you get a 100Mbps pipe for a few hundred euro per month (note: this is commercial grade pipes, no overselling), you might as well go for that - it's great advertising.
In other words, Internet Cafés = Gaming Centers = Internet Cafés.
where a cup of coffee and a doughnut you wanted are waiting for you even before you even make your order. Oh, and they also have an internet of some sort.
You can't handle the truth.
I'm lolin' @ the "insightful" moderation. :)
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
slashdot css changes broke the 'i' tag for reasons of their own. they wanted to do something retarded with 'blockquote' i believe.
i stands for italic and should be implemented as italic. if you don;t have italic you can implement it as nothing. yes you are entitled to change the 'em' it means emphasis and is implementation dependent ie it's up to the browser and/or the css how emphasis is shown. but i should not have been changed.
the parent poster was quite justified in getting it wrong.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
How many albums per second is that?
Maybe you downloaded Service pack 2? That and get your cable checked. 3 hours is way too long.
I'm sorry, but you're just wrong. While the state of high-speed connectivity in the UK might not be ideal, we're not doing badly and the rate of broadband uptake in this country is higher than pretty much everywhere else. You might have been right a few years ago, but things are much better now.
This is the UK we're talking about here. By coffee they probably mean instant Nescafé. No, that'd be London. This is as far as you can get from London in the South West. So we're probably talking about instant coffee from some non-name brand, the equivalent of Rola Cola. Whatever, it's probably not worth traveling there for either the coffee or the internet connection. Probably nice scenery though.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I mean what kind of activity (other than nefarious) does one really need that requires that speed, when sipping coffee?
You don't drink much coffee, do you?
I find it damn amusing that there is almost as much mirth about the name Goonhilly and Lizard Point as there is disinterest in the rest of the story. And the funny thing is that this is from people who live in the same country (possible the same state) as places such as: Coxsackie, Frog Suck, Monkey's Eyebrow, Sugar Tit, Shafter and the simply great Wanker's Corner.
m es.htm
http://www.philbrodieband.com/jokes-jokes_town_na
stuff goes here
From my understanding 1080i requires over 20Mbits/sec throw in 1080p and higher capacities, maybe better frame rates and we can max it out today. What about background torrents? Caching other movies perhaps? Something like RDP with video support? Streaming US Channels through your RDP session @ home to your cafe in england? How about actual work, data intensive work? 100 megabyte binaries flying around? I could go on and on, no matter how much bandwidth you dream up there will be far smarter people dreaming ways to max it out.
Ah, I see, but are these 08's playing together/against each other?
With such prices, why don't these gamers have home connections?
Here in Korea, the last two apartments I've lived in have come with 100 megabit internet connections pre-installed. Activate service, plug in the ethernet, and go. World's fastest, my fat pasty butt.
New meaning to the term fast food?
Matthew Brundage
Silver Spring, MD
<em> still works
I operate a Cybercafe (along with two partners) in Springfield, Missouri USA.
We have 100 megabits of upstream bandwidth. I've sustained downloads of more than 50 Mbps.
The scary thing is, we get that kind of bandwidth at T1 prices here from our local utility company (ignore the prices on their site, they're way out of date).
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
To save you having to read too much idiocy, here is a short recap of all the posts:
/. article made it look like it was 100Mb all through, and titled it (incorrectly) as a 'world's fastest', though this had not been claimed.
/. circuit. That's all, Folks.
1) The Brits put an internet cafe next to a major communications node, and noted that it was fast; 1Gb upstream link - 100Mb to each system.
2)The
3) Scandinavian countries pointed out that they had this (and better) already. So did Korea, and several others.
4) A lot of people wondered what you could use such a link for.
5) Some Americans, for whom geography is not a strong point, thought the name of the communications node was funny.
End of precis. A typical day on the