you're kidding, right?

With my new job, I spend a week every three or four months out at head quarters in Mountain View, CA.... for those unfamiliar with the geography.... that's like the heart of silly-con valley. Google, Apple, Cisco, Sun... all have big campuses in this area. There's more startups than you can shake a stick at. And yet, the hotels in the area... worst internet ever. I've been in a super cheap hotel on the side of I90 in the middle of nowhere out on the plains... think $30/night... and had rock solid, blindingly fast internet connectivity. Back home, on the silicon prairie, I get a solid, reliable and FAST business class cable modem for $99/month. That's rated at 10M down, 1M up, and usually slightly out performs that. I have saturated the entire 1M up for over an hour on more than one occasion. But here, in the heart of the silicon valley.... AT&T's 3G network is mostly useless most of the time, Edge is usually faster than 3G out here. Sprint's EVDO network is worse. The hardwired connections don't seem to be any better. Here's the speed test from our usual hotel to our datacenter. In the wee-small hours of the morning... when the network was probably working the fastest it had been all evening.



Yes folks, 685kbps DOWN, 7kbps UP, and that was when the network was actually NOT BAD compared to earlier in the day. Seriously, wtf?