I spent 41 minutes and 43 seconds on the phone with my Internet provider today. My complaint? Why is my internet connection slow and inconsistent? It’s been like this for two days and I can’t seem to get any work done. As I watch the pages spin and spin on my browser I think about how I can’t charge my clients for my time when all I’m doing is watching a page load. As the time ticks by I think about how much work I’m losing, how much money I’m losing! Without the internet I can do very little. I’ve written several blogs ahead, cleaned off my desktop, and finally decided it was time to complain.
I try to be patient as the poor customer service person asks me if I’ve tried turning my computer off and restarting it. Yeah, 15 times in the last two days! Near the end of the conversation (and two techs later) my internet is temporality working. And my test speed is within their advertised speeds, so… I guess that’s all they can do for me. They remind me that there are variations with weather, downtime after last week’s devastating storm and tornado that went through the area. I try my best to be patient and appreciative, realizing how much their job must suck.
Picking up the latest copy of Bloomberg Businessweek, my interest is drawn to a recent article hailing the virtues of Instart Logic. The software promises to load web elements faster. Raghu Venkat took a vacation from Aster Data Systems in 2010. With the company’s gift of a prepaid debit card he bought… video games. He and fellow engineers, Manav Mital and Hariharan Kolam, quickly grew frustrated at the slow speed of their gaming systems when they loaded new games.
Instart Logic was born. The three quit their jobs to build software that would monitor browsers, honing in on what users look for on websites, breaking them down into prioritized chunks. Instart would cut the quality and file sizes for faster load times. Rather than a blank page, you see something. The details start to fill in in the background. Slower internet connections often relied upon by laptops, tablets, and smartphones (and me, at the moment) can particularly benefit from the software.
Today, we just can’t seem to get what we want fast enough. Venture capitalists are investing heavily in the content delivery networks. Infinite websites (like your Facebook timeline, where you can continue to scroll down and down and down) and large websites use these systems to fast-track videos, photos, and other “bandwidth-intensive parts of their sites to users in high-traffic cities that need a speed boost.”
The software is touted to load twice as fast, while reducing costs. Gaming, consumer web, and business application sites have begun lining up to purchase the software since June. VersionOne which makes software for developers has noticed a 40% increase in speed. Ian Culling, chief technology officer, says, “Developers tend to be the most demanding users and the least tolerant of any lag.” (Yeah, me too.)
Though Instart hasn’t addressed the fact that games take forever to load, Raghu says he too busy to play video games now. Good for him, but now I feel this incredible pressure to do something great now sans internet connection. Perhaps I should get back to writing that book I’ve been meaning to finish…
Questions on technology? Call Fletcher Consulting.
Fletcher Consulting 
518 S. Union Street
Shawano, WI 54166
715-584-6773