Well, when I first read this report via Digg, I thought to myself what was so special about a 75 years old lady who was using a computer for the first time and surfing the web.
What’s special is not that she’s an old lady who become internet-savvy, but the speed of her internet connection. Her broadband internet connection that is supplied to her house is at a blistering 40 Gigabits per second (that’s 40,000 Megabits per second, I think). In comparison, my home broadband internet connection is at a maximum of 12 Megabits per second. And the fastest broadband internet connection available in Singapore is 100 Megabits per second, which is still 400 times slower.
Just to put things in perspective, the huge broadband pipe into her house can allow her to watch 1,500 high definition HDTV channels all at once. Or if she decides that there’s nothing interesting in any one of those channels, she can download a full high definition DVD in just two seconds. Whoa!
Time for me to pack my bags and head to Sweden! 😛
UPDATE – 19 July 2007: Apparently, the total cost of equipment for the internet broadband connection is at least US$250,000. This is not inclusive of the special fibre optic cable being ‘pulled’ to the house. Plus most of the gear used are not even used by most of the telcos around the world. Guess I’ll just have to be happy with my 12Mbps connection.