Things the Internet has Made Obsolete

The world has changed over the last 10 or 15 years dramatically. Technology has taken us into new realms of possibilities, and with the gadgets and applications available these days, it’s possible to do more on the go, more in your office, and more on your own.

It’s no longer necessary to call an expert to handle certain tasks and we’re able to enjoy the benefits of more efficiency in our business and personal lives. It really is incredible the amount that we can get done in one day and this has been driven by the massive upsurge in technological development.

If we look at the iPhone, satellite navigation, tablets and touch screen smartphones, we have a clear picture of technology that 20 years ago would have seemed impossible. We’re living in an age where things are developing so fast and we often take things for granted.

The internet has been one of those areas. It’s not that long ago that we had dial-up broadband as the only option. If you compare broadband speeds today with those when the internet was just developing, you’ll see the massive progress.

Broadband Speeds Compared

When we look at dial-up broadband, we see 56kbps connection speeds. Even poor quality broadband these days is around 2Mbps and we have super fast broadband for residential customers over 300Mbps through BT. It’s phenomenal the speed of data transfer both upstream and downstream. We even have synchronous connections that offer 100Mb both ways.

As well the internet becoming more rapid, we’ve also seen it become more available. Fibre optic broadband is around 60% of the country now, 4G connectivity is rolling around so that we have better mobile broadband, and the ADSL technology that we use is much better than it was in the past with speeds up to 24Mbps widely available. With all of these advancements certain technologies have suffered.

Dial-up Broadband

Of course one of the first technologies to suffer is dial-up. Although a few of us still use the old dial-up system with a dial tone, only being able to be online with one device, and not being able to make telephone calls at the same time, the majority of people have gone broadband.

Movie Rental Stores

Blockbuster movies and other rental stores are on their way out, if they haven’t gone already. There are a few clinging to life but most have been overrun by the likes of Netflix, LOVEFiLM Instant, Sky Go, and other online movie sites. The convenience of using your internet to watch movies is a phenomenal advancement for home entertainment and with smart TV’s now incorporating the internet, it’s possible to do more than ever before from the big screen too.

Newspaper Adverts

It used to be very easy to generate revenue for newspapers if they had a good sales person. They could sell classified ads to corporations and local businesses and individuals would be phoning up on a regular basis to sell their products and services.

Nowadays, with the likes of Gumtree, eBay, Amazon, and many other online sites and auction providers, it’s much harder for newspapers to make their money this way. Newspaper ads are on the way out, online sales are on the way up.

Fixed Landlines

Although many of us still have landlines for our broadband when we’re on ADSL, how many of us actually use them on a regular basis? We may use them for non-geographic numbers such as 0870 and 0845 and certainly 0800, but that could be a thing of the past very shortly.

With VoIP technology, such as Skype and Vonage, we’re finding cheaper calls over the internet and more convenience too. In addition, many of the things that we used to do on our landline, we can now do through applications on our smartphones, and the internet is making everything cheaper.

Long Distance Calls

Long distance calls were indeed the realm of landline communication. However, with VoIP internet calls, we can now talk to someone in Australia for free if they have Skype as well. There really is no need to jump on your telephone and spend money when other people have got Skype on the other side of the world. You can also get video chat on Skype and other platforms and therefore the richness of the communication is even better too.

Public Phones and Phone Cards

International phone cards are going to suffer with VoIP taking over. The cost of calls through Skype are amazingly cheap. You can call Africa for about 8p a minute, which is around the same as you tend to pay on international calling cards. Public pay phones similarly are on the way out, although this is more driven by smartphones and the power that they have now rather than simply because of the internet.

Fax Machines

If you watched the recent deadline day in the Premier League transfer window, you’ll have heard a lot about fax machines being used to send information through to the Premier League’s administration staff. However, eFax, e-mail and online communication is meaning that fax machines are becoming increasingly obsolete. It’s only in very few industries that they are a regular communication medium. They’re on their way out and there’s good reason for it too. The online internet-based communication systems are far more efficient.

Encyclopaedias, Phone Books, and Dictionaries

If you need to find out the meaning of a word these days, all you have to do is Google it. If you want to find synonyms, there’s no need to open a thesaurus, there are plenty of options online. The internet has changed the way we find information. It is the biggest resource in the world and has made hard copy books less popular than before.

CDs

It’s now the case that more of us are downloading music from the likes of iTunes than are buying CDs. CDs are certainly on the way out and we are getting increasingly flexible in the way that we buy our music. Even the charts are now often measured by downloads rather than CD sales.

Data Back-up Devices and Floppy Disks

When was the last time you put a floppy disk into a computer? When was the last time you even used a flash device?

The truth is that with the “Cloud” the internet is making it increasingly easy to automatically sync our data and files up to a secure remote location. This protects us from the loss of files not just through problems with our computer but also through problems in our offices and homes. A fire cannot affect a remote Cloud location whereas floppies, portable hard drives, and other physical storage systems will be destroyed by water or fire damage.

So there you have it, some of the main things that the internet has killed off. Can you think of any more? How about books?

Phil Turner understood how important it was to be able to compare broadband speeds. uSwitch and similar sites were designed to help people to carry out tasks like this to make sure they were getting a good deal.