Feeling Old

Recently my 4g router started picking up 5g signals.The speed of my household internet went from 20mps to about 60 to 80. When something new comes along, I feel old because I remember how it was before. I'm older than the internet. I was there from the beginning when they introduced dialup. 

To get dialup, you would plug a RJ11 connector into your phone line socket and the other end into your desk top computer modem, your desktop computer would then make a phone call to a dialup provider and the browser would download the page, the fast food restaurants were very fast to embrace this technology, they would put all their menus and offers on a webpage for dial up. While this happened, your phone line was engaged so you couldn't receive any phone calls. After 2 minutes, if you stopped navigating a page, the modem would hang up unless you set it to persist for longer.

The next one was Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). They realised that your phone line had a spare line for testing, they gave you a DSL filter to remove tones that matched your modem signal so you could make phone calls at the same time. Later they encrypted the signal and made it more reliable, it was called Advanced Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL)  then ADSL 2.  They also made a dedicated machine that was always connected to the internet, they called it a router. At first you would use RJ45 cables to connect devices to the router but later they had WiFi. RJ45 cables are still useful, if you run a washing machine, it disrupts the WiFi signal a bit but doesn't affect RJ45 cables; I think washing machines spurt out radio noise because of the electric motor. 

Now I have a 4g router, it uses the mobile phone network to connect to the internet without any cables, recently I was picking up 5g, the latest version of mobile internet, it runs at the same speed at fiber optics but it slows down a bit when it rains I think. All TV, radio and phone calls in my home come through my 4g/5g router. 

My phone's internet also slows down when it is raining outside because the rain drops get in the way of the signal I think.