as bad as it sounds, i had 56k for almost 3 years of my HL life, and honestly, it did not dampen my fun at all.. course you must understand, my online fragging was little more than 5 hours a week total, due to my headaches, but my main fun was mapping, not fragging.. so...

also, my 56k was unlimited access, so any file size that was resumable was no issue for me, i had successfully downloaded in excess of 300 meg files with no errors, and very damned few reconnects, due to a fabulous ISP..

anyways, even if i were on 56k again, i would still have few issues cause i plan on purchasing HL2 and exclusively mapping for it.. i could care less about online time.. save my visits to SP and PFL..

i do agree that valve seems to be complicating the issue abit much tho.. but seriously guys, games cannot hold back for 56k users indefinitely.. the map and texture downloads for HL2 are going to be forking huge.. get used to it..

i feel for'ya sir

my connections were consistently 4.8 to 5.2 or so.. and unlimited.. for 19 dollars a month.. otherwise, i would prolly feel as you do now..

ntlworld = best isp for 56k online gaming imo. I get a ping of 130'ish in hl.

Gwil, it costs them about 200,000 quid to install ADSL equipment in an exchange, so they really need to make money out of it or they'd very quickly go bankrupt... of course, there are schemes to get broadband in rural areas- you can either register your interest via the BT website (yes it is a good idea!), or look into satellite as I hear the government was maybe thinking about helping people out with that soon...

I think this is well dead, but I thought I'd just say lep is VERY right about registering interest on the BT website, as at long last North Berwick (my hometown of about 2000 people) has gathered up enough interest (400 I think the requirement is) so they are installing it soon. Pity I've just buggered off to uni really isn't it - soon I'll be making trips home just for some low pinging online gaming

I heard satellite was really bad for online gaming however, but I might have been fed lies. Something to do with it being large data packets but slow transfer, meaning large files are still downloaded quick as you get it all in big sections, but for gaming it doesn't update often enough. Could be bullshit, but with my limited knowledge of how the net works, it sounded reasonable.

That's just it though, I did that YEARS ago. I think there may finally be progress, as BT went to the trouble of informing people that they can give us broadband but they need people interested in it. Before it was a case of "family PC with a hotmail account for mum, dad and 2 kids. occasionally used for M$ office documents. default ISP from PC world" that proliferated our village, so broadband was too long a word to read, let alone understand.