Streamyx

Broadband has become essential for most of us. The simple click of a button has brought us many things that were just not possible before, from entertainment - music and videos - to shopping for almost anything. The majority of us use it daily, sometimes without even knowing why we logged on in the first place.

Fast access to the internet has also become an essential in education, from primary schools to universities, where you can retrieve lecture notes, previous exam papers even exam results, therefore reducing paper waste and speeding up the whole process of preparation.

One of the only downsides is that it has made us less active in an office environment. It is often said that since the introduction of the internet, and especially broadband, people have become lazier in work.

We no longer have to walk across an office to speak to someone, as the opportunity to send a quick email seems more appealing. This may not seem like much, but if you take into consideration the amount of emails you may send a day, it can add up.

Back to the positives: broadband truly has helped the world connect in many different ways. Social networks are popping up all the time, bringing the original pen friend to an end. It brings us more in touch with our neighbour countries, with a total of more than 1.2bn internet users by September 2007.

We can also find all the information we need with sites like Wikipedia. The site has more than 8m articles in 253 languages, highly impressive considering that it is a free service.

Since the introduction of broadband we have seen some big names emerge, most notably Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. These sites would just not be possible without broadband and have become some of the most popular sites available to users.

What would happen if it were possible to pull a plug and the internet suddenly disappeared? What would we do and how could we cope? A life without broadband or the internet seems almost ludicrous now and would cause a large portion of the world's economy to stop.

If you are interested in taking advantage of current broadband internet technology then you should compare many cheap broadband providers available in your area.