Connecting to family, friends and loved ones and the power of the internet

I could still remember a couple of years back when I was still conducting and attending trainings overseas. During that time the Internet was still developing.  Dial-up connections was still the popular.  Though broadband connection was already available, it was still quite expensive and available to mostly corporate clients and a few selected hotels. I could still remember an experience I had connecting to 1 of the prime hotels in Singapore. During that time they were supposed to be one of the few hotels which offer premier Internet connections.  However, you still needed to dial-up to establish a connection.  The problem was, you had to pay for each connected or attempted connection. It was very difficult to establish an Internet connection and I ended up with a SGD 100 bill. So I resorted to use prepaid cards and mobile roaming calls. Overall, I paid a whooping Php 40k for a months usage of mobile roaming calls. As the Internet connection improved, messenger services became very popular and accessible. Yahoo messenger and Skype became very popular during that time as it allowed you to do PC to PC chat. However, I found Chikka messenger very useful as it allowed me to send SMS messages from PC to mobile phone and vice-versa. This used to be a free service, but now for a small fee you can still send messages from your PC to a mobile user. The recipient mobile user just needs to reply to the message sent from the Chikka messenger user. For a time mobile 3G communication became a fad, but eventually died out as cost of the service was quite expensive, both user had to have 3G capable phones and 3G service was network dependent. Eventually, Yahoo and Skype offered audio and and video calls.  This eventually became the standard for what we have today.  The improvement in Internet connection made this technology possible. Internet connection today is measured by speed and bandwidth. Broadband connection is no longer limited to offices and businesses, but is in fact a part of every house hold. Social media sites soon followed, and offered their own brand of communication.  Today mobile web browsing has enabled Internet access outside the confides of traditional PC and notebook user.  Today, using your mobile phone you can connect to other people around the world through mobile web browsing. You can answer e-mails, access messenger services, connect to social media sites or remotely connect to your home or office PC. Indeed technology has gone very far from its humble beginnings. I can wait to see what tomorrows technology has to offer.  We have truly been able to bridge the gap between people in different countries through technology.