Internet Connectivity from Taiwan to the USA circa 2009 - Excellent!
I've been visiting Taiwan since 1990 and the Internet here keeps getting better each year. Below are some notes on my experiences.
Internet connectivity in Taiwan for residential users is available from the Cable TV company or via DSL, similar to the USA.
The residence where I'm staying uses a DSL vendor known as KBT or KB Telecom. KBT enforces PPPoE, but the Linksys WRT-54G router I installed handles the chore of establishing and maintaining the PPPoE connection.
The monthly service cost is NT$393 for the ADSL fee from www.hinet.com + NT$279 for the ISP, www.kbtelecom.com. So the total monthly service cost is NT$672 with a one year commitment. At today's exchange rate of US$1 = NT$32.864 the monthly cost is $20.45, including all taxes. The service is rated at 2Mbps down and 256 Kbps up. Such a deal!
The service is reliable and the Internet speeds are excellent. I'm getting 1,362 Kbps down and 207 Kbps up to Speakeasy's Seattle, Washington servers. Here's a comparison of the measured bandwidth from various ISPs.
I'm having no problem getting work done with our company's IMAP server & Plone webservers in New York and Virginia.
