[General] Before Wifi became the household name....

[Silverobama]

Suzie is my friend. She was talking in our English club meeting tonight. She mentioned that when she first started her pizza store, it was 2005. At that time, people didn't wifi to access the internet; they used a server called "ADSL". I don't know what it stands for. I wrote a sentence to express this idea:

Before Wifi became the household name, we used ADSL to get online.

Is the italic sentence natural?

 

[Yankee]

Yes, except I would use the indefinite article since there are other "household names", e. g. "GMAIL., Yankees, Budweiser, Levis and an infinite number of others that would qualify in the general category of household names.

 

[GoesStation]

ADSL stands for "asymmetrical digital subscriber line". It's usually just called "DSL" in the States. It's a way to provide low-speed (by modern standards) broadband service through copper telephone lines. I use a 3Mbps DSL line at my house for backup. Our network automatically switches to it when our primary system, wireless data provided by a cellular telephone network, goes down.

 

[emsr2d2]

She was talking [STRIKE]in[/STRIKE] at our English club meeting tonight.

emsr2d2

 

[Tarheel]

Suzie is my friend.

That seems to be saying you have only one friend. Instead, say:

Suzie is a friend of mine.

 

[Tdol]

ADSL stands for "asymmetrical digital subscriber line". It's usually just called "DSL" in the States.

They really thought hard about making this catchy and memorable, didn't they?

 

[jutfrank]

Is the italic sentence natural?

I say no. The phrase the household name is not right.

Moreover, what you say doesn't really make a lot of sense. The sentence appears to be a mix of saying something about people's past habits and saying something about technical terminology. I think what you mean is expressed by one of the following:

Before wi-fi, we used to use ADSL to get online. [=how we got online]
Before wi-fi, we used to use something called ADSL. [=what we used to call the technology]

You can now mix these together, like this:

Before wi-fi, we used to use something called ADSL to get online.

 

[GoesStation]

Before wi-fi, we used to use something called ADSL to get online.

That's good English, of course, but it's a technical mish-mash. DSL or ADSL is the technology that connects a location with the internet. Wifi connects a device to a local internet connection which could be provided by any of a number of technologies including DSL.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Suzie is my friend. She was talking in our English club meeting tonight. She mentioned that when she first started her pizzeria, it was 2005. At that time, people didn't use Wi-Fi to access the internet; they used a service called "ADSL". I don't know what it stands for. I wrote a sentence to express this idea:

Before Wifi became a household word, we used ADSL to get online.

Is the italic sentence natural?

It is now.

 

[tedmc]

How about:

Before Wifi became the norm, we used ADSL to get online.?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

How about:

Before Wifi became the norm, we used ADSL to get online.?

That's also good.

 

[GoesStation]

Note that ADSL is a service, not a server. The latest corrections make the post grammatical, but it's still not factually correct.

 

[Silverobama]

I say no. The phrase the household name is not right.

Moreover, what you say doesn't really make a lot of sense. The sentence appears to be a mix of saying something about people's past habits and saying something about technical terminology. I think what you mean is expressed by one of the following:

Before wi-fi, we used to use ADSL to get online. [=how we got online]
Before wi-fi, we used to use something called ADSL. [=what we used to call the technology]

You can now mix these together, like this:

Before wi-fi, we used to use something called ADSL to get online.

Much appreciated!

That's good English, of course, but it's a technical mish-mash. DSL or ADSL is the technology that connects a location with the internet. Wifi connects a device to a local internet connection which could be provided by any of a number of technologies including DSL.

I want to learn good English first and then learn more about technology and other things in English.

I am very surprised to learn that DSL is still used nowadays. The internet speed in the US could be the fastest in the world and we did use ADSL many years ago then Wifi became popular. We can use our cellphone to get online anywhere if there's a wifi service but we couldn't do the same thing if there was a DSL server.

 

[GoesStation]

I am very surprised to learn that DSL is still used nowadays. The internet speed in the US could be the fastest in the world and we did use ADSL many years ago then Wifi became popular. We can use our cellphone to get online anywhere if there's a wifi service but we couldn't do the same thing if there was a DSL server.

Broadband in the United States is a very mixed bag. A few places have service that's among the fastest in the world. The low average population density, combined with limited political support for subsidies, means that many other places have severely limited access, if any. My house was until recently one of those. Average broadband speeds in the United States are low by developed-world standards.

Many millions of Americans have no practical internet access at all.

 

[probus]

Canada is even worse than the USA in that regard. Our population is so spread out across our vast territory that some of us still don't have access to high speed internet. Our government has declared it a priority to fix that. Last I heard South Korea had very fast internet throughout the country.