Broadband in Detail

To understand broadband technology, you might find it useful to compare the flow of computer data to the flow of water. Data flows from the reservoir of the Internet much like water flows through a pipe, into your Internet service provider (ISP), through to your computer (or local area network of computers), and back out again.

Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transmitted per second. It’s like the size of the pipe through which the data flows. The greater your bandwidth, the faster you can accomplish those tasks whose quality is dependent on speed, such as tuning in videos or music over the Internet, playing online games, or sending large files.

Bandwidth is measured by the amount of data it moves per second; typical measurement units are kilobits per second (Kbps) and megabits per second (Mbps). A “bit” is the basic unit of electronic data sent or received by a computer. One kilobit equals roughly 1,000 bits, and one megabit equals roughly 1,000,000 bits.

A typical speed for a dial-up modem is 56 Kbps. In contrast, most high-speed and broadband connections offer much faster speeds, measured in Mbps. For example, a 1 Mbps broadband connection can transfer data at over 1,000,000 bits per second.

Dial-up

A dial-up connection is the smallest pipe you can use to connect to the Internet. It is fast enough to read information and download small files, but it has problems with video connections, multimedia-intensive websites, and high-speed games. Dial-up connections, by definition, require you to connect to an ISP over a phone line, so you cannot talk on the phone and go online at the same time without a second phone line.

ISDN

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) modems, with speeds up to 128 Kbps over two phone lines, provide a step up from an ordinary dial-up modem. ISDN uses more advanced networking protocols to double or even triple the speed of dial-up modems. However, the pipe is still small. While ISDN can be used at home, it has not caught on as a standard home network connection, and its use has mostly been restricted to small offices and computer professionals.

T1 and T3

T1 and T3 connections are high-capacity, always-on network connections that have been available for some time. They directly connect a local area network (LAN) to the Internet, usually through a telephone company.

While T1 and T3 connections are broadband connections (large pipes capable of moving huge flows of data), they’re prohibitively expensive for home users. They are typically only used by larger and high-tech organizations.

Enter broadband for the home and small office
None of the previously mentioned connection types is ideal for a home or small-office customer. But in the late 1990s, broadband connections became practical for the home with the advent of Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL) and digital cable connections. These newest broadband options offer the best of all worlds: high-speed connections at affordable prices.

DSL (better known as Broadband)

DSL enables you to connect to the Internet over a phone line without interrupting your phone service. DSL connections are relatively inexpensive, always on, readily accessible to home users through local telephone companies, and desirably fast, with speeds that can reach 2 Mbps and higher. DSL is popular in many urban areas, where existing phone lines support the connections.

In addition, a DSL account has a preset amount of bandwidth available for upload and download. DSL connections don’t share bandwidth with other users of the same ISP. Sharing of bandwidth can slow the flow of data.

Digital cable

At about the same time that DSL hit the market, cable companies began providing digital cable connections to their customers. Transmitted over existing coaxial cable lines, digital cable can provide speeds of 256 Kbps to over 1 Mbps. Cable connections, like DSL connections, are always on.

Cable broadband services share a set amount of bandwidth with a group of accounts, such as an apartment building or neighbourhood, so the size of the data pipe available to an individual user varies depending on how many neighbours are using the Internet at the same time. When few people are online, data speeds can be extremely fast; when many are online, connection speeds can be considerably slower.

Home and small office connection speeds at a glance

The following table of home and small office connection options lists the speeds of the most popular types of online connections. As you can see, a broadband connection can provide over 1000 times the speed of a dial-up connection.

Use a firewall

Just as the name implies, a firewall acts as a barrier or buffer zone between your local network and the Internet. A firewall allows you to specify what information can be communicated from the computers on your network to the Internet and from the Internet to the computers on your network. It checks data packets being transmitted to your network and discards any suspicious data.

How to get broadband

The first step in bringing broadband to your home or small office is to find out what services are available in your neighbourhood. Broadband services are expanding at record rates. For information about availability and pricing in your area, check with your telephone company or local cable supplier, or contact your ISP.