High Speed Internet Access

When people say "high speed internet access" what they really mean is "broadband". While much has been written about broadband lately, many consumers are not sure exactly what it is, what it can do, and what the potential is.

What is Broadband?

Broadband refers most commonly to a new generation of high-speed transmission services, which allows users to access the Internet and Internet-related services at significantly higher speeds than traditional modems. It has the potential technical capability to meet consumers’ broad communication, entertainment, information, and commercial needs and desires.

There are several types of broadband services:

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) is a new digital technology that brings high speed internet access to homes and small to medium sized businesses over the ordinary copper telephone lines presently installed behind your walls. It allows voice, video and data to be transmitted at very fast speeds, 20 or more times faster than an ordinary 56K modem and 10 times faster than ISDN.

DSL provides fast Internet access, high bandwidth and speed, reliability, "always on" service and increased security. It comes into your house over phone lines.

Cable Modem

Cable Internet is one method of experiencing a broadband connection. Cable broadband Internet allows you to have an always-on connection that delivers considerably faster internet access speeds than dial-up without interfering with your ability to make and receive telephone calls.

Many users prefer Cable Internet to other broadband options, such as DSL, because it utilizes the same fiber optic wiring already used to provide cable television in their homes. This typically makes installation faster.

While most Cable Internet service provides upload speeds of up to 256 Kbps, its download speeds can be as fast as 1 Mbps. Because of this speed, Cable Internet is especially useful for people who enjoy playing on-line games, downloading music, sending instant messages, and surfing graphic-intensive web sites.

One drawback to cable is, the more people using cable, the slower the service.

Wireless Internet

From a user’s computer, data travels through the broadband modem to the digital transceiver on the outside of the customer’s location. The data is transmitted via a wireless signal from the digital transceiver to a "Point Of Presence" (POP). The POP routes the request to the Internet, and the corresponding response is sent back to the POP. The POP transmits the reply back to the customer’s digital transceiver, which is routed through cable to the broadband modem. The modem processes the signal and sends the information to the customer’s computer.

Satellite

While it may not be as popular as DSL or Cable Internet access, it is predicted that by the end of 2004, almost 4 million homes will be using satellite dishes to get on-line.

As the name implies, satellite Internet uses a space satellite to deliver broadband access to homes. Because of this, even homes in areas where DSL or Cable are not available can receive high-speed internet access. Of course that access does come at a price. Satellite Internet is one of the more costly broadband alternatives.

While Satellite Internet can be the ideal choice for some broadband seekers, it does have its drawbacks. One is that you must have a clear, unobstructed view of the southern sky to receive the signal. Another is that you may notice lags in the time between clicking on a link and receiving the data. These lags, known as latency, do not interfere with most Internet activities but can cause slowdown during on-line games.

What can you do with high speed internet access?

High speed internet technology will potentially allow users to access more information, including new multimedia applications, streaming news, music, games, video conferencing, telephony applications, and eventually video programming similar to current television and cable services.

Test Your Speed

There are several sites that offer free speed tests for your Internet connection.



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