Broadband - What Does That Mean In Regards To Internet Access?
Most of us think we know what somebody is talking about when they mention 'broadband internet', but what does broadband really mean? You might be interested to know that there is really no univerally accepted hard and fast definition for the term.
The general term 'broadband' simply refers to a broad band. Thanks for nothing, you say. Okay, that definition may be a little bit of an oversimplification, but the telecommunications industry defines broadband as a signal which includes a wide range of frequencies, which may or may not be divided into channels. Well then, your next question would probably be "what do they mean by 'wide'?". Good question. Actually, they're not sure what they mean :-). It all depends on the context. Broadband in radio is different from broadband in television, which differs from broadband in data communications.
But in this article we're talking about broadband Internet access. What does the term mean in relation to the Internet? Once again, the answer is less than definitive. The meaning of the term may be similar to the one above. DSL is sometimes referred to as a broadband connection because the digital packets are sent over one channel and the phone signals are sent over another, all in one line. Fiber optic Internet access might also be called broadband because fiber optic cables can carry many channels simultaneously.
But the accepted meaning of broadband when applied to data transmission or Internet access is that multiple data packets are transmitted simultaneously, allowing for a faster effective speed. How fast? Again, no clear definition. The Federal Communication Commission in the US says broadband is transmission at rates exceeding 200 Kbps in either the upstream or downstream direction, while the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development defines it as 256 Kbps in one or both directions. This seems to be the definition that's most widely accepted these days. To muddy the waters even further, however, the International Telecommunication Union says a transmission qualifies as broadband if it's faster than 1.5 to 2 Mbps (which is defined as the speed of ISDN, or Integrated Services Digital Network). So you can see that there's a lot of leeway offered to communications companies when it comes to categorizing any of their internet services as 'broadband'. Basically, Internet access providers can describe a multitude of offerings as broadband and still be perfectly truthful. So do your due diligence on any plan you're considering, and make sure you're comparing oranges to oranges when you size up one offering versus another.
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