Broadband refers to a form of telecommunication that allows large amounts of information to be transmitted to your home computer from the outside world, e.g. from the Internet. Broadband transfers data at least 10 times faster than standard dial-up, because it provides wide band of frequencies to transfer data at the same time…in other words a much fatter pipe to push data through.
Non-Techie Analogy:
Compare the difference between dial-up and broadband by comparing two road types:
Imagine dial-up as a single, narrow country lane, where cars have to travel in single file, whereas broadband is motorway allowing more cars to travel on it in multiple lanes at the same time. Motorways were built to enable travellers to get from A-to-B quicker, Broadband was invented to transmit and download data, (i.e. video streaming, email and Internet pages) much quicker than dial-up.
Therefore broadband providers are able to offer transmission speeds (or wide lanes!) of 512kb (kilobytes per second), 1mbps (megabytes per second), 2mbps and more. Compare this to just 54kb available on standard dial-up!
The Two Flavours of UK Broadband
Through Your Phone Line (i.e. BT Line)
DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) is a broadband technology for bringing large amounts of information through ordinary telephone lines (i.e. BT telephone line) to home and small businesses.
There are many different variations of DSL used throughout the world. In the UK ADSL is used (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line), which transmits data extremely fast in one direction - the download stream. A faster connection on this stream enables the quick download of web pages, email, music, video, gaming or other kinds of files and data.
Assuming that your home or small business is close enough to a local BT exchange that offers an ADSL service, you will be able to utilise one of the available connections that will provide speeds from 512kbps to 2mbps download streams to about 128Kbps upstream. ADSL is now available to 84% of UK homes (Source: Offcom, April 2004), which according to BT should reach over 99% by the end of summer 2005.
When your telephone line is upgraded to ADSL, you will want to share access to the Internet with all the computers in your home on a wired or wireless network. To do this you will need a wired or wireless ADSL modem router - click here for more information.
Through Your Cable Company (i.e. NTL or Telewest)
Cable Internet is now a popular way to interact with the World Wide Web and other new forms of multimedia information and entertainment services - available in the UK from Telewest or NTL.
A cable modem is provided when you sign up to a cable broadband package. A cable modem has two connections, one to the cable wall outlet and the other to a PC or to a set-top box for a TV set. If you have more than one PC, you may wish to share your connection to multiple PC's either wirelessly or with wires. To do this you will need a wired or wireless broadband router that plugs directly into the cable modem using an RJ-45 connection (check that your cable modem has one). Click here for more information about broadband routers for cable subscribers.
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