Taking the Mystery Out of Broadband

By Ria Mastromatteo, Educational Technology Consultant ()

As the use of computers continues to grow and evolve, so does the need for upgraded connections to the Internet. When many people acquired their first computers, a narrow bandwidth connection, usually through their telephone system, provided sufficient Internet power. Bandwidth is the amount of information that can be sent from one computer to another through the Internet in a specific amount of time.

Broadband is the term used for high-speed, high-bandwidth connections to the Internet. Broadband connections are mainly used to increase the speed of your connection. This is especially important for video on demand, multimedia options like downloading music and extensive use of graphics or video.
Also, broadband connections offer tremendous convenience in that they are always on and don?t require the users to sign in, like modem connections do. The different types of broadband connections include:

Cable modem access, a type of connection that is transmitted through your cable TV lines. The cost is about $50-60 per month.
DSL (digital subcriber line), a telephone technology that sets up a direct connection between you and the phone company. The cost is between $30 and $50 per month.
T1 line, which also uses telephone communication lines. The cost is $300 or more per month.

In 2004, comScore, an Internet service provider, did a study of how fast these different types of connections could download material. The company found that DSL was 25 times faster than dial-up modems, a cable hookup was twice as fast as DSL and a T1 line was twice as fast as a cable hookup.

The Nielsen ratings from last summer found that 51 percent of Americans who have Internet connections are using broadband. For more information about today?s use of broadband technologies, go to www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_040818.pdf.

Information from ?How to Choose a Broadband Connection? by Jeffrey Branzburg, Technology and Learning, November, 2004.