Can Somebody Explain "broadband" to me.

[oldmantime]

Hate to show my ignorance, but really would like to know.

Exactly what is broadband?
Is it dial up or cable or something else?

Are there lots of companies offering it, like the dial ups?
Also--there is a VAST difference in dial ups. My current dial up service (Quik --a local company) which I've had for 2 years is much much quicker than the AOL or MSN dial up of years earlier.

 

[wolfie_cr]

broadband has much higher speeds for both uploads and downloads than dial up

as for dial up is concerned you are limited to 56 kbps

isdn (a sort of special dial up that is not common in the US but its quite common in Europe) can get you up to 128 kbps still through a normal phone line

dsl and cable (dsl works through the phone line but in a different way, that is, you can speed on the phone and be connected at the same time) can get you anywhere from 256 kbps up to 3 megs

satellite also classifies as broadband, those are usually around 500 kbps, but with satellite you face a high "latency" that is, if you are playing a gaming such as poker, it takes much longer for your "move" to be received by the game server than with dsl/cable, this because the satellite signal must travel all the way up to the satellite and then back to the antenna of the isp before its even sent to the game server

in the future, you may see also BPL (broadband that goes through the power lines) but thats still experimental

 

[oldmantime]

wolfie_cr

Thanks--Sounds like a satellite connection(broadband).

Maybe Verizon--high speed connection is what I will look into one of these days. I want to stay through a phone line for some reason.

 

[wolfie_cr]

IF I had the choice (which I don't because I live in a country run by idiots) I would choose DSL, the other technologies all have drawbacks

DSL is perfect, one thing I forgot to tell you is that you must live within 'x' miles of the company telephone switch, its usually 3 miles so if you live far away from the city that might be a problem

1) cablemodem companies complain if you use a lot of bandwidth (its suposed to be unlimited by they all have small print in the contracts that say "dont exceed fair usage")

2) bpl still not even fully tested by FCC but it seems very promising

3) satellite will affect you if you play online games as the latency is quite high