Broadband Internet access

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Broadband Internet access, often shortened to "broadband Internet" or just "broadband", is a high data transmission rate Internet connection. In particular a last mile high rate connection for homes and small businesses. It is three to five times faster than what was commonly available at the time of introduction with a relatively modest price increase. (See ISDN and 56K.) Broadband Internet connections are typically capable of transmitting 512 kilobits per second (kbit/s) or more.

It is generally accepted that the term is used to mean a connection of 512 kbit/s (0.5 Mb) or above for the final user and the FCC definition of broadband is 200 kbit/s (0.2Mb) in one direction, and advanced broadband is at least 200 kbit/s (0.2 Mb) in both directions, though some Internet Service Providers have marketed services with a shorter bandwidth because there is no specific bitrate defined by the industry. On August 13, 2004 the ISP Wanadoo were told by the Advertising Standards Authority to change the way that they advertised their 512 kbit/s broadband service in Britain, removing the words "full speed" which rival companies claimed was misleading people into thinking it was the fastest available service. In a similar way, on April 9, 2003 the Advertising Standards Authority ruled against ISP NTL, saying that NTL's 128 kbit/s cable modem service must not be marketted as "broadband".

The use of the term broadband is technically incorrect when used to mean a high data transmission rate. See broadband.

Broadband is often called high-speed Internet, because it has a high data transmission rate, but the actual transmission speed may be relatively slow depending on the method used. See baud and broadband.

In some countries broadband services operate at over 1 Mbit/s for connections to private residences, with higher data transfer rates possible for business purposes, but involving a correspondingly higher charge.

In the United Kingdom many domestic users have connections either via cable modems, or via ADSL, and these typically run at around 500 kbit/s. Commercial users can obtain higher data rates for a higher subscription. In a few of the many areas not served by cable or ADSL, community organisations have begun to install Wi-Fi networks.

In the USA many users have connections at about 380 kbit/s (as of 2002), though this situation may change as new equipment appears.

Other technologies include bi-directional satellite satmodems and power line communication modems which use the electric grid to provide access to the Internet.

The typical broadband connection to date, whether cable or xDSL, is configured by the ISP to run at bit rates from 350-500 kbit/s. The full rate connection for a typical cable plant might be as high as 10 Mbit/s and with ADSL it might be 2 to 6 Mbit/s (limited by how long the subscriber loop is - shorter loop, higher speed).

In Canada, broadband Internet access is estimated to serve at least 53% of internet users (January 2003). The competition between the major broadband Internet providers in that country has recently caused frequent increases in the available bandwidth provided to home users. As of May 2004, a standard broadband Internet package provides 3.0 Mbit/s downstream and 300 kbit/s upstream rates for both cable- and DSL-based services. Some residential service providers (such as Cogeco or Rogers) offer speeds of 5 Mbit/s or higher.

In practice, even this bandwidth is not always reliably available to the consumer, as ISPs tend to overbook their backbone capacity. Since most user connections typically only operate at a small fraction of their full rated bandwidth, this aggregation strategy works more often than not, so users can typically burst to their full bandwidth most of the time. Peer-to-peer file sharing systems stress these assumptions, and can cause major problems for ISPs who have excessively overbooked their capacity. (See network traffic engineering for a fuller discussion).

As takeup for this introductory products increases, telcos are starting to offer higher bit rate services. For existing connections, this most of the time simply involves reconfiguring the existing equipment at each end of the connection.

In Ireland, the telephone monopoly Eircom resisted the introduction of broadband because they were making so much money from per-minute billing on 56 kbit/s dialup. A consumer pressure group, IrelandOffline, was set up which was successful in convincing the government to force Eircom to introduce flat-rate dialup billing. This set the stage for the introduction of true broadband services by other ISPs (and then Eircom). Because Eircom had not invested in modern telecommunications infrastructure, however, most localities in rural Ireland are unable to get DSL over copper. The Group Data Scheme Society, an Irish cooperative, has organised to help local communities set up their own internet networks whether with wireless or other technologies.

Newer technologies for twisted pair phone lines such as VDSL and pushing fiber optic connections closer to the subscriber in both telephone and cable plants are opening up the possibility of higher performance for streaming data, such as audio and video streams. There are now many streaming audio services, and several streaming video services. Broadband Internet access also facilitates the use of file sharing software.

In Sweden household broadband is mainly available through cable and xDSL, but in many places also through copper Ethernet LAN networked via fibre MANs connecting buildings. Symmetric broadband Internet access of 100 Mbit/s is available for USD 54 a month, as of november 2004.

The data rates on most broadband services still do not suffice to provide good quality video, as MPEG-2 quality video requires about 6 Mbit/s for good results. Adequate video for some purposes becomes possible at lower data rates, with rates of 768 kbit/s and 384 kbit/s used for some video conferencing applications. The MPEG-4 format delivers high-quality video at 2 Mbit/s, at the high end of cable modem and ADSL performance. The Ogg Tarkin format is intended to deliver similar performance.

As the bandwidth delivered to end-users increases, the market expects that video on demand services streamed over the Internet will become more popular, though at the present time such services generally require specialised networks.

Increased bandwidth has already made an impact on newsgroups: postings to groups such as alt.binaries.* have grown from JPEG images to entire CD and DVD images. According to NTL, the level of traffic on their network increased from a daily inbound news feed of 150 gigabytes of data per day and 1 terabyte of data out each day in 2001 to 500 gigabytes of data inbound and over 4 terabytes out each day in 2002.

Transmission rates for common broadband solutions:

External links

• Broadband Industry Structure - PowerPoint presentation about broadband business models, technology and pricing.
• Broadband Fact Sheets - Gives an overview of the different broadband connections available to consumers.