Broad minded

Posted on 25 Feb 2003 at 10:54

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Gallery

If you're hoping to get a broadband connection, Harry Fairhead has a few words of warning: make sure you choose the right option, be mindful of overall cost and look out for that enemy of fast net access - contention

If you hadn't heard of broadband internet before, you will have almost certainly been made aware of it over the past few months. BT has been promoting broadband connection to the general public using every method possible - from prime-time TV to the pages of this magazine. However, the advertisements do not explain exactly what broadband is. To say it is '10 times faster' than a standard dial-up connection does not really cover it.

Even if you know what broadband is, problems remain; many people cannot get it, and even the ones who can aren't always better off. While it usually provides faster internet connection, the technology is not perfect. If you are considering upgrading to broadband, to get the most from it you should know that there are several broadband options and understand the benefits and disadvantages of each.

What is broadband?
The term 'broadband' refers to a high-capacity cable that can carry a lot more data than a traditional telephone cable. However, in general use it simply means an internet connection of comparable speed to that offered by the high-capacity cable service. For most users, broadband means any type of connection that is fast enough to make listening to internet radio, viewing movies and downloading large files quick and easy.

Although speed of connection is the most important aspect for many users, there is another key component of broadband that is often overlooked. As well as being fast, it should also be 'always on'. This in itself contributes to the speed of the service as you obviously save time by not having to dial up every time you connect. However, the significant point is that you cannot accept an incoming connection unless you happen to be online. This means that you can't run a web server or mail server - in fact, any sort of server that allows clients to connect.

So while it makes little sense to host your home page on your home computer using a broadband connection, always-on internet opens up possibilities for various technologies to establish themselves on the internet. Internet phones, web services, virtual private networks and alerts all depend on always-on internet, and the spread of the technology should encourage more innovation in this area.

How do you get broadband?
At the moment four types of technology offer broadband internet connection: cable, wireless, asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) and satellite.

Cable is the oldest of these technologies. While cable TV never gained huge popularity due to the superiority of BSkyB's satellite service, it is alive and well and providing broadband internet connections in many homes. In a sense cable is the only 'true' broadband. If you have cable broadband, you have a high-capacity cable installed at your house and, in principle, the amount of data that can be transmitted on it is limited only by the amount you are prepared to pay. In practice, however, the data rate is limited because users share a local 'branch' of the cable, so the cable capacity is not dedicated to one user. Your TV service also takes a chunk of the bandwidth.

Wireless broadband is the newest and, some say, most promising option. To put it simply, this makes local wireless network technology work over a greater distance. An aerial on top of the exchange is all that is needed to link the local area to broadband - no new wires, cables or satellite dishes. While this certainly looks promising, it is currently in the experimental phase. If it's available in your area and you're feeling brave, it is worth a try.