|| Note: See the extensive Glossary and List of Acronyms in our Resources section: Telecommunications Acronyms and Glossary Resources Also: Send us your glossary terms. We need your glossary suggestions, and terminology questions to help us demystify the language of telecommunications. info@telecomVT.org |
Broadband Glossary Broadband Generally refers to connections to the Internet with much greater speed than you can get with a modem and phone line. There is no specific definition of the speed of a "broadband" connection but in general any Internet connection using DSL, wireless connections like WiMax, EV-DO from a mobile phone provider or from a cable-TV provider may be considered a broadband connection. The e-state initiative calls for all Vermonters to have access to the Internet at a speed of at least 1.5 megabits per second by the end of 2010. But be assured that by then that will not be considered lightening fast. URL The Universal Resource Locator, which usually goes by the acronym "URL", is the address of a website. "www.telecomVT.org" is a URL. Speeds Communications over the Internet are two way. One way is from your computer to the Internet (UP from your computer). The other way is from the Internet to your computer (DOWN). This means that you type in a request such as the few letters of a URL. You send it UP, and DOWN comes the big picture of the website. You click on a button on that page and send a small request UP. DOWN comes what you asked for. Sophisticated web sites do this all the time as they analyze your requests and, as Amazon does, check your past history with their company and send you back different information than they send me. In theory 1.5MegaBITS per second means that a 10 megabyte file could be downloaded in a minute and a half. In practice - assuming the ISP has good connections to the Internet and that there is not severe latency ala satellite, most websites will look snappy at that speed (today); music downloads will take a tolerable wait; YouTube will work well; downloading high quality video will take a long time; and email will work well except with huge attachments. If you regularly upload lots of pictures or other large files, check the upload speed with your ISP before signing up. It is often much less than the download speed. Fixed broadband and wireless broadband Fixed broadband is a high speed connection to the Internet that is attached to a building. I can use it when home or at the office but it's not much use in the car or while hiking. Fixed broadband access is provided today by a cable company or from a phone company that offers DSL. Access to wireless broadband on the other hand requires a wireless provider that has a network of towers or antennas in your area that sends radio messages between those antennas. You will probably get a slower speed of access from these and they require an appropriate appliance for access. That could be a computer, Blackberry type of device, car, high end mobile phone, or in the future your pace maker or jacket. There are various kinds of wireless access. One is nomadic...that means that you can go anywhere in the area and open your computer and log on. A much more advanced type lets you stay connected while driving or walking from place to place. Broadband over cable Your cable-TV provider is most likely now selling you Internet access. The speed and quality of this access is very good. This is a form of fixed broadband access. It is also a technology likely to improve over time as our need for higher speeds increases. DSL DSL means digital subscriber line. It is the technology used by the landline phone providers, like Verizon and FairPoint, to offer high speed access to the Internet over their existing telephone network. There is discussion as to whether this technology will be able to keep up with the ever growing need for increased speed. But today it is doing the job and technology may help its shelf life. The speed that a user gets depends on the state of the copper network in the neighborhood and how long of a line the phone company has in. DSL is like a fixed amount of water going through a leaky pipe...it peters out toward the end of the line. Check with your phone company to see what speeds they offer and ask pointed questions about how much the[y] will guarantee you at your house. Wireless Internet access Wireless Internet Service Providers or WISPs provide this service. You receive it at your house through a small box attached to a particular location on your property. That box has to aim at the antenna that is sending the radio signal. The technology requires a “line of sight" installation. Even trees between the two points will adversely affect the quality or even ability to receive the signal. Again the speed that is advertised is not always what you get because your neighbors are also aiming at the antenna with their boxes and at 5 at night when everyone signs on...the signal can get weak. Ask WISPs what they guarantee and what they expect the average speed to be. WISPs are using a flavor of something called WiMax. It is getting faster and more reliable all the time and is not expensive. Wireless Internet access from your mobile phone company Mobile phone companies are now offering access to the Internet over their networks along with the mobile voice calls you are used to. You can access the Internet on your mobile phone or you can purchase a card the size of a credit card that has a small antenna on it and put it into a slot in your computer and the computer will communicate with the Internet thru that antenna and the closest cell tower. This service is more expensive than Internet access over the cable, DSL or from a WISP and it is not lightening fast but the technology is improving yearly. If you have use of a mobile phone and it shows an icon that says that you have EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) availability...this will work for you. EV-DO is the technology used to access the Internet over a mobile phone networks using a very fast data exchange system used by CDMA cell phone systems such as the VerizonWireless network in Vermont. GSM networks like that of UNICEL use a different technology to send and receive data but it supports the same type of applications. Internet access from a satellite company If nothing else is available there is always a satellite. Internet access from a satellite is slow. It does not perform well in rain or snow. It will not get better because of the distance that the message must travel round trip to send and receive. Although signals travel at the speed of light, the distances are still great and result is a second or so delay. It travels at the speed of light...and no one has been able make that faster than it is. But today that may be your only option if you live at the end of a long dirt road. Voice over the Internet or VoIP VoIP is a way of making voice calls offered by Internet service providers (ISPs). It is also offered by companies like Vonage, Skype and a growing number of small companies. Cable companies and companies like Vonage require a small box that you plug your regular phone into. Other companies like Skype require that you have a headset with a microphone and talk into your computer. The technology turns your voice into packets of information that look to the Internet or data network like email or web browsing packets. They travel to another person with a VoIP service and remain as data packets. If they are going to a traditional phone they hit a device on the network that changes the signal from Internet protocol data to the type of data that the traditional phone network uses. These calls are much less expensive but susceptible to the quality of your Internet connection. WiMax WiMax is a standards-based wireless technology that provides high-throughput broadband connections over long distances using fixed, local radio cells to provide high-speed Internet access over the air. WiMax can be used for last mile broadband connections, Hotspots, cellular connections to the main highways of the Interstate and high-speed enterprise connectivity. It is the follow up to the WiFi technology that was designed to work within buildings...like what one can use at Starbucks.
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