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Broadband is a high-speed Internet connection that provides a large bandwidth. It isconsidered a very quick connection. It is an "always-on" type of connection and cantransmit data at a much faster rate than your usual dialup connection. Broadbandalso has the added advantage of not tying up your phone line, which means you canuse the both the Internet and telephone at the same time. Broadband can be providedfrom a variety of sources, including over the top of your phone line as in ADSL oron dedicated line such as Cable or ISDN.
Typically, low-band Internet access is running up to 56kbps using a dial-up modem.Mid-band Internet is described as dialup access that operates at 64kbps or 128kbps.Standard broadband starts at 512kbps, which is about five times faster than dial-upservice. Broadband is also available at 1mbps, 1.5mbps and 2.2mbps. There arecompanies that offer broadband at 4mbps and 8mbps. The maximum possible for cable isaround 26mbps and 24mbps for ADSL. These speeds are not sold commercially becausethe cost to upgrade the telephone lines to be able to transmit data at these speedsis very high.
Downloading and streaming music and video is very quick with broadband. There are alot of websites now that are designed especially for broadband users. They haveintense integrated graphics, flash and video. Broadband is also popular for onlinegaming. Game consoles like Xbox and PS2 have broadband support included. You canthen subscribe to different types of gaming packages from your current ISP, whichmakes it possible to play Xbox and PS2 games live with other gamers over theInternet. Actually, online PC gaming has been going on since the Internet came intouse, but in the past it was difficult to do. Slow and jerky response from yourcomputer made it hard to play, and you always had to keep an eye on the time. Now,with the faster speeds of broadband, it has become much easier and is quicklygaining in popularity. Some games are now being released that require an Internetconnection to play.
The growing popularity of broadband has made it necessary for most providers to puta maximum limit on the amount of music, video and other data you can download. Thislimit can vary greatly, from as low as 1 GB up to 30 GB. Extreme users can getunlimited downloads if they wish. However, exceeding your ISP's download limitusually results in having a limited connection or no connection at all.
One of the possible futures of broadband is Internet Television. The currentbandwidth, which is the amount of data you can send and receive, is not wide enoughto provide an image that is of comparable quality to that of your standardtelevision. The ever- increasing broadband speeds will make Internet Television areality. Since you can currently download clips from the shows, music videos andother content you like, it will soon be possible to do it legally in real time.Another use of broadband is online telephony. This is software that allows you touse your computer as a telephone and talk to people from anywhere without any extracost. It is becoming commonplace, and has a higher quality or recording than atraditional telephone line. With the increase in the speeds of broadband, it maysoon replace your television and telephone, and will find its way into every home.The success of broadband is making the Internet a great resource that's easy to useand fun to access for a variety of needs.
