What is Broadband ?

Broadband is a term referred to some technologies that offers high speed internet connectivity depending on framework and environment. In general terms broadband referred to communication technology that can employ different channels of data or data streams by using any medium (air or Physical). Broadband is a term for wide band. It defines the speed of data transfer rate.

Often this question arises in the minds of common folks that what is broadband? The literal meaning of broadband is a wide band capturing the signals and delivering it as an independent bandwidth channels. As term broad tells that it is related to something bigger something vast still it limits are undefined. Roughly for about 7-10 years, you are seeing advertisements regarding the publicity of broadband. They are boasting about so many things like, speed, phone calls accessibility, cheaper, download acceleration etc.

Broadband basically works through its bandwidth. As you increase the width of the band, so you get the speedy access to the internet. Broadband it-self usually refer to services that offer high bandwidth over the medium of fiber optic, DSL, cellular services or broadcasting services.

Purpose of Broadband

Now a day internet usage statistics shows that a large number of users shifted to Broadband internet from conventional dial-up service.  Because Broadband offers a high speed internet services to public to private and enable to use different portable and desktop devices for the connectivity.  ISP’s usually offer broadband services via DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), fiber optic, cable services and other cellular and wireless mediums.  Wireless broadband services are the only WWAN (Wireless Wide Area Network) that can be used anywhere within a service range or coverage area.  Wireless modem is normally used to connect to the wireless broadband internet services and to create a local area network for sharing purposes.  A term “hotspot” is referred to a gateway that enables a person to connect to the wireless network.

Broadband internet can transport different kinds of data such as (Audio, Video, Text, Images) at same time as well as streaming videos. Broadband internet also allows the users to download and upload multimedia content at very high speed depending on the speed offered by the Internet Service Provider (ISP). However ISP’s uses different technologies to deliver broadband internet and packages to suit customer requirements.  Broadband internet services over fiber optic offers more reliability and high data rates but it is bit expensive as compare to DSL and cable services. These ISP’s offer broadband internet services in different packages and speeds as per the customer requirements. Some of service providers bundle broadband with other services like basic telephony, TV subscriptions and other services depending on the technology they offered.

Wireless Broadband

Wireless broadband is high-speed Internet service via wireless technology. Wireless broadband is available in Internet cafés, local “hot spots” within many cities, private businesses and many homes. The advantage of wireless broadband is that the computer receiving the Internet signal need not be tethered by an Ethernet or network cable to the broadband modem or router. A wireless broadband modem receives the service and transmits it via radio waves to the immediate surrounding area. Any computer equipped with wireless capacity within receiving distance can pick up the signal, making the Internet ‘portable.’

The most common way to take advantage of wireless broadband is by using a laptop computer. You will need a wireless broadband adapter, commonly available in a portable computer (PC) card format. This is a small credit-card style device that slips into an external port on the laptop. With a little configuration of the software, the laptop will start searching for a wireless broadband signal. Once detected, a handshake is required between the laptop and the network. If the network is not protected by a secure password or other firewall protocol, the laptop will be able to connect to the wireless broadband signal.