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What is High Speed Internet? |
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Written by Jonathan Green
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Answering the question given in the title is simple - high speed Internet is an Internet connection operating at high speed. It’s actually a bit more complicated. High speed Internet or commonly known as broadband is something that varies. What was used to be called high speed Internet 3 years ago is not considered high speed anymore. The speed varies over time, according to the FCC, the connection that has a minimum upload of 200kb/s and download of 768kb/s can be called broadband connection. So a DSL connection of 5mb/s may not be considered as high speed, but even that depends on your point of view.
With the ever changing standards in mind there are always a few synonyms for high speed Internet and these are the types of Internet connections used:
- DSL
- Cable
- Satellite
- Wireless
There are few more types of connection but these four are most commonly used.
DSLDSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, has already been a standard form of communication technology used in the last few years. A splitter is used to divide the two signals, one coming from your modem and one from your phone. The downside of DSL is the upload speed. While downloading can be very fast, uploading can be very time taking. The upload speed can be so limited that you will have trouble sending a file of a size of lets say 10mb, while downloading only takes half a minute or so. This is one of the reasons why this type of Internet is usually only used at people’s homes and companies that need t upload files frequently usually stay away from it.
CableCable Internet is another type of connection that people often choose to use to connect themselves to the Internet at home. Cable Internet makes use of the television cable. The connection is integrated into the cable TV infrastructure and operates on a similar level as DSL. Unlike DSL which can only be used 3 to 5 miles away from their provider, cable Internet can be used up to 100 miles away from the provider’s facility. All you need is a cable modem and a cable TV. The speed of cable Internet is far beyond the reach of DSL. Downstream can be as much as 400mb/s and upstream can be 20mb/s. Most companies use cable Internet for a reason. are mostly used for companies. Home based cable Internet usually goes from 100mb/s downstream to 5mb/s upstream, which again is much faster than DSL.
SatelliteYou probably know what satellite Internet is. What most people don’t understand is why people use it when it’s so expensive. Most of the people that use satellite Internet have no other choice; their area is not connected to any land source of Internet like cable or DSL. The other reason is the speed of satellite Internet; satellite Internet can have an amazing download speed that can go up to 1GB/s. On the other hand, the upload speed is limited mostly to 20mb/s, which is still great. There are however latency and coverage issues. Latency can sometimes be great because of the movement of the satellite and weather conditions, all these also influence the coverage. Hardly anybody uses satellite Internet for home use. It has a high latency, high costs and it usually has a restriction on download, and this why most people choose one of the other options.
WirelessWireless Internet connection is fairly popular lately, but it has a lot of problems and a lot of weaknesses. The price is in the same range as DSL, but the speed can be higher or slower. Wireless connections are based on radio wave transmissions and the idea behind it is great, but there are quite a few complications as well. An antenna needs to be set up so a user can connect to wireless Internet, and the antenna can only receive signals if it has a clear line of sight. So any hill, building or anything else that might block the direct view will cause a low connectivity, low speed and in some cases give the user no connectivity at all. Any other wireless device may interfere with the signal and like cable Internet, if too much users connect via the same antenna the bandwidth will be very limited.
Although it looks like each type of Internet has its flaws and its benefits the decision is mostly based on stability. The only types of Internet that can guarantee certain stability are DSL and Cable, and even this depends on the provider. So what is high speed Internet? It’s not just the speed that counts - it’s everything else that is included with your connection like the speed, download and upload capabilities, the stability of your connection, latency, security issues, limitations etc. What is high speed Internet and what are the most common types of high speed Internet connection.
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