Talk:Broadband Internet access

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Internet Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Internet, an attempt to better organise information in articles related to the Internet. For more information, visit the project page.
B This article has been rated as B-class on the class scale.
High This article has been rated as high-importance on the importance scale.

Contents

[edit] Rural Discussion

The section on types of broadband seems to lean towards rural areas. The discussion centers on things like availability in rural area etc. This is a general encyclopedia, not "high speed internet for the rural user", therefore including that discussion in the general description is not acceptable. It should at the very least be in its own section, or perhaps article. There is also 0 mention of cable DOCSIS systems, the prevailing form of high speed internet.

[edit] Satellite Internet

We just got WildBlue satellite internet service a couple days ago. We're paying $45 a month for the service. Installation and equipment ($299), plus the first month's service, and other fees and taxes all came to $371 for us. Where we live in the country we can't really get anything else - we live too far from DSL, there's no cable service out here, we don't have line of site for high speed wireless. So far it works really good for us, even with latency.
JesseG 04:39, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's VERY inaccurate to say that satellite broadband is "unsuitable for applications such as multiplayer Internet gaming". Plenty of turn-based Internet games allow you several seconds to perform an action during each turn. Some games (Yahoo Pool, for example) allow the player to take an UNLIMITED amount of time between actions. And even among more time-sensitive games, some of the games deal with latency issues better than others.

Maybe it would be better to simply document the typical latency along with a caution that this latency may affect the playability of SOME Internet games. SleepyheadKC 20:44, February 3, 2006 (UTC)

I have edited this section. Using personal experience and the information cited in the two replies before me. I think it is now a little more suitable. I have mentioned how it is still possible to play games online but it may be unsuitable for those requiring real-time user input. I have also cited certain exceptions to this rule. In particular, turn based games and real time strategy. I am not perfectly happy with my wording, but it at least serves to clarify and expand on gaming over satellite connections. It's not impossible, under certain circumstances it's totally unnoticeable but it often turns out to be less than ideal. Feedback on my changes would be appreciated. --Jetlaw 15:13, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Downloading & Online Games

Can anyone tell me playing online games and downloading programmes and softwares constitute the same thing? Because if somebody's paying $45 a month for broadband will he or she be charged extra for downloading or even playing online games if there's restriction to downloading to certain level? Sisney dude 18:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] KaBand Satellite Gaming

It appears that MMORPGs such as Diablo 2, Guild Wars, and World of Warcraft slow down much less often than 56k with Wildblue connection of 1.5 Mbits. [Diablo 2]] is very playable over 56k so it's even better with Wild Blue. My theory is the node activity is turn based so node locations stats data aren't shared as frequent as a first person shooter. There is slow down in odd times in online first person shooters (because of the unconsistant 256 kbit upload speed). First Person shooters have to consistantly share node location, weapon, direction of fire pm;ome. The point is I find MMORPGs playable over Wildblue or KaBand satellite. Renegadeviking 07:17, December 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Broadband Elsewhere?

A great deal of this article seems to apply to the United States only. It is interesting, nonetheless, but it does present a distinct bias. I am not knowledgable enough to edit it, but I would like to see more global information here.


reaction Engels: It not only in the United States. It's also being used in Holland. Broadband is the term for a high speed internet. It's express in bps(bits per second). Most of the time it's in Kbps(kilo bits per seconde) and Mbps(Mega bits per second). But it could be more in the future.

reactie Nederland: Breedband is eigelijk alleen een term voor een hoge internet snelheid. Dit word uitgedrukt in bps(bits per seconde). De meesten hebben een internet snelheid van Kbps(Kilo Bits per seconde) en Mbps(Mega bits per seconde), maar dit kan ook nog meer worden in de toekomst. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.65.112.183 (talk) 12:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How about Ethernet?

I think fiber/Ethernet as a last mile technology is pretty important. You get 10 + 10 Mbit/s for 50 USD a month over here in Sweden. And you get 100 + 100 for 90 dollars. --Jan Tångring 21:54, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've stuck in an analogy to a water pipe, where a modem is a skinny pipe, and broadband is a fat pipe. My understanding is that the speed of either is about the same (it's just electrons flying along a wire), and I think it's somewhat misleading that broadband in its various forms is referred to as "high-speed Internet", in the same way that it would be misleading to call a big drainage culvert a "high-speed water pipe". (If my technical understanding is wrong, someone please point it out.) -- Wapcaplet 20:15, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't think the term speed refers to the velocity of the electrons, it refers to the rate of transfer in bytes per unit time. Nevertheless your analogy is useful. Tuwile (talk) 11:43, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure broadband does give a pretty decent latency improvement also over dial-up - so yes it is actually faster as well as wider. I'm not entirely sure why or how this is though, so I'm not rewriting the article. Anyone else? -- davedx 19/7/04

  • That is probably true, but (and again, I'm no expert either) that would only matter for the last stretch of connection between you and your ISP; from there on out, it's likely to be a high-bandwidth connection anyway, regardless of whether you have broadband or dialup. So the latency difference would only affect that small part of the route the data takes between you and the Internet. If I had a better understanding of this, I would love to make a nice illustration, carrying the water pipe analogy further: latency means longer pipes, regardless of their diameter. -- Wapcaplet 19:17, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • But regardless of the actual specifics of which sections of the line have high latency, the point is that broadband _is_ faster as well as giving more bandwidth. That's why so many online gamers get it - not to do big downloads, but to get lower pings in games where reaction times are important.

An illustration would be cool. I might look into it ;) -- davedx 20/7

[edit] Sudden growth

This article seems to have suffered a growth spurt (maybe it hit puberty?) in the past few weeks. It could really do with some organizing, and sub-headings. I'm thinking something along the lines of:

  • "Overview", consisting of a broad (no pun intended) description of what broadband internet is, in terms most general to the layman. Articles should focus on the most widespread (though not necessarily most correct) usage of the term; we need to clearly define what "broadband internet access" means to most people: fast internet. The table of connection speeds should be moved to the top, near the overview.
  • "Technology" (or maybe just "Development"), covering the more technical details of, essentially, what "broadband internet access" means to telecommunications engineers. This is the "Well, technically, here's what broadband internet really is..." section.
  • "The global picture" (or something to that effect), giving an overview of broadband availability and usage in different regions of the globe.

Just my thoughts on it, anyway. I'll have a go at getting started; hopefully someone with better knowledge of the technical details can help tidy it up and smooth out the narrative flow. -- Wapcaplet 19:33, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Be careful of regional differences

We should take care not to apply regional bias to this article. DSL rates and pricing vary a lot between countries: in Eastern Europe and the United States, performance is low and average and prices relatively high, while Scandinavian countries and France have much higher rates at lower prices. We should try to reflect this in the article. David.Monniaux 10:18, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also, there seems to me an inconsistency between regional descriptions. Singapore is listed as having 99% penetration; but in the following section South Korea is listed at having highest penetration at 23%. I do not know enough to edit it correctly- but I do see a contradiction. DevanJedi 30 Jun 2005

[edit] Definition

Should we be using a slightly more current transfer rate - the 256 kilobits has often been called outdated on dslreports and similar sites. Should we add "in the US the FCC defines broadband as...." in lieu of it's current wording? Tawker 20:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] move Broadband issues by country

I propose to move the section Broadband issues by country to a merge with DSL around the world to form a broader article Broadband worldwide. Please discuss this in Talk:DSL around the world. --Marc Lacoste 14:23, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

done --Marc Lacoste 13:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] For the author of this article: You forgot any

At Technology section when you talk about "one of the great challenges of broadband..." this part you talk as if only at rural zones broadband access is more expensive than cities with high population density, but also we have the same problem in cities with low population density (at least in Argentina perhaps not in USA then you only talk about rural zones.

[edit] "Not really broadband"

It is evident from bandwidth that there is a perfectly standard technical meaning of "broadband" which just means "relatively high bitrate". I therefore don't see the point of the overly-technical two-paragraph rant in the intro. – Smyth\talk 16:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, my understanding is that DSL is multiplexed on different channels (from Dsl), so wouldn't that count as broadband even in the narrow definition? Strf 03:14, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

This stuff has now been removed from the intro. Oli Filth 21:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intro

I have removed the following sentence from the intro:

"Broadband" in this context refers to the larger available bitrate, and is independent of whether the carrier is analog (broadband) or digital (baseband).

Broadband in no way implies analogue, any more that digital implies baseband. What is more, a carrier is always analogue. Therefore, this sentence makes no sense. Oli Filth 11:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Powerline Broadband

I thought the powerline broadband used fibre optic in the centre of the line of cable? Wouldn't this eliminate noise as it is simply light? Oh but then you could only put it in new powerlines, cos who would replace all the powerlines to have fibre optic in them...? --203.173.221.46 13:45, 6 January 2007 (UTC) User:Nzhamstar

No, power-line networks superimpose the data signals directly onto the existing cables. No extra wires/etc. are required. Oli Filth 14:14, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Fiber Optic cables can have an issue similar to "noise" on traditional cable lines. When animals or wear and tear create holes in the protective coating, exposing the glass fibers, the extra light that penetrates can cause scrambling of the signal. Leejweb (talk) 20:06, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New OECD stats are out for December 2006

New statistics for broadband penetration in OECD countries have been published at http://www.oecd.org/document/7/0,3343,en_2649_34223_38446855_1_1_1_1,00.html . As I do not know how to incorporate stats in Wikipedia entries, I'd like to ask anyone more knowledgeable to replace the June 2006 statistics with these ones.