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High Speed Broadband Internet Access - A Matter of Bandwidth

DSL and cable modems allow for faster access and downloads. The benefits of more Internet speed is why broadband is booming as more users experience high speed Internet connections. In fact, the enhancements are probably the reason you are reading this article.

Bandwidth, originally an electrical engineering term that represented the total distance or range between the highest and lowest signals on the communication channel (band), has become virtually synonymous with Internet speed.

High-Speed Internet Connection

Simply stated, broadband or high-speed Internet connections provide superior modem speed because of expanded bandwidth. The increased bandwidth allows users to access the Internet remarkably faster than with a dial-up modem.

Bandwidth determines to how much information your computer can send or receive through a high-speed Internet connection. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits per second or bps. An average page containing just English words would be roughly 16,000 bits.

Need for Internet Speed

Broadband access to the Internet comes in many shapes and sizes. The most common and reliable sources that offer high-speed Internet connections are DSL or Cable Television companies. On average, bandwidth for DSL measures between 300-500 Kbps and cable modems 1.5 Mbps (a megabit equals one million bps). Businesses often use LAN connections with bandwidth ranges that reach 30 Mbps. By comparison, a great dial-up modem can move about 57,000 bits per second.

Cable Modem Basics

Millions of cable modems have already been installed from coast to coast. In most cases, cable modems connect to computers through a standard 10 Base-T Ethernet interface. "Category 5 cabling," a wire commonly used and easy to buy, is run from the cable modem to an Ethernet card in the computer. Cable companies employ their own hardware and software to support broadband connections. Since each is set up independently they cannot work together.

High Speed Internet Speedometer

Knowledge is power! A speed test can help ensure you get what you’re paying for by using sample data files to determine the performance of a high-speed Internet connection.  There are plenty of Web sites that offer free modem speed tests, but choosing to perform a test is a subject of great debate because the results are generalized. However, these provide a baseline for a high-speed Internet connection bandwidth, which is useful when tweaking your setup to optimize Internet speed.

For more information about bandwidth and high speed Internet check out these articles:

A few Web sites that test Internet connection speed: