Broadband - The options07 July 2005
Over the last few years the rise of broadband has been colossal, with BT alone surpassing five million connections. However, broadband is not a single technology and simply refers to a high-speed Internet connection. There are in fact four main broadband technology types to choose from. Here we look at the options and what benefits and drawbacks each offer.
ADSL
ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is the most popular form of Internet connection with more than 95 per cent of homes and businesses in the UK now connected to ADSL enabled exchanges. This system uses your existing phone line to provide a high-speed Internet access. As only a small proportion of your phone line's capacity is used for voice data in the tradition way the rest can be utilised for digital data transfers by your computer.
The advantages of ADSL is that you can leave your Internet connection on and still use the phone line for voice calls and new wiring is rarely required. Speeds can be high (up to 2mb on BT - 40 times faster than dial up) and this method often offers good value.
One of the main disadvantages of ADSL is that it works better closer to the central exchange so if your business is in a more remote area it may not be the fastest option and may not even be available. It is also faster at receiving than sending data to the Internet, though SDSL (Symmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) offers equal speeds.
Cable
After ADSL, cable is perhaps the most popular broadband connection. Rather than using phone lines cable broadband uses fibre optic cables shared with a television cable line. The main benefit of cable broadband connection is that as fibre optics can handle a very large amount of bandwidth so connections can be very fast (currently up to 24mb). Also, unlike ADSL, its performance doesn't depend on distance from the central cable exchange.
However, cable has drawbacks in that the current fibre optic infrastructure in the UK is limited and extra work and equipment may be required to connect to the service.
Satellite
Satellite does not use phone lines or cables so it is much more suitable for some remote rural businesses. However, some satellite-Internet service providers still require you to have a dial-up or cable modem connection for the data you send to the Internet.
Download speeds for satellite broadband are generally slower than ADSL or cable and upload speeds are much slower. As it's a system based on line of sight heavy rains and physical objects such as trees can affect service.
Wireless
A more recent addition to the broadband family are wireless access services such as Wi-Max. Wi-Max uses the microwave radio frequency to offer broadband connections over the airwaves. Its main benefit is for rural area as it does not rely on line of sight and can reach distances of up to 50 km. However, the technology is still in its infancy as a commercial application and therefore its availability is currently limited.
