BROADBAND – THE NEW ERA

The term broadband means simultaneously transmitting multiple signals and traffic types and having wide bandwidth characteristics. Coax, optical fiber, twisted pair or wireless are the various medium. In contrast, communication system through a single channel in which information is transported is a baseband.Preceding to the invention of home broadband, the only means by which one could access the Internet and download files such as songs, movies, e-mails, etc was dial-up Internet access. To download one song (3.5 MB) it would take anywhere from 10–30 minutes and to download a movie (700 MB) over 28 hours. Dial-up Internet was very inconvenient, it was worth the cost as it would blight the use of the home telephone line, and users would contemplate whether or not to get a second line. The common use of broadband didn't begin rising until 2001, although the cable modem was introduced in 1997. Broadband connection helped to download faster than on dial-up. As the new technologies were growing, it was becoming difficult for most of the customers to afford this broadband. However, this high costs didn’t matter for long, as by 2004 it was considered affordable by most of the average American household. Since its start, the available speeds of connections continue to rise and strengthened. Different criteria for "broad " have been applied in different contexts and at different times. The term broadband’s origin is in physics, acoustics and radio systems engineering, where broadband and wideband were used similarly. However, the term became popularized through the 1990s as an indistinct marketing term for Internet access.