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As recently as a year or two ago, the number of people who could reliably use online video services was small. Now, video services such as youtube.com are among the most popular sites on the internet. This is all thanks to Broadband Internet services. Downloading video is just not practical using a dial-up connection. With a broadband connection, however, downloading video or other bandwidth intensive content from the Internet is practical.

Broadband Internet

Broadband Internet is commonly used to describe high-speed Internet access, which means any Internet access service that is faster than 256 kbit/s, or at least four times faster than a user would get using a dial-up connection over a digital phone line.

What are the Different Types of Broadband?

There are two main methods of providing broadband Internet access: via a a cable modem , and via a Digital Subscriber Line, or DSL modem.

A cable modem allows users to get a high-speed connection to the Internet over their cable television connection. Because the cable television infrastructure is already designed to carry large amounts of traffic quickly, you can potentially get a very good Internet connection using a cable modem.

While a cable modem connection uses your existing television cable connection, a DSL modem uses a standard telephone line. What makes a DSL connection so useful is that it sends signals over the telephone line at such a high frequency that it does not disturb the normal operation of the phone line. This means that you can get fast access to the Internet and use your phone line at the same time.

What does the Future hold for Broadband?

A number of new services will be widely available in North America within the next few years that will offer an even faster connection than cable or DSL modems. One system, that is already being used in East Asia is VDSL, or Very high data rate Digital Subscriber Line. Another exciting technology is power-line Internet, or Broadband over power lines (BPL). BPL lets you get a broadband Internet connection over high-voltage power lines. While this technology is exciting in terms of its potential reach – it's very hard to find a location that is not services by a power line – there are still some concerns over signal strength that need to be addressed before BPL can be used widely.

Getting the Best Broadband Connection

Cable modem connections are generally faster than DSL modem connections. However, this does not always mean you should always get a cable modem. If there are going to be a lot of people on the same network, a DSL modem will handle the crowd better than the cable modem. Also, you have to consider the total package; because existing cable companies often provide cable modems, you often have to subscribe to cable packages just to get an Internet connection. This may make cable modems more expensive than DSL modems for comparable services.