Trends in Broadband Technologies
Since the beginning of this millennium, there has been an unprecedented growth in telecom sector. This can be attributed to high demand for multimedia services such as data, voice, video, and the development of new wireless standards and service types. Businesses are continuously looking at faster and more cost effective ways to deliver services to customers. Today, there are many events taking place in the telecom industry bundling assorted technologies that are not limited to phone services. Earlier days, we were using dial-up internet access, which pertains to a telephone connection in a system of many lines shared by many users. A dial-up connection is established and maintained for limited time duration through telephone networks. But now, we have ample of options in our hand. We can easily click a button and get connected to the internet. One of the best and simplest options is, getting connected through broadband service types.
The growth of broadband networks is expected to gradually outpace landline communications because advancements in these technologies have continued to enable higher broadband speeds. As the broadband revolution continues, the ever increasing competition in the broadband service market is forcing broadband service suppliers to plan their strategies for delivery of triple play services, with voice, data and video provided by a single connection. Over recent years, as the internet and intranets have evolved, increasing requirements for bandwidth intensive applications such as peer to peer file sharing and tele-working have resulted in relentlessly increasing demands for higher broadband bandwidth provisioning. In addition, it offers a much wider reach, enabling anywhere and anytime interaction.
My aim is to touch upon various broadband services and associated technologies, which is the driving factor for new developments in telecom industry.
Broadband Services:
Integrated Broadband Services (IBBS) was founded in 2001 by Michael Ingram and Robert Buckfelder, both former executives at Prestige Cable.
Broadband internet is a new concept used as an alternative of traditional dial up connections. Broadband services provide faster access to internet (high-speed Internet access. Access is always on and it has the capacity to transmit large amount of data than the dial-up access.
According to the 802.16-2004 standards, broadband means having instantaneous bandwidth greater than around 1 MHz and supporting data rates greater than about 1.5 Mbit/s.
Let's know about how broadband services get differ from dial-up service.
- Broadband service provides higher-speed of data transmission. It allows more content to be carried through the transmission "pipeline", having download speeds of 256kbps or more; whereas a dialup service connects to the Internet through a phone line with a maximum speed of 56kbps.
- Broadband is always on. It does not block phone lines and there is no need to reconnect to network after logging off and no dialup costs are acquired.
- Dialup connection uses a built-in modem to connect and do not require a special router, whereas broadband requires a special router or modem to get connected to the internet.
- Broadband provides access to the highest quality Internet services--streaming media, VoIP (Internet phone), gaming, and interactive services that may not be technically feasible with dial-up service.
We will look into the various types of broadband technologies and its characteristics in the imminent blog...
