General Information

When people say they have broadband Internet, what they really mean is that they are enjoying high-speed Internet access – high speed in terms of data transmission, upload, and download times, and connectivity. If you compare broadband Internet with a regular dial-up connection, you certainly won’t like going back to the latter.

Broadband Internet connection has a lot of advantages. And it is not just speed – although that is the most obvious of them all. If you think you can live with dial-up’s 56 kbps transmission rate, think again. You are missing a lot on these:

1. The freedom to use your phone line while surfing. Ever wondered why you could use the phone at the same time surf the Internet using the same phone connection? It’s because the voice and data lines are separated if you are have broadband. In a dial-up connection, these two passes though the same avenue – that’s the reason nobody can contact your phone if you are busy reading your mails.

2. Simultaneous Internet usage. Do you have more than one computer at home? If you do, then you are better off using broadband to share Internet access with all your computers. Setup is not only easy; sharing bandwidth or speed with other computers won’t be a hassle either. However, if you have dial-up, there’s no other way around it than to get separate phone lines for each computer. Sharing with one phone line is possible, but you won’t like the speed you’ll get. Plus, the complicated setup is really not worth it.

3. Higher reliability. How many times are you disconnected from the Internet while working on something important with your dial-up connection? Too many times, I guess. It’s because dial-up modems are analog. They rely on pulse rate. With broadband, you experience a highly digital connection. So the packets sent are somehow consistent. There’s won’t be as frequent data overload as a dial-up modem.

4. Easy connectivity. If you were given a choice between a broadband Internet connection that’s always on and a dial up connection that isn’t, which would you choose? A broadband Internet is always on, meaning you can use it once your computer is up and running. In a dial-up connection, you need free your phone line first, wait for a dial tone, dial out, wait for the server’s response, perform modem handshake, and authorize the connection. This is how long connecting to the Internet is with dial-up. Even though these processes are automatic, it is still lengthy when compared to broadband. And do you know what happens when the server declines connection? You’ll do all those over again!