Bandwidth Explained

A simple way to understand bandwidth is to think of a highway. Bandwidth would be the number of lanes on the road and internet traffic would be the amount of vehicles on the highway. If you car is the only one on the road, you can speed to your destination, but if you're caught in the middle of rush hour, you'll have a hard time getting there.

Connection Technology	Explained	Speed	Physical Medium	Comments
Dial-up Access	Uses a modem and regular telephone line.	1200 bps to 56 Kbps	Twisted pair (regular phone lines)	Cheap but slow compared with other technologies. Bad lines may reduce speed!
ISDN	Dedicated telephone line and router required.	64 Kbps to 128 Kbps	Twisted pair	Not available everywhere but becoming more widespread. An ISDN line costs slightly more than a regular telephone line, but you get 2 phone lines from it. 56K ISDN is much faster than a 56K dialup line
Cable Internet	Special cable modem and cable line required.	512 Kbps to 20 Mbps	Coaxial cable; in some cases telephone lines used for upstream requests.	Must have existing cable access in area.
ADSL/DSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL is the same as DSL)	This internet technology uses the unused digital portion of a regular copper telephone line to transmit and receive information. ADSL is asymmetric since it receives at 6 to 8 Mbps per second but can only send data at 64 Kbps.	128 Kbps to 8 Mbps	Twisted pair (used as a digital, broadband medium)	Does not impact normal telephone usage. Bandwidth is dedicated, not shared as with cable. Bandwidth is affected by the distance from the network hubs. Must be within 5 km (3.1 miles) of telephone company switch. Limited availability. Not networkable
Wireless (LMCS)	Need a high speed multi-point communications system (LMCS) network and wireless transmitter/receiver.	30 Mbps or more	Airwaves Requires outside antenna.	Can be used for high speed data, broadcast TV and wireless telephone service.
Broadband over Power (BPL)	Uses your electric wires to connect to the internet.	500Kbps to 3Mbps	Ordinary power lines	New technology but not available everywhere. Low equipment costs, especially if you are using the home version available at BestBUY, Circuit City and more.
Satellite	latest have two-way satellite access which removes the need to have a phone line, look for this type.	6 Mbps or more	Airwaves Requires outside antenna.	Bandwidth is not shared. Satellite companies are set to join the new and future technologies such as Internet TV Latency is typically high Some connections require an existing Internet service account. Setup fees can range from $300-$1200.
Frame Relay	Provides a party line type connection to the net and requires an expensive FRAD (Frame Relay Access Device)	56 Kbps to 1.544 Mbps (or more, depending on connection type)	Various	May cost less than ISDN in some locations. Limited availability. Uses one of the connection types below, fract T1 to OC3
Fractional T1 (Flexible DS1)	There are 23 channels in a T1, a Frac uses just a few of these.	64 Kbps to 1.544 Mbps	Twisted-pair or coaxial cable	Not as costly as a T1 and lets you grow as needed using 64 Kbps increments.
T1	Special lines and equipment (DSU/CSU and router) required.	1.544 Mbps	Twisted-pair, coaxial cable, or optical fiber	Video conferencing, large graphics and file transfers Large businesses and ISP will have at least this Expensive
T3	ISP uses for Internet infrastructure connections.	44.736 Mbps	Optical fiber
OC-1	ISP uses for Internet infrastructure connections.	51.84 Mbps	Optical fiber
OC-3	Large companies use this for their backbone (as well as the internet)	155.52 Mbps	Optical fiber

Bandwidth Explained

Bandwidth technologies made easy