Article Computers Technology

So we’ve finally left the era of the Internet crawling along
taking forever to load anything – we’ve entered the high speed age
where we can rely on the ‘net to be there and get us the information we want
and quickly. Home internet connections today can be ridiculously fast – they start at 256K
and go all the way up to 30Mb in some places.

If you’re not quite sure what I just said
then it might be time for a quick broadband crash course. Basically
broadband works by taking your phone line (or your cable
or some other communication method)
and transmitting many different signals over it at the same time. So once a line has been adapted to broadband standards
more data can ‘fit’ through it. The amount of data that can get through each second is measured in bits
specifically kilobits (K
meaning a thousand bits) and megabits (Mb
a million bits).

You should note at this point
however
that there are 8 bits in a byte. That means that your 8Mb broadband connection translates into an actual download speed of 1MB (megabyte) per second. This means that the average 5MB song would take you about 5 seconds to download
and the average 700MB movie would take just over ten minutes – a fast connection
I’m sure you’ll agree
but nothing compared to the fastest out there.

At this point
the most common question people ask is exactly what speed of broadband they need. The answer depends on all sorts of things about you
but two are the most important. Firstly
do you use the Internet a lot? If you just check your email occasionally
you can safely go for 256K
but if you wish you could just move there then a faster connection is likely in order. Secondly
how patient are you? With a little patience
it’s not as much of a hassle to wait for things to download on slow broadband as it is on dial-up
as the connection is so much more stable and can be easily left unsupervised. If you want everything and you want it right now
however
a faster line might again be better for you.