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High Speed Internet » Broadband Internet Access

What is High Speed or Broadband Internet?

The terms “high speed internet access” and “broadband internet access” are used fairly interchangeably these days, but they do have different meanings.

High Speed Internet

High speed internet access refers to the speed at which information is transmitted from the internet to a computer (downstream) or from the computer to the internet (upstream). The speed is measured in kilobits per second or kbit/s, take the internet speed test. Usually, high speed is considered to be anything faster than a dial-up internet connection (which is limited to less than 56 kbits/s).

Broadband Internet

Broadband internet access is, by traditional definition, the signal frequencies by which a signal (in this case, the internet) is transmitted. Generally speaking, the more broad the band, the more traffic it can carry at any given time. However, if there is a lot of traffic, then the connection can bog down (much like a freeway at rush hour). As of 2009, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) defined broadband as transmission speeds that exceed 768 kbits/s.

Although high speed internet access and broadband internet access have differing meanings, today they are used interchangeably to describe internet connections that are faster than the typical dial-up service.

The most common methods of high speed or broadband internet access are via internet service providers (ISPs), such as: