What is broadband?

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albert123

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a while ago there was a discussion on "the definition of broadband".

from a technical point of view, isnt broadband just an indication of the technology used? for example using more than one frequency at any given time thus allowing more than one function on a single copper line? and has nothing to do with how fast the actual line can carry data, but in HOW it carries the data?
 
Broadband in general refers to data transmission where multiple pieces of data are sent simultaneously to increase the effective rate of transmission. In network engineering this term is used for methods where two or more signals share a medium.

From : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband

Your reference to multiple at the same time is on the nose.
 
allyoucaneat said:
http://home.telkomsa.net/rudolph/icasa-adsl.pdf
Page 5 of the Government Gazette, 27 July 2005
Broadband is an always-on data connection that is able to support various interactive services, and has the capability of a minimum download speed of 256 Kbps.
Click to expand...

no, thats my point, that is not true, broadband refers to the technology, not the speed, the part of support various services is true, but not the speed, speed is irrelavent.

whether a car can do 120 or 300km/h, still a car cause it has 4 wheels and doors and roof
 
@albert ...
Agree'd, but the media buggered that up long ago when they started advertising broadband connections without knowing what it means.
So a "new" definition had to be made to stop the abuse of the word by the media, hence the governmint's approach which I must say is not too bad.

What the media was doing was:
"Buy our broadband product for only R50 a month"
which was like saying:
"But our painted product for only R50 a month"
and the consumers were getting all confused.
 
stoke said:
@albert ...
Agree'd, but the media buggered that up long ago when they started advertising broadband connections without knowing what it means.
So a "new" definition had to be made to stop the abuse of the word by the media, hence the governmint's approach which I must say is not too bad.
Click to expand...
they should shoot anybody in the press who misleads the consumers, most consumers believe everything they hear, you can sell anything as long as you can market it properly
 
As in everything theres a technical and/or legal definition and a laymans definition. When I think of broadband I think of it as:
1) A connection that 'able to support various interactive services
2) Always on.
3) Fast

Now from that point of view:
1) Is it "able to support various interactive services"? Well yes it does but not very well if one takes into consideration Telkoms speed offerings and shaping. You cant play BF2 on one PC while someone is Skyping on another etc. Like that ad that was deemed misleading when the whole house was doing amazing things with their Telkom ADSL.
2) It isnt always on, it resets every 24 hours last I heard. Altho I cant say ive noticed it.
3) Fast? Well in world terms 1Mbps, Telkoms best offering isnt fast at all.

So do I think Telkom offers a broadband service? I think they offer a poor BB service.
 
i wont disagree that it leaves a lot to be desired, but its still broadband, even the 192k, you can however play your hectic game, and skype, skype uses avg 10k/s during a call, and you can still make a normal phone call, more than one in fact, and send fax's at the same time. which is a whole lot more than you can do on a 56k dial up line
 
allyoucaneat said:
Broadband is an always-on data connection that is able to support various interactive services, and has the capability of a minimum download speed of 256 Kbps.
Click to expand...


indeed. i.e. not available in RSA... :(
 
hj2k_x said:
indeed. i.e. not available in RSA... :(
Click to expand...
adsl is always on, the time it goes down to reset is a few seconds, of which i think most people have never actually noticed, download speed is 1024k? what more you want? a boat?
 
I think the Wikipedia definition for Broadband is too focus on cable and DSL (i.e. "two or more signals share a medium"). This would rule out 3G and wireless as broadband.

When you look at the definition of Narrowband on Wikipedia, you can see it refers to something other than Internet and what the general accepted use of narrowband means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrowband
Narrowband can also be used with the audio spectrum to describe sounds which occupy a narrow range of frequencies. In telephony narrowband is usually considered to cover frequencies 300–3400 Hz.
Click to expand...
 
albert123 said:
adsl is always on, the time it goes down to reset is a few seconds, of which i think most people have never actually noticed, download speed is 1024k? what more you want? a boat?
Click to expand...

for the prices we pay albert, i want a lot more!!

Like a minimum speed of 1024 and then for the lines to actually run that fast, most of the time at least!

How about reasonable caps? And i was not talking about the IP reset that occurs every 24hrs which can be a bit of a bother but i was talking about general downtime. Be it Telskom, SAIX(also basically Telskom) or the much-maligned IS, not a day goes by on these forums where someone isnt complaining about on of these services being down. Be it international, local , terrible latencies etc.

AFAIAC braodband has a LONG was to go before we can call it thus.
 
hj2k_x said:
for the prices we pay albert, i want a lot more!!

Like a minimum speed of 1024 and then for the lines to actually run that fast, most of the time at least!

How about reasonable caps? And i was not talking about the IP reset that occurs every 24hrs which can be a bit of a bother but i was talking about general downtime. Be it Telskom, SAIX(also basically Telskom) or the much-maligned IS, not a day goes by on these forums where someone isnt complaining about on of these services being down. Be it international, local , terrible latencies etc.

AFAIAC braodband has a LONG was to go before we can call it thus.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but then i must be the only customer who hardly ever have my adsl not working, all 7 lines never go off, the only time they dont work is when my Isp *coff*DataAmateurs*coff* mess something up. my line always works at 1024, depending on what you download and from there, remember you cant blame the adsl line if you are downloading something from a slow server hey?

terrible latencies and troublesome IS connections, is not telkom's fault though, IS should make sure they can provide what they promise, no point blaming telkom, customers pay THEM...

you dont make hotdogs, and when customers complain about stale buns, say ja its not my fault its the bakery's fault, then sort your bakery out, or find another one, or dont sell hotdogs in the first place if you cant do it properly.

:cool:

what i would agree with though, the std cap of 3gb is very low.
 
albert123 said:
Perhaps, but then i must be the only customer who hardly ever have my adsl not working, all 7 lines never go off, the only time they dont work is when my Isp *coff*DataAmateurs*coff* mess something up. my line always works at 1024, depending on what you download and from there, remember you cant blame the adsl line if you are downloading something from a slow server hey?

terrible latencies and troublesome IS connections, is not telkom's fault though, IS should make sure they can provide what they promise, no point blaming telkom, customers pay THEM...

you dont make hotdogs, and when customers complain about stale buns, say ja its not my fault its the bakery's fault, then sort your bakery out, or find another one, or dont sell hotdogs in the first place if you cant do it properly.

:cool:

what i would agree with though, the std cap of 3gb is very low.
Click to expand...

Some interesting opinions there albert!

From what i read u are seemingly quite happy with broadband in RSA then?? If so, u are a rarity, especially on this site :)

As far as IS problem being their own and noone else's- to some extent i do agree with u. The overselling of accounts when their bandwidth allocation was already maxxed out was pretty dumb IMO, but in the end Telkom is at the route of most of the evils in this country when it comes to telecoms...

A monopoly such as Telkom is never good for the country's economic outlook. Hence the high prices and poor services and ridicluously slow speeds of 'broadband' in this country.

Until the monopoly ends( and i dont mean by the SNO- we need more than one competitor otherwise we will just have the oligopoly of collusion that we see in the cellphone industry), small, independent ISPs will find it hard to rival telkom's offerings, which is also really bad when it comes to hopefully improoving things telecoms-related...
 
hj2k_x said:
Some....
Click to expand...

dont get me wrong, i agree that based on what other countries have its like we dont even have any idea what broadband is. take like that 100mbps dsl in hongkong? they propably end up paying same as what we pay now for a 192k line? i'm not sure. but point is we are far behind,

i'm no telkom fan, but from a business view, imagine you are owners, you can charge people 100 times more than anybody else in the world, you can provide almost nothing to them for that price, and pocket the profit, sure it wont last forever, but in the meantime you make millions every month?

i agree that the SNO will not reduce the price by one cent, it will merely be a matter of "who can launch first" (frown @ mtn). we will have to wait and see, but i doubt that with this strike going on that telkom will make anybody happy with price reductions...
 
albert123 said:
dont get me wrong, i agree that based on what other countries have its like we dont even have any idea what broadband is. take like that 100mbps dsl in hongkong? they propably end up paying same as what we pay now for a 192k line? i'm not sure. but point is we are far behind,
Click to expand...
Agreed.

i'm no telkom fan
Click to expand...
Good to hear!!

, but from a business view, imagine you are owners, you can charge people 100 times more than anybody else in the world, you can provide almost nothing to them for that price, and pocket the profit, sure it wont last forever, but in the meantime you make millions every month?
Click to expand...

I agree with this as well. But i'd like to think that if i were in such a position of absolute dominance in some industry one day that instead of trying to squeeze another few cents out of what is in many ways still a third-world county i would look at other goals. Much like mark shuttleworth- he made his millions and instead of seeking more and more money ala Billy Gates he is now trying to help the country and its people with free software like ubuntu and job-creating initiatives and the like.

Don't get me wrong, i am a capatalist through and through(studying Economics and Law ATM...) but i am also a patriot. This country has so much promise, which is being ruined by the greed of a few.

i agree that the SNO will not reduce the price by one cent, it will merely be a matter of "who can launch first" (frown @ mtn). we will have to wait and see, but i doubt that with this strike going on that telkom will make anybody happy with price reductions...
Click to expand...

this is a bit short-sighted on telkom's part. Basic economic theory- lower prices= more customers = more profits. But i dont expect telkom's management to work that one out. Lower prices?!!!! No way!!!

:p

*sighs
 
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