High Speed Internet

8 Pages 2107 Words

In today’s world the bounds of information technology are being pushed
further and further every day. With Local Area Networks spanning into Wide Area Networks and globalization happening to every small business with a connection to the Internet the need for alternatives is growing. Technology and hardware are increasing faster than people with the skills to support them are. With this the ways to connect and expand into the Internet are improving as well as the speed of connections. There are many ways to gain access onto today’s Internet and discussed here are going to be three common ways such as the modem, the cable modem and Microsoft’s WebTV. These three describe represent the novice, the intermediate, and the advanced. One of the most common ways to connect to the Internet is the modem or the dial-up adapter. It is the most prevalent of the three and was one of the first pieces of hardware used to connect to the Internet. The modem is very similar to a telephone in which the computer when instructed will dial up a telephone number given to you by your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and establish a connection between you and your provider allowing you access to the Internet. The modem has made some advances from it’s initial stages and had managed to increase it’s downloading speeds, commonly used when browsing and its uploading speeds used more often when sending Email. Currently the modem is reaching it’s pinnacle as speeds are reached at around 56 Kilobytes per second which is for download only and the uploads are at a more modest 28.8K or 33.6K. Unfortunately top speeds in the United States will be initially limited to 53K because of FCC regulations. The FCC does not actually limit modem speeds rather it limits the amount of power that can be sent through the phone line. In order to prevent interference with other electrical devices the FCC places limitations not on the modem but on the server equipment at the o...