The link I wanted to give you is bad so I'll reprint the material here:
2000-03-A-GPC-Internet Connection Options.doc
http://www.gamepc.com/guides/printguide.asp?guide=internet
So, you want to hyper-drive your PC, and get top download speeds on the Internet? But, with the choices of 56k/V.90 modems, DSL lines, Cable modems, ISDN, Satellite dishes, you don?t know which way to go. Well, read on. You may be more confused by the time you finish this. That?s O.K., so is everyone else. However, you should have a better idea of what you?re getting into.
Part I: So Many Choices?.
Dial-Up Modem: ?World Wide Wait?
Pros: Lowest cost, even FREE. 56k Modems are less than $100, and dial-up accounts typically range from less than $10/month to $40/month, depending on the type of access and time you want to spend on the Internet. Companies such as Excite@Home, BlueLight.com (Attention Kmart Shoppers!), Freei.Net, and NetZero are currently offering free dial-up Internet Service, if you can tolerate the barrage of advertising. Dial-up access can be accomplished over your existing phone line, thus saving the cost of additional telephone services.
Cons: This is also the slowest form of access, with a maximum connect speed of 53k, but usually less. You should at minimum be able to connect to your ISP at 28.8k. Anything less usually indicates a poor quality tele-phone line, which can be frustrating. Unfortunately, most telephone companies guarantee nothing greater than 9.6k on a POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) line. Complaints to your phone company about bandwidth on your POTS line will probably get a response that can be interpreted as ?Go pound sand!?
DSL: ?Dumb Stupid Line? (Digital Subscriber Line) Pros: High Speed, fully digital, always-on service. DSL is accomplished over a single copper pair of wires, and ranges in speed from 144kbps to 7mbps, depending on how much you want to spend. Costs range from $40/month, to as high as $1000/mo. Typical home configuration will be at 384k or less. Requires a special modem, and installation of new line. One advan-tage of DSL is it is a telephone company solution, and telephone companies are typically ahead of the cable companies when it comes to network reliability and service. (Although sitting on hold to report a problem to the Phone Company is no more desirable than waiting all day for the Cable Guy to show up!)
Cons: Must be within 5 kilometers of a telephone company switching hub, and it has to be a telco that actually provides the service. DSL is in many cases more expensive than cable modems for the same level of band-width. In addition, the speed you pay for may not be what you get. Your DSL line, modem and account may be rated for a specific speed, but if your line is marginal, it could drop down from the top rated speed.
Cable Modems: ?Hey Cable Guy!?
Pros: Great speed that is relatively inexpensive for the bandwidth. Cable modems are as fast as 300-600kbps, for as little as $30-$50/month over your current monthly cable bill.
Cons: ?Captain, we?re losing the warp engines!? The problem with cable modems is the bandwidth is de-livered over a shared network. Whereas the telephone network is a dedicated network, cable networks are shared, ?party lines? so to speak. If your cable company is successful getting a lot of cable modem subscribers in your neighborhood, and doesn?t increase investment in the network or backbone, your speed will go down as you and all your neighbors start simultaneously logging on and downloading information. There are also concerns about security, where it may be possible for others on the same network to access your computer?s hard drive while you?re on line.
ISDN: ?I Still Don?t kNow? (Integrated Service Digital Network)
Pros: Decent speed, established technology. Maximum speed of 128k on a BRI (Basic Rate Interface). As men-tioned above, ISDN is also a telco solution, and there is competition among ISDN modems, driving the prices down. Another advantage is you can eliminate your home phone line, and simply use an ISDN line for making and receiving voice calls.
Cons: It costs almost as much, and isn?t as fast as DSL or ISDN. Your ISP will typically charge more for an ISDN account, and you may have some difficulty getting your modem configured to the telco switch you are connected with.
Dish Access:
Pros: This is just flat out cool! You can bypass telephone lines, and cable companies, and just connect up to a satellite that you can?t even see! Well, sort of. Dish access provides up to 400kbps of download speed for a typical account, and you can connect and set it up your self. While you?re at it, not only do you get great Inter-net speed, you get 100s of TV channels too!
Cons: Expensive! In addition to the dish and receiver, there is a PCI card that goes into your PC. You have a $30-$50 month Internet fee, plus the TV channels fee. Don?t throw out your old modem, either! You need this for data upload, and just to get on line! Home satellites dishes today are one way only, download, so you have to be on line with your dial-up account and satellite account simultaneously for this to work. Thus, in addition to the fixed cost, you have three monthly costs; the TV service, the Dish ISP, and the old Dial-Up ISP.
Dedicated Line: 56k, 64k, T1, T3: ?Dedicate This!?
Pros: Very reliable, established technology, clean, clear transmission rates. 56kbps to 45mbps. That?s right, 45mbps, or 45,000,000 bits per second! That?s full motion video, baby! (I used to work for an ISP, and we set up a T3 (45mbps) as our backbone to the Internet. During the day, I had direct access to the Internet via this T3, with virtually no other customers on the network. I have to admit, once you have access with this kind of speed, it makes working on anything else seem ridiculous!)
Cons: Forget this option (for home use), unless you?re stupid or just won the lottery. 56k and 64k dedicated lines don?t deliver the bandwidth, and aren?t inexpensive either. T1s are great, at 1.544mbps, but they will cost a pretty penny. The local telco will charge several hundred dollars per month just for the circuit, you?ll need ex-pensive equipment, and your ISP will charge a pretty penny for a T1 account. Forget the T3, this is typically the solution your ISP uses as its backbone to the Internet to carry their customer?s traffic. We won?t even go into the cost on these.
Part II: Boring Details?
Internet Access is accomplished most typically by consumers by signing up for an account with an ISP, or Internet Service Provider. ISPs will offer a wide variety of access to their network at various bandwidths, rang-ing from dial-up analog solutions, to dedicated high-speed solutions. Your ISP typically buys phone lines from a local telephone company, usually a LEC (Local Exchange Carrier), in order to receive your connection. In many cases, an ISP will either be a subsidiary or a partner with a LEC to achieve better costs on those phone lines. The ISP will also have high-speed connections to the Web, thus being able to receive your call on the dial-up line, and then connect you to the Internet with the rest of their customers.
It is important to utilize an ISP with a large ?pipe? connecting to the Internet. Once you are on-line with your ISP, you are using their backbone to the Internet. Thus, even though two ISPs may allow the same access speeds, your throughput, or actual data download speeds could be faster with an ISP with a larger ?pipe? to the Internet. Ask your ISP if they directly connect to the NAP (Internet Network Access Point), and what is the speed of their backbone. The bigger the better!
Analog/Dial-up Internet Access: This is the most common form of Internet access used in the United States today. Typically, this is accomplished with a modem in your PC, connected to a phone line. The modem is programmed to dial a number to your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to connect to their network. Most modems today are V.90 modems. V.90 is the standard agreed upon between the two competing 56k technologies developed several years ago, X2 and Kflex. For example, before V.90, if you had a Kflex modem, you looked for an ISP that supported Kflex technology so you could achieve the maximum speeds with your modem. With the V.90 standard, that is no longer a concern.
DSL Internet Access: DSL is a telecommunications solution to higher speed Internet access, that is at-tractive based on its relatively lower costs, yet high-speed capabilities. However, it is not available everywhere, and there are limitations to its use. First, your home or business must be within 16,000 cable feet from the LEC?s CO (Central Office =Telephone Switching Center). The reason behind this limitation is the copper wires used to provide this service have limitations regarding resistance/impedance. We could go into more details to explain this, going into basic electronics, including formulas such as V=IR, but that is way too boring.
To provide this service, your ISP will have to have access to the LEC?s COs. In addition, the ISP will typically have to lease an ?unbundled loop? from the LEC. This ?unbundled loop? is simply that pair of copper wires from the LEC?s Central Office (Telephone Switch Center) to your home or business.
It?s not, however, that simple. The loop to provide DSL must be a clean pair of copper wires without any filter-ing, amplifying, or extra connections on them. Unfortunately, in many areas, the LECs have limited numbers of these clean pairs, and ISPs have their hands full getting a qualified pair of wires over which to provide you with DSL service. When the LECs initially built the networks of copper wires, they were frequently installed with multiple amplifying devices called ?load coils? as well as connected to multiple locations, referred to as ?bridge taps.? If the available loops to your home or business have load coils and or bridge taps on them, it is up to your ISP to work with the LEC to have these removed.
If you and your ISP can overcome the ?local loop? challenge, now you have a multitude of choices for DSL service, often referred to as xDSL, as there are so many different ?flavors.? HDSL ? High bit-rate DSL
IDSL ? ISDN DSL
ADSL ? Asymmetric DSL
SDSL ? Symmetric DSL
RADSL ? Rate Adaptive DSL
Suffice it to say, the above types of DSL lines come in many different speeds, and depend on the type of net-work your ISP has set up. The type you use is dependent upon how much speed you want and how much you want to spend.
Cable Modems
Cable Modem technology utilizes the higher bandwidth capabilities of the coaxial cable network used to carry Television signals to homes. A cable modem functions similarly to a regular telephone modem, in that it modu-lates and demodulates data signals. On the other hand, a cable modem utilizes a receiver that can receive data at 30-40mbps, which is 500 times faster than a telephone modem. This, in conjunction with the higher capacity of the coaxial cable is what allows the greater Internet access speeds.
Most cable companies today offering Internet service have their network set up as two-way, allowing for up-stream data transmission. However, there are those that are one-way only, meaning the Cable Modem user will still have to use their phone line to transmit data upstream. These systems are referred to as a Telephony Re-turn Interface, or TRI. If you?re going for the Cable Modem without the phone line hassles, ask your cable company if the phone line is needed for Internet access.
Of note is that Cable Modems can be used at the same time as the Cable TV service. As a matter of fact, you can use cable access to support a LAN of up to 16 users, AND receive TV signals simultaneously. A simple splitter is all that is required to gain both TV and Internet access simultaneously.
ISDN
Integrated Services Digital Network is not a new technology, but it does have some positive features. If DSL or Cable is not available in your area, ISDN likely will be. Plus, you can use an ISDN service for both your regular telephone service, as well as Internet service.
ISDN lines are again a telecommunications solution, utilizing a single copper pair of wires. As with DSL, the pair of wires must be free of voice enhancing devices, but ISDN service is not as limited in distance from the Telephone Company Central Office.
If you have an ISDN line as your only line, you can use it to make voice calls, while on the Internet, or use it solely for Internet. A BRI line, or Basic Rate Interface, is the most common form of an ISDN line. It has a maximum capacity of 128k, accomplished by what is known as ?bonding.? A BRI line actually consists of three channels, 2 of which are referred to as B channels, and the other the D channel. The B channels can be used for voice or data, with a maximum bandwidth of 64k per channel, and the D channel is used for the signaling between your ISDN modem and the Central Office. This D channel signaling allows for much faster connect intervals, thus enabling quick log-ons to your ISP. When you connect to your ISP, and have an account that supports ?bonding,? both your B channels will be used to total 128k of bandwidth. Unlike DSL and Cable mo-dems, ISDN does not have slower upload speeds than download speeds.
Dish
Dish access is accomplished in similar manner as Cable Internet access. Essentially, your Dish Television pro-vider has also set up a backbone to the Internet, and is transmitting Internet data at a different frequency than the TV signals. The difference of course, is the transmission is done from a satellite in Geo-Synchronous orbit above the US, versus a transmission over coaxial cables. The nice thing about Dish access is you don?t have to worry about your cable getting cut! In addition, dish access is entirely digital, whereas not all cable networks have accomplished this level of technology.
A dish system that offers Internet service, such as the Hughes Network, requires a Dish with dual connections, one for your TV, and one for your PC. You will also have to install a PCI card in your computer to interface with the coaxial cable from the dish.
A possible solution with Dish Access to consider keeping the costs low is utilizing a free dial up company for the upstream data, and the Dish for the high speed downstream access.
Dedicated Circuits
Dedicated circuits are best explained using an analogy with plumbing. The best water pressure and greatest flow would be if you had direct access to the water source, instead of depending on water coming off a smaller pipe connected to a shared water main. A dedicated circuit is similar. That dedicated circuit is your own ?pipe? directly connected to the data source.
On the other hand, they are extremely expensive, and for all practical purposes, not that cost effective. A T1, which delivers a true 1.544mbps of bandwidth, will cost a pretty penny. At the minimum, assuming you are within 1 mile from the nearest telco Central Office, it will cost over $150/month, just for the circuit. Most likely, your cost will be much higher than this, unless you already have a significant number of T1s, allowing you to gain volume discounts. In addition to the T1, you will need expensive CPE (Customer Premise Equip-ment) to interface with the T1 and your PC. Finally, your ISP will have a large monthly fee for this size of dedi-cated access to the Internet. Unless you are the CEO of a telephone company, this probably is not an option.
Slower dedicated circuits, 56-64k, are more expensive and slower than other available options, such as ISDN, DSL, Cable, and Dish access. A T3 is essentially the equivalent of 28 T1s, with a total capacity of 45mbps. As mentioned, its amusing to think about, but probably not a cost justified solution.
Future
The future of telecommunications has many possibilities. Cable companies are scrambling to upgrade their networks to allow them to be more than simply a media for Television programming. Telephone companies are scrambling to provide greater bandwidth services at lower costs, as well as trying to get into additional markets, such as cable. Satellite companies would love to get a piece of the action as well.
An attractive solution involves wireless technologies. Bandwidth can be gained through high frequency digital transmissions, as well as via Microwave technology. Many companies are building networks based on wireless solutions, which is financially very exciting, as it saves tremendously on the investment in laying cable in the ground, and protecting and maintaining those wires from errant back-hoes, companies drilling for oil, gophers, or other insidious underground communications disrupters. The problem is the airwaves are ruled by the FCC, and anything the government gets its dirty hands on, has a tendency to get messed up and expensive in a hurry.
The most viable solution, in this writer?s opinion, is fiber optics. The bandwidth on fiber optics is almost unlimited. Fiber optic transmission is accomplished with simple pulses of light. New developments have ex-panded the capacity of a single strand of glass, which makes up the fiber optic media, to utilize over 40 differ-ent colors in the light spectrum. This expansion has essentially increased the capacity of a single fiber optic strand by as many different colors that can be sent and recognized.
Fiber optic technology has increased to the point where it is not uncommon for the bandwidth on single pair of fiber optic strands (one used for transmit, the other receive) on a SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) ring to be at an Optical Signal Level of 192. This equates to 192 T3s on two tiny pieces of glass, about the di-ameter of a human hair. If you do the math, it translates to over 129,000 simultaneous telephone calls of capac-ity. Imagine having Internet bandwidth at 8,256,000,000bps!
The problem with fiber is the massive expense of laying the cables in the ground plus the equipment required to send and receive those pulses of light over the fiber. It could cost millions just to wire a single neighborhood with a fiber optic network. Even a hundred homes, paying a hundred dollars a month each, would only provide gross revenues of $120,000 a year. Not too many companies find that kind of return attractive.
If you have a couple million bucks lying around, give fiber optics a shot! (Give me a call too, I?d be happy to set it up for you for a small fee!) Otherwise, give the DSL or Cable Modem a try. Word of advice; don?t lock your-self into any long term deals. Just as PC speeds increase daily, the Internet and Telecommunications networks are improving and increasing speeds to keep up with the ?NEED for SPEED!?
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