What Is Broadband?

[Greens 21]

What is broadband?

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ MONDAY, MAY 03, 2004 05:22:49 AM ]

The Economic Times Online

Although most people have heard of broadband, few know its exact definition, says the International Telecommunications Union.

Broadband is often associated with a particular speed or set of services, but in reality the term ?broadband? is like a moving target. Internet access speeds are increasing all the time. One can, therefore, only really talk about the ?current? state of broadband, and make tentative extrapolations, based on planned or incipient developments, that may or may not come to fruition in the future.

Broadband is commonly used to describe recent internet connections that are significantly faster than today?s dial-up technologies, but it is not a specific speed or service. Recommendation I.113 of the ITU standardisation sector defines broadband as a transmission capacity that is faster than primary rate ISDN, at 1.5 or 2.0 megabits per second (Mbit/s).

Elsewhere, broadband is considered to correspond to transmission speeds equal to or greater than 256 kbit/s, and some operators even label basic rate ISDN (at 144 kbit/s) as a ?type of broadband?. For India, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has recently recommended the following definition:

An always-on data connection that is able to support various interactive services, and has the capability of a minimum download speed of 256 kilobits per second. TRAI expects to revise the definition in the future.

How is broadband access provided?

High-speed data connectivity can be provided by both wired connections and wireless connections. Wired connections account for the vast majority (over 98%) of current connections, although wireless technologies are starting to grow quickly.

Of the fixed line connections, digital subscriber line (DSL) and cable modem technologies are the most popular, according to the ITU. Until ?00, the majority of broadband users were using cable modems, and this is still the most popular form of access in North America.

But worldwide, ADSL now accounts for more than half the connections, being particularly popular in Asia and Western Europe. In DSL ? ADSL is one of several versions of DSL ? the ordinary copper pair that connects the plain old telephone at the subscriber premises can be used to carry data at high speeds.

The best bet for carrying high-speed data is optical fibre. Once the capital investment is made in laying the fibre, recurrent costs are negligible, but the initial investments can be large. In contrast, emerging technology standards for wireless transmission of data at high speed, entail lower initial costs and recurrent costs for spectrum use.

Emerging technology standards such as Wi-Fi Max, which offers a range of 50 km, could radically change the scope of wireless communications.

What is broadband used for?

For business, entertainment, e-governance, distance education, video-conferencing, and a million other applications that still haven?t reached the stage of a glint in the eye of their innovators. Cisco is famous for integrating its vendor base and procurement activity, as well as its marketing and internal operations into online operations.

The Delhi Municipal authorities are facilitating payment of property tax online. Somebody could sell tailormade suits in New York, allowing customers to choose fabric, design and colour online, taking measurements by an optical scan and passing on the order to a broadband enabled darjee in an Old Delhi bylane to convert into personalised haute couture.

Which countries have a lead in broadband penetration?

The Republic of Korea leads in broadband penetration ? 25 broadband connections per 100 persons. Hong Kong, Canada, Taiwan, Denmark, Belgium, Iceland, Sweden, Netherlands, Japan, the US, Austria, Switzerland, Singapore and Finland follow in that order, according to ITU data that is of ?02 vintage.

What can the government do to promote broadband growth?

The government has already done some good work in this regard by promoting competition in the telecom sector. The next major challenges are to bring down the cost of leased networks, unbundle the last-mile access to customer premises, create content that will make broadband access worthwhile, particularly making government services e-enabled. If the new Parliament were to pass the convergence bill that has now lapsed, it would give a boost to the spread of broadband.

© Bennett, Coleman and Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

Edited May 3, 2004 by Chirag

[Tushar 0]

Well does anyone have a broadband connection of that sort I mean 1.5 to 2 Mbits/s if so what are ull using ? who is the service provider? rates ? etc. Does anyone in Mumbai even have DSL or ADSL coz eve I want a faster connection or does anyone know any service providers giving DSL or ADSL connection and if so pls specify rates or something.

[Arun 795]

256 kbps will be the entry level braoadband speed in India by end 2004 as per the TRAI. Prices will drop upto Rs.300 to 400 for such type of connections, the TRAI said in a recent announcement.

For more, check out...

TRAI favours steep cut in broadband price

Why they are betting on broadband ?

[Ashokjp 15]

30 kb/s for rs400 is damn cheap !!

I have to pay rs900 now for 6kb/s

I hope these rates become effective soon

[rEdshiFt 1]

hi there...

say, when does the common indian netizen get some REAL Broadband action ?

"broadband" has been THE most mis-used word this milleneum u know what i mean ?....

if the moderators are actually people workin for RelianceInfo, please please get us this answer...whatever happened to all those 30,000 + kms of optical fibres that reliance was diggin up?

i mean, i remember ads about connections of 2mbps speed at the user-end , THREE YEARS ago...whats goin on ??

i hear the 'last-mile' connectivity is the sh*t to solve....tough one

anyways, why are things so...hmmm, so non-transparent ( be it billin or up-to-date info of the promised newer techs)when it comes to reliance ...???

thats about enouh bitchin i guess..nothin personal, those tolerant moderator souls...

please keep our customers updated....thats not much to ask, is it ?

keep in touch...

seetha

[rahulmalik_81 1]

hi seetha as this is ur first post so plz go through the forum and u will get ur all ans. but i can try to answer them one by one

1. For broadband as u must me hearing that govt. is working on broadband policy

u can c the broadband in action for us

2. for the 30,000+ km fibre optical link-well this is used for network building i mean

to reach as much as customers as possible or u can say to expand the network

3. ther r going for the whole package means cable,inernet through cable,etc. which will be launched shrotly

4. i agree with u regarding bill. imean they **** at the billing front

5. they r fighing with the govt. over allocation of 1900MHZ band which will enable them to offer new tcehnologie's lik CDMA-1EVDO built by motoroal and also offer good speech codecs launched recently by nokia in US

[rEdshiFt 1]

thanx for the info buddy...

browsed thro the forum topics...pretty updated, actually...

"3. ther r going for the whole package means cable,inernet through cable,etc. which will be launched shrotly"....NOW, THATS THE ONE IM TALKIN ABOUT....

HOW sonn dude? hope we'd get that kinda stuff in our lifetime

cheers

[rahulmalik_81 1]

i think they will be offering the service in 6months to 1 yr time but i will tell u it will be also on a grand occassion when they launched mobile service

[Arun 795]

if the moderators are actually people workin for RelianceInfo, please please get us this answer...whatever happened to all those 30,000 + kms of optical fibres  that reliance was diggin up?

please keep our customers updated....thats not much to ask, is it ?

well, if you had gone through the forum, you wouldn't have asked like that. There are no moderators on board, who endorse RIL in any way.

About their future initiatives, this is the latest news.

[chandramauli 0]

Want to watch your favourite film right now? Or play the latest games? Want to surf the Net even as you talk on the same phone line?

The advent of broadband has made all this and more possible.

The technology is fast becoming a way of life across the world. Asia-Pacific fixed line broadband connections grew by 50 per cent during 2004, according to provisional estimates from Gartner. And the fastest growing Asian market was Thailand, where subscriptions rose more than 1,000 per cent during the year.

China's growth -- the current average broadband rate there is $9 (Rs 400) per subscriber per month -- too has been explosive. The growth estimate for India: 20 million broadband subscribers by 2010.

Broadband, to put it simply, is a continuous data connection that is able to support various interactive services and has the capability of a minimum download speed of 256 kilobytes per second or kbps.

Its launch affords access to a wider range of services -- telephony, Internet, video on demand -- all at the same time, from the same line.

Internet connections available today offer far lower speeds of 64kbps or less -- actually much less in the case of a dial-up connection, which makes surfing and downloading a time-consuming affair.

Broadband will result in far greater speeds so that you can download or upload (read mail, chat, surf,) in doublequick time.

While voice applications (telephony) require very little bandwidth -- about 16 kbps, other applications such as data transmission for educational purposes, gaming and video need far greater bandwidth.

With more services, the speeds will require to be upgraded. So much so, today's broadband could very well be tomorrow's narrowband. But there's a lot of bandwidth available already. For perspective: Yahoo broadband comes at speeds of 40,000kbps.

Worldwide, broadband connections are made typically through the copper wire i.e., the telephone connection or the cable TV wire.

There are newer technologies such as Metro Ethernet or wireless technologies. In India, Tata Indicom/VSNL is using both Metro Ethernet and copper, while MTNL and BSNL are using copper.

In Mumbai, Tata Indicom/VSNL has kicked off with a higher speed of 512 kbps. MTNL's TriBand is currently offering speeds of 256 kbps but Ajay Jain, general manger, marketing, MTNL, says the company hopes to upgrade its services soon.

In New Delhi, Bharti offers packages in a range between 256 kbps for retail users and higher bandwidths of 512kbps for commercial users.

Tata Indicom/SML offers 512 kbps at an entry price of Rs 400 per month for 200 megabytes (mega = million) per second or 20 hours.

MTNL, on the other hand, has said it will charge Rs 2400 per month for a 512 kbps connection and provide a free download of 2.5 gigabytes (one GB is equal to 1000 MB).

This combination would perhaps be more suitable for commercial use since broadband is an excellent means of communication for small enterprises.

Enterprises would definitely need higher bandwidths -- for instance, video conferencing requires speeds of 384 kbps and more.

Those operators using copper wires are using the ADSL2+ technology, which allows users to upgrade to speeds of 8 mbps. ADSL stands for asymmetric digital subscriber line, a method for moving data over regular phone lines. An ADSL circuit is much faster than a regular phone connection, and uses the existing copper wire connectivity.

'The equipment at home will comprise a small modem (or a set-top box if you are going to hook up the television too) and an even smaller "splitter" through which different wires are plugged into your personal computer, television (for video viewing) and telephone.

But if your operator is using Ethernet and not copper, a splitter is not needed. What about mobility? What do you do if you want to access your broadband account when you are travelling?

If you opt for a Tata Indicom package, you can access the same account in as many as 300 cities, albeit in the dial-up mode. So, if you are in Bangalore, for instance, all you need to do is dial 172226 (the VSNL dial-up number).

As Prateek Pashine, head, broadband marketing, explains, it is a roaming facility within the country. Pashine adds that Tata Indicom offers a global roaming facility in 130 cities across the world, again through a dial-up facility. So, you can access your broadband account if you are travelling overseas.

Also, if you are at a friend's place in, say New Delhi, where there is a Tata Indicom broadband connection, you can access your account through that same connection and it will be your account that gets billed, not your friend's.

Moreover, you can have multiple e-mail accounts (priya @vsnl.com and priya123@vsnl.com ) and pay for them through the same pre-paid account.

The tariff plans being offered can be a time-based package i.e., you pay for the number of hours that you use the Net for, a volume-based plan or plain unlimited.

Hourly packages are best for people who use the Internet sparingly and mainly to download their mail.

The "unlimited" schemes are expensive but if you like to surf frequently and download music or other stuff, this is just what you need. If you are a compulsive chatter, then opt for a volume-based package since during chat, very little data is downloaded.

If you're into music and plan to download a lot of it, then pick up an hourly package, since the consumption of bytes will be high -- a typical MP3 music file, for a five to six-minute song, takes up about 4-5 megabytes of download.

Source : Rediff

[linuxguy 0]

Rs.2400 for a 512Kbps line is just plain bull$hit!!!

Tata Indicom/SML offers 512 kbps at an entry price of Rs 400 per month for 200 megabytes (mega = million) per second or 20 hours.

What does that mean???

[Ashokjp 15]

Guess it means

400rs entry fee for a package of 200mb or 20hours

[Mukul 0]

Thanks chandramauli for this useful info

[chandramauli 0]

My Pleasure Mukul :-)

[linuxguy 0]

broadband starts at Rs.400 in China and it starts at Rs.800 in India. Rather we dont have REAL BROADBAND

[anujit 0]

The entire reason for broadband is that we need to transmit/receive MORE data!

By putting a cap on data download (or exchange) ... stupid TRAI & all the scheming service providers have essentially choked the purpose of broadband.

Broadband has to has to has to support unlimited data transfer... thats the concept of broadband everywhere and for a good reason too!

And this happens in India only because crummy 2-bit operators in India don't have the necessary infrastructure to provide real broadband services!

[city02 63]

fully agree but if we can't even get bijli, sadak, pani to the bottom half of the population, its highly unlikely we'll have world class broadband ...

[chandramauli 0]

more on : All you want to know about broadband

If you're an Internet surfer, a new world awaits you. At your fingertips will be inter active television (you'll be able to change the story line of television programmes at will).

You can instal webcams at home to help you keep tabs on what your children are doing while you're in office. And if you're not yet a surfer at home because you don't have a personal computer, fret not -- you'll be able to buy a PC at rock bottom prices.

All this and more will be the outcome of the coming broadband revolution. Last fortnight, the state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd announced broadband tariffs that are as low as Rs 399 a month, virtually half of what subscribers pay today.

So what does this mean for you as a broadband service subscriber?

Precisely what broadband services can you expect and what broadband technologies exist here and overseas? We offer some jargon-free answers to these and other questions.

Does broadband mean only that you'll get access to the Internet at high speeds? What other services can you expect to get with a broadband connection?

You had an important meeting and so couldn't see your favourite television programme. Or when you were watching TV someone telephoned you and you missed parts of the programme. Or you'd like to fast forward a boring movie to see the ending.

Indeed, you'll be able to do all this if your television set is connected to a broadband network, something your cablewallah next door can't offer you.

All you need is a set top box which makes it possible for you to pause, rewind, fast forward and start live TV programmes and see them whenever you want to. By pressing a few buttons, you can also watch programmes that you have missed in the last few days without having to ask someone to pre record them.

Your television set will become an information and entertainment hub. You'll be able to subscribe to an array of other services -- video on demand and pay per view (you'll be able to see a movie by punching a few buttons), apart from interactive TV. Nor will you have to phone in or send an SMS to vote for your favourite singer on Sony TV's "Indian Idol." Instead, you can pick up your remote button, say "yes" or "no" to the choices offered on your TV screen by pressing a button.

Several kind of set top boxes will be available -- some will offer broadcast TV facilities (that is, you'll be able to watch TV without a cable connection), others will have encoders that make webcam surveillance possible.

Companies like UT Starcom are already hawking set top boxes (at around $100 to $150, or almost Rs 4,400 and about Rs 6,200) to telecom companies like BSNL (which used them on a trial basis), MTNL and Bharti Tele-Ventures. BSNL officials promise to offer a heap of value added services once the launch of broadband services in 198 cities stabilises.

To be sure, many telecom companies are already offering subscribers innovative solutions. The Tata-run Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, for instance, allows subscribers to its broadband services a unique facility: they're given an ID and they can log on to their broadband account from anywhere in the country, provided the place from which they're accessing their account is also a VSNL broadband service subscriber.

Reliance Infocomm is using its Web Worlds to offer time to companies for video conferencing, at about Rs 2,000 an hour. Reliance Infocomm also offers an audio conference service (users are given a single number and password and can talk to one another from various locations without having to pay STD bills -- the call is a local call) at a monthly fixed rate.

If I don't want to invest in a complete PC, can I still get a broadband connection without spending too much upfront?

Yes, you can. Chipmaker AMD has tied up with VSNL to offer a "personal internet communicator". Powered by the Windows operating system, the small device attached to a monitor offers Internet browsing, instant messaging, spread sheet, PDF and word processor functions as well as Windows Media Player.

It also comes with a USB keyboard and a mouse and you can connect it to a printer too. It has a hard disk drive with 10 GB storage space. VSNL says that the box and the monitor are available for Rs 12,000 to Rs 13,000. The product has already been test launched in Chennai and will be tried out in Pune.

Says Shashi Kalathil, head of VSNL's broadband business: "We are working on various technologies to bring down the upfront cost of getting a broadband connection. The ideal levels would be Rs 7,000 to Rs 7500."

AMD has pointed out in a presentation that India has over 20.5 million households with an annual income of over $ 1,000 (almost Rs 44,000). But only 4.2 million households have a PC. So the PIC would make sense for 16.3 million households.

For those who don't have a PC, other options too like Microsoft MSN TV 2 will be available. Thomson RCA (which has tied up with Microsoft) offers a small set top box, which can be attached to a TV (since it does not need a separate monitor, you will save on costs).

Using this, you'll be able to access the Internet, view and share photos, play video games, open some common e-mail attachments and do instant messaging.

Navigation on TV is either through a keyboard or a remote control. A set up guide will help you here. But MSN TV 2 has no hard drive and storage capacity is limited. The price overseas is $200 (close to Rs 8,800).

TV 2 might soon be on its way to India. Admits Sanjiv Kainth, who heads Thomson's set top box business in India: "Yes, we are already talking to various people to launch the product in India."

What broadband technologies can you opt for?

Companies broadly offer two broadband solutions: wireless and wired fixed broadband.

In wired broadband, the most popular is the digital subscriber line route. MTNL, BSNL and companies like Bharti Tele-Ventures use the same telephone copper line that comes to your home (the last mile) for your fixed line phone to offer broadband services.

Some companies like Reliance Infocomm, however, are considering using optic fibre lines instead of copper lines. Optic fibre lines are no longer prohibitively expensive. Three factors have made them attractive.

Explains UT Starcom CEO Ruchir Godura: "Prices of fibre have crashed and have become virtually similar to those of copper. The price of electronic transmission equipment (required for optic fibre lines, both at home and at the telecom company's end) has dropped to $100-150. With new technology the same fibre can now be tapped to offer broadband services to 30-60 homes. So the cost of fibre lines gets spread over more customers."

More importantly, an optic fibre line can offer speeds of up to one gigabits and support many services that require large bandwidth. So you can get download speeds that are 25 times faster than those offered by a DSL connection. As a result, if high definition TV is ever introduced in India, the infrastructure won't have to be upgraded.

What wireless broadband solutions are being offered?

If you are on the move and want your laptop to be always connected to the Internet while you rush from one meeting to the next and if you are moving around in a car, you need broadband wireless services. You'll also need a wireless connection if you want your PC at home to be connected to the Internet without all these messy wires all over the place.

You have a lot to choose from. Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, for example. Wi-Max offers a wireless alternative to the last copper mile needed in a DSL connection.

With a practical range of about 8 km, you could be on the move at home or within your neighbourhood and remain connected to the Internet. However, Wi-Max may not be commercially launched till 2006-2007 as the equipment is still being standardised.

Another option is time division code division multiple access, which is already up and running -- and will soon be in India. According to Godura, UT Starcom is in the final stages of signing a deal with a leading telecom company to offer TD-CDMA services to subscribers.

TD-CDMA does three things. First, it makes it possible for a PC at home to be connected to the Internet wirelessly without a last mile copper connection.

Secondly, you can buy a PC card and attach it to your laptop and move all over town connected to the Internet. The modem and the PC card will set you back by the equivalent of under $200.

For telecom companies, TD-CDMA is a viable option, especially for global system for mobile service companies which don't have fixed line telephone operations but still want to offer broadband services without having to invest in the expensive laying of copper lines.

GSM mobile service companies can use their existing infrastructure (base station towers and exchanges) to offer broadband services at an incremental cost.

Also, spectrum is scarce and most GSM service companies prefer to use a larger part of the frequencies allocated in GSM for voice services, which is still their core business, instead of for data services. But spectrum for TD-CDMA is easily available.

Yes, DSL is still cheaper than TD-CDMA, especially for incumbent telecom companies that already have copper connections to homes (the per subscriber cost for DSL is $ 100-150 or Rs 4,400 to Rs 6,200, versus $ 300 for TD-CDMA). But if a GSM company has to lay a copper line, TD-CDMA is cheaper.

Will you be able to access a broadband connection by using a mobile phone?

The answer is yes. You will soon be able to download a song on your mobile phone for a few seconds or see a TV channel programme streamed live. The GSM mobile phones that you use now offer you about 14 kbps speeds.

But the new Enhanced Data for GSM Environments (Edge) phones and services are already offering customers speeds that are five times faster than what a simple GSM service offers.

Hutchison Essar executives say that Edge services are catching on faster than general packet radio switching services because handset prices have tumbled.

Hutchison Essar offers an Edge phone for a very affordable Rs 10,000.

It also offers Edge PC cards that can be attached to a laptop. Company executives say that Edge speeds are attractive because Edge connections are used for reading and sending e-mail. Hutchison Essar charges a rental of Rs 99 a month and has logged average revenues per user of around Rs 500 a month from data usage.

Those who want even higher speeds can look at subscribing to evolution data only services. In CDMA, companies like Reliance Infocomm are expected to launch EVDO phones. EVDO services will come at speeds that are 20 times higher than those offered by existing CDMA services.

GSM service companies too have applied for 3G spectrum. Many of them are expected to start trial runs by the end of this year. So you could soon have phones on which you'll get services at speeds that are now only available on a fixed line DSL broadband connection.

Plug in, for a connection

Laying cables to offer broadband services is expensive, especially if it's in rural India. But broadband service providers can look at another option: using the existing power lines to transfer data to subscribers. Quite simply, homes can plug in for a broadband connection, like they do for electricity.

By bundling radio frequency energy on the same electricity line with electric current, data can be transmitted, without a separate data line.

This is possible because the electric current and the radio frequency for data vibrate on different frequencies and do not interfere with each other. US companies like Enikia and Current Communications are already working with utility companies to turn this into reality.

Power companies have lines strung all over the world. There are more power lines than phone lines and their fibre backbone. This makes power lines an obvious vehicle for providing Internet services to places where fibre optic lines haven't been laid.

Yet electricity moves through high voltage power lines. The power on high voltage lines is noisy. So companies are looking at alternative solutions, including transmitting data on lower voltage transmission lines. The last mile can be connected either wirelessly or by using the cable used to bring electricity to homes.

SOURCE ; REDIFF

[linuxguy 0]

Yes, yes thats all fine BUT FIRST WE NEED UNLIMITED 256 or 512Kbps connections WITHOUT data/port caps AT Rs.200 - 400 per month. The TV and all comes later on...

[rakesh5295 0]

great knowledge yyar. really u took too good time for us. i just wanted to know more of evdio services. like when can we expect it in relaince. can u name any handsets which support this facility. what shall be the speed then.

[deepu 0]

The information on powerlines is new to me... Can some one post more information on data transferred using power lines

[chandramauli 0]

hey guyz, n e !dea when broadband services of reliance shall start in ahmedabad ???/

[Arun 795]

Reliance Broadband has launched only in main cities like Mumbai, Banglore, etc. For all other cities, there will be a nationwide launch, but not yet announced when !