Friday, November 13, 2009

How High Speed Internet Works

By Baxter Owens

When the internet was first made available to the common man, the data transfer speeds were not so high. The internet was generally accessed by users through the plain old telephone cables using a dial up connection even after a few years post introduction. The connections were very slow because of the inherent signal carrying capabilities of the copper cables and the modems during those days were different too.

Another problem during those days was of the data signals of the internet clashing with the voice signals of the telephone and they used to create problems for each other, often leading to data loss or even loss of connection. Apart from this, one could not use the internet while they were using the telephone. However, later on, with the advent of modern technology and advances in the principles of modem technology these problems were circumvented, as we shall soon find out.

The highest speeds available during those days were a measly 56kbps. One can find connections where the transfer rate is as high as 1gbps in an era where one generally accepts speeds slower than 1mbps as very slow. The high speed internet connection that we are accustomed to nowadays comes to us either through the cable through which we receive our TV signals or they are supplied to us through a separate cable by our internet service provider.

This technology is called DSL or direct subscriber line. For making the DSL system work, the subscriber needs to have an ethernet card on their PC and they also need to install a DSL modem. DSL technology allows subscribers to receive and send data and also browse the internet at high speeds over the plain old telephone line. Nowadays the voice signal of the telephone is transmitted on a different frequency and the data signals of the internet are transmitted on yet another frequency.

The splitter at the user's end splits the incoming signals into two parts and sends the data signals to the computer and the voice signals to the telephone. The modems employed by the high speed internet are different too. One should also know that there are two different technologies employed by high speed internet. They are SDSL (symmetric digital subscriber line) and ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line). Whereas the upload speed of the second one is lower than the download speed, the first one provides both upload and download at equal speeds. - 22787

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