Tech Tuesday - Broadband Pt 1

Yes, I know I have been distracted a lot lately and I kinda move in a daze within my life. But I suppose..I can try to make a change a bit and which I can assure you I have been making those changes to so called improve the quality of my life a bit.

And...now, I want to write my long overdue Tech Tuesday article. Plus, the fact that Mariah is so looking forward to this article, which is a first coz these articles are quite yawn inducing for her..hehe.., I guess Im giving some justice to this article.

Broadband Connection.

I know Im quite into I.T. but these true geeks sometimes write lengthy articles coz you know they're all passionate about it so it can get pretty darn boring halfway down. But, so far, these are what I picked up about broadband.

Okay broadband is a better version of dial up when it comes to connecting to the internet due to its faster network connection. Broadband basically means data communications which are transmitted via the fibre optics of cables that cover a higher range of frequencies than a telephone modem. Because of that, we get much more information transmitted to us at the same time over the frequencies which give this so called illusion that broadband connection is much faster. But, you can try to find third party softwares to jack up the connection speed a bit.

Broadband is a generic term. There are several means of attaining broadband connection but basically is via the modem.

In SIngapore terms, Singtel uses the ADSL modem or the Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber line modem which basically uses the telephone networking. But, it is not the same as using the telephone as a modem like in a dial up in which once you connect to the internet, you cant use the phone. But with this ADSL modem, you can do two things at the same time. WHY?

Okay, basically the medium is the same: telephone network. But broadband via ADSL modem uses the high bandwidth channel while the phone uses the voice channel. In other words, network comprises of several channels like having several tv channels under mediacorp. So Singtel uses two different channels (one higher - for broadband and one base - for voice) but over the same wire or the same network (mediacorp)..something like that.

But Starhub uses another kind of broadband connection where instead of tapping into the telephone network, it taps into the cable television network which offer more or less the same bandwith or data rate where its frequency is still much higher than dial up.

I know I know...it is hard to understand and even I am struggling to understand the terms especially when these two are competitors so one will always say theirs is better than the other. You heard them..'the fat green pipe'..yah, the pipe referring to the network of pipes that cover up the kilometres of cables lying at the bottom of the seas and then linking up to homes.

But as loyal readers of ahem..my blog...I shall present to you some additional facts.

I already mention that there isnt much difference between the two except that they are just using different mediums of broadband: one cable and one ADSL. Which one is better then?

Nowadays it has been promoted that ADSL is better because the line is unique just like having one telephone number to your home where else cable network is shared by the same block and its bandwidth will be lowered the more people watch cable channels. I admit I used to think that way too lately but....

Guess what?

That is only half true.

Basically, just think of it this way. We're talking about the internet here. Millions of people are hooked on the internet which means, as you are surfing, millions of others are doing pretty much the same thing too. So if you go to a popular website, where there is a high number of visitors, the bandwidth or the amount of data transmitted to you, will be lowered and you will get a smaller share of the pie.

But people come and go. So there is no 'fixed' connection speed so at times, the page will take forever to load or will load in a jiffy.

And then, there is this internet explorer feature which saves the information for faster retrievals and these saved information is called cookies. Like if I surf youtube yesterday and then have not deleted the cookies, when I surf youtube today, it will load faster too. But the more cookies I save until it accumulates quite a lot, it can also slow down the loading. Plus, if your pc has not been 'cleaned' of junks like pictures and songs (like uhm..mine), it will also affect your internet speed.

So there is not hard and fast rule which says which broadband medium is better because it all depends on other factors rather than just the usage of the modems themselves which these providers often fail to mention.

Now about the ADSL modem. True, it is a unique line not shared by other users from the same block. But, the frequencies within the telephone networking are never the same and there are times they can be unsteady if there are unseen disturbances to the network. So at times the bandwidth (the difference between the low and and high frequency) is also affected which in turn affect your internet connection speed. It's just like the frequency of your heartbeat (the line going up and down if you look at the heart monitor). If you're happy (and you know it..hee) to see a cute guy coming your way, your heart beats faster. Then, if you get shocked out of your life that he's so freaking ugly upclose, you skipped a beat and then get breathless because of the uneven heartbeat. It is not always the nice and even 'up and down' frequency .

It is also true that if more people watch cable channels or surf net using the cable modem in the same block, it will affect your connection speed. But I would only say it is half true or maybe not true at all because a cable modem uses a unique channel just for internet usage just like a channel being used for channel 5 is not the same as the channel 8.

So it wouldnt have made such a big impact on your internet connection speed.

For me right, the best bet is to see yourself as a user so you know what you want exactly and do research according to that.

Like Mariah does not like wires running through from the hall to her room and I understand why coz it's serious hazard. There is no cable box in the room directly linking to her or in her room herself that will allow for a more discreet running of the cable like along the side walls instead of across the floor in a zig zag manner from living room to her room. An alternative is to hook up another cable box in her room provided there is the ready cable wire behind a plastic case in her room along the edge of the wall. A cable modem uses an ethernet cable linking from the modem to the scv box so it is not wireless.

Singtel, however has a wireless ADSL modem and if she already has a telephone line, it will be hooked up to the modem. But as explained earlier, this is not a phone modem in which the voice channel is used for internet connection. Once the modem has tapped into the telephone network, it will use the broadband channel within this network for internet. The fact that it is wireless means that her pc does not have to be connected to this modem.

HOWEVER, it is not as easy as it sounds.

For me, I see both options do work for her but there will be additional things to be done.

I will explain more in part 2. Tired ah now..hee...