Most people today connect to the Internet over a phone line, typically using a modem with a speed of 28.8 or 56 kilobits per second. This narrowband communication requires users to wait while a dial-up connection is made before they can access the Internet, and means that Internet use when connected is slow it is estimated that one third of user time online is spent waiting .
Higher bandwidth can also facilitate always on connection to the Internet.
But the term broadband is often used to describe a very wide set of technologies, offering data rates that are orders of magnitude apart. However, we will also use the generic term broadband , defined as covering all these technologies, when the distinctions between them technologies are not relevant to the issue being discussed. Figure 1 above illustrates the upstream and downstream data rates available from the main broadband technologies.