Choose the right expert at the right price, anytime day or night, at PC World Expert Help . Let's put those home speeds in perspective by taking a glimpse at how corporations connect to the Internet. Wireless networks currently rated at 11 mbps are another option, but they function best over short spans in locations where installing a dedicated cable would be prohibitively expensive. They also require costly hardware and must be configured very precisely. Satellite dishes work for people in rural areas or in places with no other service options, but they move data downstream only, so you must use your analog modem to upload.
Satellite service is expensive for businesses.
The technology underlying these is not especially complicated, but a look at how they developed will help clarify how they differ in speed and performance. DSL technology arose after telephony engineers figured out that copper and fiber phone lines could carry more data than previously thought. And because signals transmitting the human voice move at a relatively low frequency, phone conversations occupy just a tiny fraction of the telephone network's total capacity. DSL technology is simply a way to send data at a very high frequency so that it doesn't interfere with voices traveling along the same physical line at a lower frequency. Meanwhile, cable companies figured out something similar about their lines.