Frequently asked questions

What is Broadband?

Broadband is high speed Internet access. Most people access the Internet through dial-up modems or ISDN (sometimes sold by BT as Home or Business Highway). These modes of access are termed “narrowband”. Broadband is between 10 and 40 times faster than these; plus it is always on, meaning there’s no waiting for a connection to be made or mail to be collected.

Up until a few years ago, broadband was prohibitively expensive and a practical proposition only to large organisations. Now ORB and other Internet Service Providers are bringing broadband to consumers and small businesses at much more affordable prices, only moderately above those for dial-up access and considerably cheaper than using ISDN.

What’s the benefit?

People are making more and more use of the Internet at home and work. Broadband makes this process quicker and easier. At a practical level this means that:-

• Web pages display much quicker so that the worldwide web is no longer the “World Wide Wait”. So whether it’s getting information, shopping, entertainment, travel or home banking, these are all easier on-line with broadband.
• E-mails with large attachments such as digital photos, audio file and presentations can be sent and received much more quickly.
• E-mails are received at your computer and sent from it in real time as they arrive at your Internet Service Provider (ISP) (you don’t have to “dial in” to do this with an “always-on” service like broadband)
• Downloads are much quicker – you can download programs, audio files (MP3 etc.), images and video far more quickly than over a dial-up line. As files tend to get larger over time, this means that many downloads are simply not practicable over dial-up lines.
• Multimedia – streaming audio or video over narrowband is at best poor quality and at worst unusable. The higher bandwidth of broadband makes this much more of a realistic proposition, giving people access to a whole new Internet experience.

If you have broadband access to the Internet at your place of work or education we’re sure you’ll agree that it’s a whole lot better than using dial-up.

Why is it important?

As the Internet becomes an integral part of life, broadband access will become as important as roads, public transport and “the utilities” are now. In fact the road analogy is a good one. Right now people using the Internet on dial-up have the equivalent of a country lane – traffic can only move slowly and its capacity is limited. Broadband provides an information motorway by comparison (though without the associated environmental impact!).

With broadband people can:-

• Work from home effectively. Many do this already, either part or full-time, though it’s difficult to feel part of the office on the end of a dial-up connection. Broadband gives people a similar quality of network connection as they have in their office, so they can access information and keep in touch with their colleagues more easily.
• Run a small business more easily. Many small businesses need good Internet access in order to promote their goods or services and to keep in touch with customers. Broadband at an acceptable cost is becoming an essential requirement and allows small business to compete on a local, or global scale.
• Improve their education. Whether children doing their homework or adults pursuing further education, the Internet is a vital learning resource. As more and more further education is delivered by distance learning, broadband will become increasingly important in the delivery of equitable learning opportunity for all.
• Access community services. With the UK government committed to delivering more and more services on-line, those without good Internet access will be at a increasing disadvantage. Much government information is already produced on-line only and we can expect information and services at both national and local levels to be delivered increasingly, and increasingly exclusively, in this form. Again, widely available, low cost broadband will help sustain these services accessible to everyone in the community.

How fast is fast?

The speed at which data is transmitted to and from the internet is measured in “kilobits per second” (kbps) or “megabits per second” (Mbps). 1 Mbps = 1024 kbps.

Typically internal networks such as those found in offices, schools, etc. run at 10 -100Mbps. Links from home or business to the internet though are much slower. Here’s a comparison between narrowband and broadband speeds.

• A modem link over an ordinary telephone line will run at a maximum of 56kbps, though a realistic throughput is more like 30-40kbps
• ISDN (or home/business Highway) runs at 64kbs per channel. Each ISDN line has two channels which can be combined to give 128kbps (but this means that two telephone calls are being paid for!)
• ORB’s ADSL services range from 512kbps to 1 Mbps downstream (i.e. from the internet to the customer) with 256kbps provided upstream (customer to internet).
• ORB’s Wireless service offers speeds in excess of those acheivable through ADSL as data speeds are the same in both directions (symmetric service).

What does this mean in practice?

Let’s give a more practical idea of what this means. If someone sends you 6 digital photos by e-mail – say these are good quality pictures of 500kB each i.e. 3MB in total. To download this it would take you:-

• At least 8 minutes (more like 10 minutes) using a modem and ordinary telephone line
• Around 7 minutes on a single ISDN channel
• Less than a minute on ADSL or wireless connection

But speed isn’t the only reason for switching to broadband. The “always on” feature of broadband is a major benefit. This may seem less obvious to those without broadband but is something which lots of research studies have shown transforms people’s use of the internet.

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