Types of Internet Connections

There are a wide ranges of internet connections. Some are easily available while others are difficult to come by. Your choice of internet connection depends on your location and budget. However, the faster the internet connection you are using, the better for your work. The most common forms of internet connections are the DSL, Analogue (dial-up), Satellite and Cable. Other types of internet connectivity exists, from the very slow to the high-speed internet connections.

Analogue (56kbs)

The Analogue connection, also known as dial-up access, is a very slow and inexpensive type of internet connection. A dialup connection uses a modem, phone line and ISP. With an analogue connection, a subscriber connects to the internet by dialling up a phone number gotten from an ISP. The modem converts Incoming data from analogue to digital and the reverse. The dial up access provides poor internet quality.

Cable (512Kbs to 20 Mbps)

A Cable modem is a type of internet connection that allows connection via cable TV lines. The Cable internet connection uses TV channels for data transmission. Cable internet provides fast internet access. Cable TV uses coaxial cable, which support higher bandwidth than telephone lines do.

It is important to make it clear that broadband is a general name for cable, satellite and DSL types of internet connections. Broadband internet connections are highly reliable and fast. Like other types of internet connections, they require modems to connect to the internet.

Internet over Satellite (average 500Kbps)

Satellite connection provides uninterrupted internet connectivity. Internet over Satellite uses a communication satellite that is on a stationary position in orbit. Due to the huge distance the data has to be transmitted, the speed of satellite is a bit lower than Broadband types of internet connections.

Tier Carrier

These types of internet connections are used by Internet Service Providers (ISP) to connect to the internet backbone. The main difference between T-1,T-2,T-4 and T-3 internet connections are the number of individual channels. Each individual channel, that can carry both data and voice traffic, has a band width close to 64Kbps. A T-1 line consists of 26 individual channels whereas T-3 has 672 individual channels. Therefore, if you do the mathematics for T-3 lines, we are talking about 43Mbps or more. T-5 is up to 400Mbps.

DSL (128Kbps to 8Mbps)

DSL, which also refers to xDSL, uses 2-wire copper telephone lines and it does not require dialling in to an ISP. In fact, DSL is an "always on" internet connection. There are different categories of DSL and they are SDSL, VDSL and ADSL.

Optical Cable (1Gbps+)

Fiber-optic is the most common internet connection. It has the highest data rates compared to other types of internet connections after internet2. It is easy to maintain. There are three types of fiber-optic internet connections and they are the plastic optical fiber, single mode, and multimode.

Internet2 (100Gbps)

Internet2 provides the highest internet speed connectivity. It was developed by a networking consortium to meet the high-speed internet demand for research and education work. It has a speed of 100Gbps. The use of internet2 is not common.

Now that you know the types of internet connections, you may be interested in learning about Ethernet or What a Modem is. Also, it is important to be safe when browsing the Internet. You may be interested in our guides on Safe Web Browsing, Web Browser Security, and Facebook Security Tips.

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-By Dominic

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