by Steve Lussing

Created on: November 01, 2008   Last Updated: November 14, 2011

A restricted bandwidth within a spectrum of allowable frequencies must be allocated by the federal authority for the delivery of information across a wired or wireless network, including radio, internet, cellular communications, and television. The entire radio frequency spectrum on the AM/FM radio dial occupies a bandwidth of about three Megahertz (MHz), and up to 30 MHz if you include shortwave radio.

According to the IBM dictionary of computing, a broadband channel is 6 MHz wide. Common household broadband connection types available for the internet include Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and cable TV. DSL is usually delivered by telephone lines.

An Internet Service Provider (ISP) will offer different internet service packages which restrict the amount of bandwidth provided to the consumer depending on cost. The fastest broadband services are high-speed DSL and cable, and since these offer the greatest bandwidth, therefore these will cost the most.

In general, a person will gauge the speed of a given connection based on how fast streaming video is downloaded interruption-free from a particular Web Site. If all that is required of an internet connection are text-based emailing and document research and video is not critical, then the consumer can be adequately served with even a basic 56 Kilobytes per second (Kbps) dial-up connection with accelerator software installed. However, for the most part, we have limited patience when downloading web pages and therefore we have a need for speed.

There are significant advantages to buying broadband. A fast internet connection on a fast computer will not likely betray the presence of the computer's resident virus protection software while it is busy scanning for malicious hacker code, or even the automatic update utility transparently downloading enhancements to the operating system while the user is browsing the web. It is always wise to stay apprised of the latest updates to one's operating system.

Anyone who has ever loaded a page from the Facebook site understands the need for speed. The average computer user is usually not very savvy when it comes to designing web-pages, and will often try to put as much information, complete with multiple embedded video links and oodles of images and widgets, on a home page which is usually much too long. To a professional Web Site developer this is taboo. Does the term, "user-friendly" come to mind?

It is possible to enjoy internet browsing on an old computer provided that it

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