by Dan Willett

Created on: November 04, 2008   Last Updated: November 11, 2008

For years now, the media has been telling us that Broadband is the future. Broadband offers us the ability to download movies, interact with friends and family online, share photos and home movies, and much, much more. Well, the future is now here, even if some of us are still stuck in the past. Broadband is generally available, though at differing speeds and costs. Some of the questions you should ask to determine if you are ready for Broadband include your specific data needs (online gaming, movies and videos, or just sharing family pictures via the internet?), your tolerance for monthly fees, (ranging from minimal to truly expensive), and your current computer's ability to benefit from Broadband.

Cost is most important to most consumers, but many do not understand that cost is inseparably linked to the speed of the connection (all Broadband packages are not the same). Also important but often overlooked are length of contract, tech support/assistance, information security, and the overall reputation of the provider.

What can a consumer expect from various speeds?

While all broadband is faster than 28.8 dialup, broadband can range from 385kbps (kbps means kilobytes per second', which is uh well, just call it much faster than dialup), for low end DSL/cable to 1500 for high end DSL/Cable subscribers. Many businesses rely on T1 (a 24 channel cable, which delivers speeds of up to 3000 kbps, and T3, which Can deliver 30,000 kbps (3000mbps), but the costs range from the hundreds to thousands of dollars per month for those services, and home users will neither need or notice the speed difference, except when paying the monthly bill

How many megabytes do you need to successfully download music/movies?

Many people's true bottleneck is not their broadband, service, however, but their PC. In the fast paced world of computing, a two-year old computer may just not be able to provide the speed necessary to fully utilize a broadband connection without the addition of more RAM (Random Access Memorythink of it as the computer's operating memory). Your computer's operating system is also critical to the question of how much speed you are going to be able to get out of broadband, as well as how much RAM you need.

For a system running Windows XP, you may need only about 256 K (Kilobytes) of RAM to run basic online functions, but your computer will likely need a minimum of 512 K to successfully run graphics presentations and basic sound and photo editing functions, while to display real time video, multimedia presentations or video editing, you will need 1 GB (Gigabyte) or more.

Windows Vista requires even more memory, demanding a minimum of 512K, but actually needing 1GB to 2GB to operate smoothly when running anything more than the most basic graphics display.

Whatever your graphics needs, the simple answer to RAM questions is always "More is Better", and although adding more RAM to your PC may also make your broadband upgrade more expensive as well, it will allow you to achieve a richer, more detailed Broadband experience.

Learn more about this author, Dan Willett.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.