Cable, Digital, and Dial-up Modems

Broadband connectivity to the Internet is taking over the country by leaps and bounds. This relatively new technology uses extended bandwidths over fiber optic and digital cable and telephone lines to connect to the World Wide Web. These services, which are viable alternatives to dial-up modems, are gradually being offered to both businesses and individual consumers by many cable television systems, telephone companies, Internet Service Providers, and other communications enterprises all over the United States.

While dial-up Internet connections such as the 56K modem are still the most pervasive in the U.S., cable modems are quickly catching up in popularity to the traditional form of connectivity and are currently the fastest growing type of broadband technologies. With each passing day, the number of cable TV systems that provide this high-speed connection service is increasing. Another broadband technology is the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), which is a digital telephone service consisting of multiple channels of high-speed interconnectivity for various Internet applications. Competing with ISDN is the Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), a broadband telephone technology that transmits high-speed digital data over ordinary copper telephone wires which already exist in millions of homes and businesses throughout the country.

Internet users can learn more about these emerging technologies by visiting several "bare-bones" web sites that describe all the different forms of high-speed connections to the World Wide Web. These sites compare each technology with the others according to varying prices and service capabilities. Online visitors can then go to the sites spotlighting each broadband technology for more in-depth information on the functions and advantages of the featured type of high-speed connection. Suffice it to say, every computer user will want to seriously consider investing in a high-speed Internet connection after checking out the many sites on the World Wide Web that display data on the ever-growing broadband technology industry.