Essay About Analog Modems And Standard Analog Modems

Cable Modems Vs. Digital Subscriber Lines
Cable Modems Vs. Digital Subscriber Lines
Cable Modems vs. Digital Subscriber Lines
Bob Fager
Econ 235ഊThe Internet has grabbed on to the world and it isn’t
letting go. Nearly 36 million U.S. homes currently have PCs
and everyone is dying to jump on the information
superhighway. The Internet, which started as a group of
government agencies and universities, has grown to include
almost anyone, from home users to large companies and
everyone in between. It makes sense then that providing
Internet service is big business. The service which used to
be dominated by groups of nerdy computer whizzes using
equipment in someone’s basement is now being provided by
many telephone companies, large on-line services and may
soon be available from you local cable company.
Computer users are an impatient group. They are
starving for a faster way of connecting to the ‘net. Until
now home users have had to suffer with the slow connections
available with analog modems or spend a relatively large
amount on having a digital line, such as ISDN, installed and
then continue paying a lot for the monthly charges
associated with such lines.
Standard analog modems have always been hindered by the
bandwidth they are allowed to use. Standard voice grade
phone lines use the frequency spectrum between 0khz and 4khz
to transmit their signal. 33.6 kbps modems packed nearly 11
bits of data per hertz, a remarkable feat, which is very
near the theoretical limit. To allow faster connections
modems must use a wider bandwidth.ഊTwo new competing technologies are now being developed
which use this broadband idea to give computer users the
speed they crave. Telephone companies are working on
developing a way to use the standard twisted pair copper
wires that now connect nearly every home in America to
transmit data at high speeds. These technologies,
collectively called xDSL, come in two main flavors. ADSL,
which is an acronym for asymmetric digital subscriber line,
is the most common. This name was coined by Bellcore in
1989. The other main type of digital subscriber line is
called HDSL. It stands for high-bit-rate digital subscriber
line. These two technologies are essentially the same,
except they apportion a different bandwidth to upstream
(user to network) and downstream (network