Broadband DSL

Broadband is often called high-speed Internet, because it usually has a high speed of data transmission.

By widely accepted definitions, any internet connection of 256 kbit/s or more is considered broadband Internet.

The FCC definition of broadband is 200 kbit/s in one direction, and advanced broadband is at least 200 kbit/s in both directions.

The OECD has defined broadband as 256 kbit/s in at least one direction and this bit rate is the most common baseline that is marketed as "broadband" around the world.

However, since there is no specific bitrate defined by the industry, some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use these discrepencies in definitions to their advantage in marketing lower-bitrate connections as broadband.

While they may advertise high speeds with lots of exclamation points, in reality, the rate of data transmission may be slower most of the time your computer is connected than they advertise.

In practice, the advertised bandwidth is not always reliably available to the customer because internet service providers often allow a greater number of subscribers than their backbone connection can actually handle.

They assume that not everyone will be using their full connection at the same time (which is often true). However, this means that you may experience large lags in connection if other users in your local area are downloading a lot of data.

ISPs often overbook their capacity, similar to how a webhosting company may promise 'unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth etc...'

High Speed cable offers a more reliable high-speed connection due to the wiring.

If you want to take advantage of high-bandwidth services offered online such as MPEG-2 quality video and video conferencing, your best bet may be a cable modem.

The data rates on most broadband services still do not suffice to provide good quality video, as MPEG-2 quality video requires about 6 Mbit/s for good results. 

Adequate video for some purposes becomes possible at lower data rates, with rates of 768 kbit/s and 384 kbit/s used for some video conferencing applications.

It pays to shop around and make sure the internet connection speed you want is available most or all of the time.