what is Broadband?
Broadband is a term that is used consistently with different types of internet connections. Broadband in telecommunications means a wide range of frequencies that are available to transmit information. This ultimately means that the wider the range of frequencies available, the high the amount of information that can be sent at one given time. For an easy way to picture a broadband internet connection compared to a narrowband internet connection, think of a highway. With a one lane highway (narrowband), only one car at a time can travel, however with broadband, you can have a highway with 6 or 8 lanes, allowing more traffic to pass at one specific time.
Various minimum bandwidths have been used in definitions of broadband, ranging up from 64 kbit/s up to 2.0 Mbit/s, the 2006 OECD report is typical by defining broadband as having download data transfer rates equal to or faster than 256 kbit/s, while the United States (US) Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as of 2009, defines broadband as data transmission speeds exceeding 200 kilobits per second (Kbps), or 200,000 bits per second, in at least one direction: downstream (from the Internet to the user’s computer) or upstream (from the user’s computer to the Internet). The trend is to raise the threshold of the broadband definition as the marketplace rolls out faster services.
Data rates are defined in terms of maximum download because several common consumer broadband technologies such as ADSL are "asymmetric"—supporting much slower maximum upload data rate than download.
"Broadband penetration" is now treated as a key economic indicator.