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How Do I Get DSL, Cable, Satellite, Or 4 g-Comparison For Broadband Internet Service and HDTV

Telephone, Internet, and TV service are now bundled rules by service providers. It is convenient to have a single supplier and one bill a month. With the availability of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), the lines between the different services have blurred further.

Broadband Internet service (High Speed) for residential or small business requirements has usually been available from two sources: DSL, a system that piggy-backed lease on the telephone wiring from the telephone company or Cable system that similarly, piggy-backed lease on the cable TV wiring. In 2008, about 25 million customers aquamaps data sources: GBIF cable broadband, and about 22 million customers aquamaps data sources: GBIF DSL. In 2001, a total of about 5 million customers used either cable broadband or DSL.

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Formost people the TV coaxial cable has offered better performance than DSL, but if you were highly price conscious, then the DSL cable may have been competitive. So, in a discussion of broadband choices, we should include cable and DSL, but we will also discuss new options that are now available like WildBlue satellite, and services that will soon be available like WiMax (WiFi with a city-wide hot-spot) and ViaSat (satellite communications on steroids).

The Impact of Video Downloads (especially HDTV):

Despite the relatively small number of users, research indicates that systems such as BitTorrent and YouTube account for more than half of all Internet traffic. In 1995 the total amount of data transacted over the Internet backbone was about 1.5 million gigabytes.By 2006, this had grown to over 700 million gigabytes.

ABI Research projects that the number of video downloads to increase from 215 million downloads this year (2008) to 2.4 billion downloads in 2012. This number becomes more impressive when one takes into account that a much higher per cent of those downloads in 2012 will be HDTV files, which are much larger (not HDTV movie is approximately 3 GB/Hour, HDTV file size is dependent on encoding: an MPEG-4 encoded HDTV movie file size is approximately 5 GB/Hour, 1280 X 720 an unencoded movie file size is over 150 GB/Hour, and 1920 X 1080 an unencoded movie file size is over 350 GB/Hour).

By 2010, forecasts call for 80-90% of Internet traffic to be video transfer.

Cable and the Phone Companies (DSL):

Cable broadbandis capable of about 30 MBPS of bandwidth, however, speed can vary. Unfortunately, the measurement in real-world conditions can be more complicated. If many people in your neighborhood use the same broadband service as you, and those people use a lot of bandwidth, for video downloads for example, then you will be sharing some resources, and your performance will suffer. Most service providers offer service with between 3-6 MBPS bandwidth for downloads. Upload bandwidth is lower: usually between 200-600 KBPS.

Median DSL speed in the U.S. is 768 KBPS. One type of DSL technology, VDSL is capable of 30 MBPS bandwidth, but this service is not widely available. Instead, telephone companies more commonly offer ADSL or SDSL services (cheaper and slower).

Both Cable Broadband and DSLservice providers commonly employ bandwidth caps for residential and small business customers. Service providers concerned about the overall capability of their network may institute the capacity constraints so that they can provide equal performance to all of their customers.

Cable and the Phone Companies HDTV:

Verizon is building fiber-optic networks that will be capable of broadcasting handle 200 + HDTV channels in addition to all of the conventional TV channels.

Most cable operators have enough available bandwidth for only about 10-12 HDTV channels without a major retooling of their networks.

WiMax and LTE:

In major metropolitan areas in the U.S., WiMax should available late in 2008. Sprint will make its commercial WiMAX debutin Baltimore in September. WiMax supports peak data speeds of about 20 MBPS, but, as with most broadband technologies, that bandwidth will be shared amongst users. On average, a user will see data rates between 1 .5MBPS and 4 MBPS.

Most major wireless carriers are skipping WiMax, planning instead to build out networks using a similar technology called Long Term Evolution (LTE), a successor to current cellular technology. WiMax has a head start on LTE, which won't be ready until 2010. These two technologies are referred to as 4 g networks (Current state of the art mobile phone technology for accessing the Internet is called 3 g). If mobile broadband service is important to you, these products will be very attractive. Unlike rivals GSM and CDMA, both 4 g networks are based on "Orthogonal"Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), also sometimes referred to as" discrete multi-tone modulation ". Since both LTE and WiMax are based on similar technology, unified standard is possible in theory, and discussions are ongoing. Motorola has said 85% of the technology and work for WiMax equipment will be reused in its designs for LTE equipment.

WiMAX and LTE can deliver large amounts of bandwidth operating at low power levels necessary for mobile devices. Another advantage of WiMax/LTE is its ability to communicate out of line-of-sight (unlike conventional WiFi), and to communicate into large buildings, in theory making dropped calls, typical of today's cell phones, a thing of the past. A company called MobiTV will utilize the WiMAX network for the broadcast of TV,including HDTV. VoIP (telephone service) has already been deployed on WiMAX networks in other parts of the world.

Satellite Broadband:

Also newly introduced into the Broadband market is WildBlue Satellite. This broadband service does not require a phone or cable line. WildBlue Satellite broadband service offers download/upload speeds starting at just $ 50 per month (512 kbps download speed with upload speed up to 128 kbps), or $ 80 per month (1.5 Mbps download speed and uploads up to 256 kbps). For those living in areas not well served by Cable Broadband and DSL, this is an attractive alternative. iNetVu offers a portable system for vehicles.

A very powerful new satellite, Viasat-1, will launch in 2011. This satellite will greatly improve the competitiveness ofsatellite in this field. ViaSat-1 has a total throughput capability of over 100 Gb/second, which is more capacity than the current American fleet of two-way C, Ka and Ku band satellites combined. In 2010, a similar service will be launed in Europe by Ka-Sat.

Both WildBlue and ViaSat terminals use a networking technology that uses bandwidth more efficiently, satellite called DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications), lowering the cost of Internet service to consumers. The terminals includes satellite modems and Ka band transceivers. DOCSIS has the ability to address "rain fade", a reduction in signal that is caused by heavy cloud cover, like during a thunderstorm. DOCSIS automatically responds to a reduced signal caused by atmospheric conditions with variable powercontrol and data encoding techniques.

ViaSat-1 will offer more than a 10 x increase in the capacity with frequency reuse by utilizing a technique called "SpotBeams" (WildBlue also uses SpotBeams). The high throughout of ViaSat-1 makes it ideal for transmitting new video applications requiring ultra high bit rates such as HDTV, HD digital cinema and 3D TV. Spotbeams can be compared to a searchlight. SpotBeams focus a signal on an area 100 to 200 miles across. Thge same frequencies can be be reused many times, but for a different focus area.

ViaSat and WildBlue are geosynchronous satellites. A geosynchronous satellite remains above the same spot on the earth by orbiting at approximately 36.000 kilometers above the equator. Your signal must do a round-trip, and theminimum time for such a trip is about 1/4 second.

Satellite HDTV:

While HDTV local channels are more available on satellite than cable, DirecTV and the Dish Network each offer more national HDTV channels. DirecTV offers about 60 national HDTV channels and the Dish Network has about 50 HDTV channels. DirecTV and EchoStar plan additional satellites to offer at least 150 national HD channels, as well as local HDTV stations.

"Satellite's going to be constrained not so much by how many channels they can carry than by how many they can get," Bob Scherman, Satellite Business News.

By 2010, it is projected that 60% of TV receivers will use a Satellite signal, up from 15% in 2002.
Summary:

Median DSL speed in the U.S. is 768KBPS.
Median speed Internet over Cable broadband is about 4.5 MBPS.
WildBlue service is approximately 500 KBPS.
WiMax service will be between 1 .5MBPS and 4 MBPS.
ViaSat-1 service (2011) will be about 2 MBPS.

HDTV service is currently more fully served by the satellite TV companies like DirectV and Dish Network. New systems being implemented by Verizon, or perhaps a thorough retooling by local cable TV operators will offer the best competition.

The supply of HDTV and Broadband service in the U.S. is currently fragmented from the satellite industry. Both may be available from local retailers, but a unified system is lacking. This compares poorly to Europe and EutelSat, which will launch Ka-Sat in 2010 (Ka-Sat is very similar to ViaSat-1, discussedabove), and install this satellite to satellite "neighborhood", so that a single system will receive both the TV signals from their HotBird satellite system, and receive high performance broadband from Ka-Sat. This is unfortunate for U.S. consumers.

Currently, over 90% of customers of broadband services utilize either cable broadband or DSL. However, new worthy competition is entering the fray, and it will be difficult for those services to maintain their market share.