Internet accessInternet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Internet service providers (ISPs) delivering connectivity at a wide range of data transfer rates via various networking technologies. Many organizations, including a growing number of municipal entities, also provide cost-free wireless access and landlines.
Broadband Integrated Services Digital NetworkIn the 1980s, the telecommunications industry expected that digital services would follow much the same pattern as voice services did on the public switched telephone network, and conceived an end-to-end circuit switched service, known as Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network (B-ISDN). Before B-ISDN, the original ISDN attempted to substitute the analog telephone system with a digital system which was appropriate for both voice and non-voice traffic.
Cable modemA cable modem is a type of network bridge that provides bi-directional data communication via radio frequency channels on a hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC), radio frequency over glass (RFoG) and coaxial cable infrastructure. Cable modems are primarily used to deliver broadband Internet access in the form of cable Internet, taking advantage of the high bandwidth of a HFC and RFoG network. They are commonly deployed in the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe. Internet Experiment Note (IEN) 96 (1979) describes an early RF cable modem system.
Computer networkA computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. Computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are made up of telecommunication network technologies based on physically wired, optical, and wireless radio-frequency methods that may be arranged in a variety of network topologies. The nodes of a computer network can include personal computers, servers, networking hardware, or other specialized or general-purpose hosts.
10BASE510BASE5 (also known as thick Ethernet or thicknet) was the first commercially available variant of Ethernet. The technology was standardized in 1982 as IEEE 802.3. 10BASE5 uses a thick and stiff coaxial cable up to in length. Up to 100 stations can be connected to the cable using vampire taps and share a single collision domain with 10 Mbit/s of bandwidth shared among them. The system is difficult to install and maintain.
TelecommunicationsTelecommunication, often used in its plural form, is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that feasible with the human voice, but with a similar scale of expediency; thus, slow systems (such as postal mail) are excluded from the field.
Internet service providerAn Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privately owned. Internet services typically provided by ISPs can include Internet access, Internet transit, domain name registration, web hosting, Usenet service, and colocation. An ISP typically serves as the access point or the gateway that provides a user access to everything available on the Internet.
ModemA modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by modulating one or more carrier wave signals to encode digital information, while the receiver demodulates the signal to recreate the original digital information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded reliably.
TelephonyTelephony (təˈlɛfəni ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is intimately linked to the invention and development of the telephone. Telephony is commonly referred to as the construction or operation of telephones and telephonic systems and as a system of telecommunications in which telephonic equipment is employed in the transmission of speech or other sound between points, with or without the use of wires.
Latency (engineering)Latency, from a general point of view, is a time delay between the cause and the effect of some physical change in the system being observed. Lag, as it is known in gaming circles, refers to the latency between the input to a simulation and the visual or auditory response, often occurring because of network delay in online games. Latency is physically a consequence of the limited velocity at which any physical interaction can propagate. The magnitude of this velocity is always less than or equal to the speed of light.
