How Broad is Broadband?

Photon01 writes "The Register reports that UK ISP NTL have lost, in a ruling that their advertisement of their 128k broadband service as 'High Speed Broadband Internet' is misleading. This is despite it clearly meeting the technical definitions of broadband internet. Apparently 128k broadband is not broad enough." My first cable modem was only 256k. It wasn't blazingly fast but after being stuck on dialup it was heaven, and I imagine 128k wouldn't be so bad for a single household.

Comments

simple answer

[Anonymous Coward]

not broad enough :)

Broad?

[Zipster]

Dunno about the rest of you, but my "broadband" connection is only a few millimeters wide...

Re:Broad?

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

" Dunno about the rest of you, but my "broadband" connection is only a few millimeters wide..."

Your falling to fluff. What you see is deciving, your broadband is a fracton of a millimeter wide. ISP's just want you to think the sheething on that cat 5 is giving you a faster connection.

mm

[Anonymous Coward]

how many brands can a broadbrand brand if a broadband could broad brands?

Re:Kind of Broadband

[grahammm]

A university should know better. They should know that broadband refers to the mechanism of sending the data on the wire and has nothing to do with the speed of the connection.

Re:Definition of Broadband...

[bcwalrus]

Let's define it in terms of how much /. effect it can sustain. Let a full scale be 100. I propose broadband = 3.1415

Re:Marketting stealing technical definitions

[grasshoppa]

What can be done to stop sales and marketting (and politicians) from diluting perfectly good technical terms.Something nasty, hopefully involving electrodes.

Re:Network Speed Chart

[glenebob]

Speed would depend on the size of the van. Driving distance would cause latency. Packet loss would be determined by the number of flat tires :-)

Re:Definition of Broadband...

[mesach]

mmmm Pi.

so by that definition then broadband is what... Coconut Cream, Keylime, or Chocolate Silk!

In Soviet Sweden...

[ayjay29]

In Sweden, my friend lives in appartment block, and they got a 100Mbps broadbend network installed free as the company wanted to test the technology. (They pay about $20 a month to use it).

Thay had a meeting about it, to discuss what people thought of it, the company explained that other appartments were having 10Mbps lines installed.

Being Swedish, they decided to have a vote, and democratically decided to change the network to 10Mbps so they would have the same as everyone else.

Only in Sweden...

I just see it coming

[varjag]

"Enlarge your broadband now! No pills, no pumps! Up to 4 inches thick! Guaranteed!"

Re:How broad is broadband?

[unitron]

"There's no such thing as downloading pr0n too fast!"

Why do you think they call it broadband?

Re:Marketting stealing technical definitions

[Rick.C]

What can be done to stop sales and marketting (and politicians) from diluting perfectly good technical terms.

The solution to this problem has already been given by Douglas Adams at the end of Hitchikers' Guide.

The scientists and techies convinced everyone that a large asteroid would hit the Earth in a few years. They decided to build three huge spaceships to ferry everyone off the planet. Since the marketeers and politicians were so important to the success of the new colony on a distant planet, they insisted that they should leave on the first ship so they could set up the economy and the government before everyone else arrived.

As soon as the first ship left, the techies announced that there was no asteroid and the Earth was now free of marketeers and politicains.

Remember this the next time you hear about an asteroid warning from the techies at NASA.