What is Broadband Phone?

A broadband phone is one that makes phone calls over the Internet using the IP protocol. Several large broadband phone companies have come to the forefront in recent months offering the ability to make phone calls with a regular phone, that are routed over Internet Protocol using broadband Internet access. The most popular method of using voice over IP among the household users of this technology is connection to IP telephony via a digital adapter. This is the device that is connected between a broadband modem and a normal house phone to gain access to the broadband phone line. The digital adapter unscrambles the digital voice data that is received via the Internet and converts it to an analogue signal that can be heard and understood with regular non-digital phones.

Without a doubt, voice over IP is the future in telecommunications and long distance communication. Making phone calls over IP is much cheaper than either conventional phones or cellular communication. The technology is extremely efficient and it is very easy to implement due to the fact that it uses the infrastructure of the Internet, a communications structure that already exists.

As internet telephony and its surrounding technology become more and more refined over the coming years, so will the technology that gives us access to it. Even over the coming twelve months, we will see a change from the use of a digital adapter to convert digital data from the web into analogue. Instead, we will see an increase in the availability of digital telephones and USB phones that plug directly into a USB port and that can make and receive phone calls digitally. You will also notice other mediums produce products that will attempt to bridge the gap between old technology and new. While other companies will keep their eye on the digital future and come up with more advanced variations of voice over IP to take us into the future.

UK Broadband

Ever since August 2000 when BT first launched their broadband internet package, speeds have been increasing and prices have been dropping. The end aim of the UK government and all broadband providers is high-speed internet in every home in Britain.

Broadband is the name given to always-on, high-speed internet. High-speed internet is a connection that runs at 512Kbps or faster. Currently 6 million homes in the UK have a broadband connection, either through ADSL, Cable or LLU, of which 4 million are connected by ADSL.

The fastest commercially available internet connection out there is 8Mbps. With such a fast speed users can download music in seconds, stream live television and be shared between a household of computers so all the family can have a decent internet connection.

Wanadoo Broadband, the main competitor to BT broadband is running a LLU trial over summer 2005. Local Loop Unbundling is currently only used by 1% of households but if trials prove successful Wanadoo could be switching to this instead of BT's ADSL which is really what all other ADSL providers use. LLU is only possible now BT have been forced to surrender their open loop (their network of telephone lines over the country) and will involve Wanadoo installing their own equipment at BT telephone exchanges to by-pass BT's network and onto their own. For the customer this means Wanadoo internet will be cheaper and faster in the not-so-distant future.

BT have 1.7 million people subscribed onto their broadband where Wanadoo have 0.7 million. Other main contenders in the broadband war are Tiscali, Homecall, Pipex and AOL. All offer their own competitive prices. The main Cable provider in the UK is NTL.

Recently many ISP's have been increasing their internet speeds to fight off the competition. The standard ADSL connection at the moment is 2Mbps, with 8Mbps at the high end and 512Kbps at the low. As well as increasing the speed and price ISP's have also been putting up the bandwidth allowances for their customers. Typically your bandwidth allowance may be 3 GB, with 1 GB at the low end and unlimited at the high end.

ISP's implement bandwidth allowances with the increasing popularity of downloading music, TV shows and films from the internet. 1-2 GB is more than enough for normal WebPages and chat room access but limited if you wish to download a lot of music and video files. Since most people download such files illegally it isn't a large problem, but if you accidentally go over your monthly limit you could spend the rest of the month with a limited internet speed or no access at all.

The main complaint of users in the early days of Broadband Britain was accessibility. Many BT exchanges were simply out of date and the phone lines incapable of handling such fast data streams. Today 96.6% of all UK households are within a broadband area and BT is constantly upgrading their existing network, aiming to cover the entire country as soon as possible.

Broadband in the United Kingdom is expanding faster and faster. Package prices are decreasing and speeds are increasing with heavy competition on all sides. The future sees Internet becoming an ever increasing presence in each UK household, replacing televisions, radios and telephones.

How Can a Broadband Cable Benefit You?

We are now well ensconced in a time when the Web is riddled with graphics, animations, sounds, and videos, bringing about a necessity for superior internet access such as that which broadband can provide. The fact is that anything less than the speed supplied by a broadband cable has become inadequate for today's Web users.

Of course, if you use the internet only once every so often, you wouldn't be as heavily dependent upon high-speed internet access as is provided by broadband, however, if you're a regular user, it's virtually a necessity.

But wait a minute.even though you use the internet, it doesn't mean you know exactly what this high focus form of internet access actually is. So lets start there. In essence, broadband is a very fast form of internet connection. Broadband Will provide you with a noticeably faster internet speed than a dial-up connection.

Broadband used to be a challenge only because of it's limited availability, however, today there are many ways that you can have a much faster connection. The delivery methods of broadband have been expanded to the following types of broadband cable:

• Copper telephone wires
• Cable TV wires
• Radio microwaves from local base stations
• Satellite microwaves from geo-stationary satellites

Now lets look at why this faster style of internet access is actually better. The benefits of broadband actually include much more than faster downloads. Broadband is the connection that is always "on". As soon as you start up your computer, it's already connected to the internet. For anyone who has waited for a modem to dial up and connect, the advantage of this is quite apparent. Furthermore, broadband allows you to download movies, music, and web pages that were virtually inaccessible in practical terms when using dial-up.

But the benefits of broadband aren't just felt by individual users. Businesses, governments, schools, and communities can all experience the superiority that broadband cables can provide.

Here are some examples of benefits for each of those types of organizations:

• Businesses will notice an increase in productivity when large data files transfer quickly and directly among local and head offices, no matter the distance between the locations. Moreover, with the popularity of net-meetings and videoconferencing, a face-to-face meeting becomes entirely possible without the travel costs.
• Schools can now offer equal opportunities to their students no matter their location or funding. A student in a remote community is now able to use a broadband connection to receive violin lessons from the same revered instructor as a student in a large city. Moreover, rural students can take virtual field trips and see the same fascinating and educational museums as city kids.
• Local governments are now enjoying broadband benefits that let them provide one-stop shopping for town business transactions, as well as licensing, permits, billing, and utility payments.
• Communities have been quick to jump on the broadband band wagon to promote their local historical and other various tourist attractions. No other marketing resource reaches as far and as effectively as the internet.

There are so many fantastic benefits to a high-speed, broadband internet connection, that it is becoming as "basic" a need as a computer in today's society.