Broadband

What is Broadband?
This is the term for communications technology that allows faster data communication. You can use a broadband connection to access Internet at speeds that are significantly quicker than dial-up connections. Most broadband offers provide download speeds of 512kbps or higher.

What are the benefits?

Speed - Broadband connections offer faster access to the Internet.
Always On - The internet connection to your ISP is constant so you don't need to make a dial-up connection every time you go online to surf the Internet or to access your email account.
Stay in contact - One drawback with dial-up Internet is that the telephone line is taken up while the Internet is in use, therefore you cannot make or receive voice calls. With broadband you can still make and receive telephone calls when you or someone else in the house is online.

Visit www.broadbandaware.com Pop up to new window for more information.

Where can I check if Broadband is available in my area?

Information is available from your service provider. Please click here for a list of authorised ISPs in Ireland. There are a number of service providers offering Irish residential consumers broadband connectivity to the Internet. You should note that broadband coverage will vary depending on your location. Please check with your ISP for availability of broadband in your area. It is as simple as giving them your home telephone number and they can check if your location is broadband enabled. Some phone lines may not be able to support broadband services as the technology is dependent on the distance you are from your local exchange and other factors which may affect your line quality. Please contact your ISP if you have queries regarding broadband availability

The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources also has a website dedicated to broadband information. Visit www.broadbandaware.com Pop up to new window for more information.

For information about the government's National Broadband Scheme please see www.dcenr.gov.ie/Communications/Communications+Development/National+Broadband+Scheme.htm

Wireless Broadband

Wireless broadband is now available in many regions of the country and is becoming more available as service providers expand their networks. To get wireless broadband you need to be within the coverage area of a service provider with a clear signal from a local mast.

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Broadband Speeds and Tests

What speed do you need?

The amount of data you transfer depends on what you do. If you are new to broadband you will most likely be a light or medium user using the internet for general surfing, email use and occasional downloading of music and / or video clips. If a few people in your household share the connection then you may be better off with a medium-usage connection.

If you use the internet for a number of hours each day and download extensively then you should be looking for a product with a large download capacity and high download speed. Downloading lots of music, viewing a lot of video content or running streaming applications such as internet radio will dramatically increase your usage.

As a guide you can view approximately 20 pages on the internet for each megabyte (MB) of download, while an average four minute MP3 (music file) is approximately 4 MB and a five-minute movie trailer can be as much as 30 MB

What are the terms used when referring to speed?

Download speed

This is a measure of how fast your connection delivers content to your computer when you move files from the internet on to your PC

Upload speeds

This is the measure of how fast content is delivered when you send files from your computer or local area network to others using the internet.

kbps, kb/s or k
This is the kilobit per second transfer rate, i.e. multiples of a thousand bits (b) per second And should not be confused with capacity (used to measure file size) which is measured in Bytes (B) with each byte containing 8 bits.

Transfer Rate
Transfer rate, also referred to as‘speed’ or throughput; which is the speed at which data can be transmitted between devices. If you require large data downloads then the highest data transfer rate is most desirable.

Latency
In a network, latency, is the time delay to get from one designated point to another, generally the time for the data downloaded from a server on the internet to reach the user. Low latency is crucial for broadcast (streaming) applications and gaming.

What is the difference in speed?

The maximum speed the product is capable of technically achieving can differ from the actual speed achieved, depending on many factors e.g. time of day, contention ratio etc. Broadband products typically come in a range of download speeds. The higher the download speed the faster it is to open web pages, download files etc. More sophisticated uses of broadband such as online gaming typically require higher broadband speeds.

To put this in context if you have used a 56k dial-up connection, 512k is nearly 10 times faster whilst an ‘8 meg’ (8Mbps) service is about 140 times faster.

What affects the speed?

Ideally the line speed should equal to the advertised broadband line speed but as all data transfers are transmitted over broadband line there are other factors that impact speed for example:

Contention Ratio: This indicates the number of users that may share one line with you. If your service has a contention ration of 20:1 for example, it means that you share the line with 19 other users. The ratio may vary so remember the lower the ratio, the more likely the experience will be better. The contention ratio is not stated for mobile broadband products because it depends on how many users are in a particular mobile broadband area at a given time.

The distance from the exchange or base station: This could be the most crucial factor to affect what speed you are capable of getting as throughput declines exponentially with the distance from the base station. The nearer to the exchange or base station you are, the better the access.

Equipment, internal wiring and software: Other areas that may affect your speed are the actual quality of your modem, internal cables and software such as; anti-spam firewalls and anti-virus programmes as well as the actual configuration of your computer. It is known that some wireless modems can have a negative effect on the speed you get and in some cases the loss can be significant. In addition, the quality of the internal cables that connect the modem to the computer can reduce speed. If there are several people within the household sharing the same connection to the internet at the same time, this also can reduce your experience.

Redundancy: the amount of the ‘theoretical throughput’ that is used for housekeeping functions including, IP addresses, error correction etc. This is typically about 10%.