Introduction to ISPs & Broadband Technologies © EIT, Author Gay Robertson, 2017

What is an ISP? ISP stands for Internet Service Provider It is a company that sells internet access Everything you send goes through your ISP Everything you receive goes through your ISP It does this by allowing you to tap into the ISP cable or mobile network In exchange, an ISP charges a monthly fee for this access and service

How does this work? When you sign up to an ISP, your home or office network gains access to the internet through the use of cables laid under the street or footpath outside An ISP establishes a connection to the cable which allows access to the internet and networks outside of your home or workplace From here your home computer or devices are able to send and receive data over the internet

Most subscriptions available with New Zealand ISPs allows the customer to use a certain amount of data per month For example a customer might pay $40.00 per month and get 40Gb data package a month This means that during this month, the customer can download, upload, and transfer 40Gb of data through the internet over the month for the agreed monthly fee Note: Generally if a customer goes over their data package, they are charged extra for the extra data used

Broadband Technologies Not only do ISPs offer a range of packages with different amounts of data, but also there are different cable technologies available which should be taken into consideration: ADSL VDSL Fibre

ADSL Stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line Uses the copper cabling in phone lines that are not taken up by phone calls Due to this it is more widely available and less expensive then other forms of Broadband connections Speeds or data transferred on ADSL can depend on the condition of the wires and the distance from your home to the Internet provider

VDSL Stands for Very-high-bitrate Digital Subscriber Line It can be up to 5 times faster for downloading and up to 10 times faster for uploading (up to 60Mbs) – great for businesses This is due to more efficient use of existing copper phone lines This is achieved by configuring these lines to shorter distances so this means there is less chance of the signal weakening and establishes a more reliable connection However the condition of wires and some distances can still impact on the end result

UFB/Fibre Ultra-Fast Broadband, also know as Fibre internet Transfer speeds are far higher then both ADSL and VDSL, allowing for a speed of up to 1Gbps, although speeds tend to average more around 300Mbps This is because Fibre technology does not use phone lines, but fibre optical cables. Data is transferred by light signals instead of electrical signals This results in the fastest, most reliable signal connections available today The cost of Fibre is generally higher than alternative options

What is 3G or 4G … What is 3G/4G? 3rd Generation 4th Generation (most current 15/11/16) 3G technology created the first networks fast enough to make smartphones practical. Before that, they were too slow to allow you do all the things that make smartphones great, like streaming videos, surfing the web and downloading music. 4G has really allowed smartphone technology to spread its wings. That’s because it’s much, much faster than 3G. So when you want to download a new game or stream a TV show in HD, you can do it without buffering and lags that make the experience not worth the wait. https://www.verizonwireless.com/archive/mobile-living/network-and-plans/what-is-3g-what-is-4g-lte-difference/

Okay, let’s go use the workbook This graphic from URL: https://thenextweb.com