Broadband Internet Service.

Broadband is changing the way we use the internet.

Tired of using that slow dial-up connection to access the internet? Apparently, some users have it better than others. In many countries, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, broadband connections have revolutionized the way the internet is used. Statistics show that 33 per cent of American users subscribe to broadband with a staggering 84 per cent scheduled to make the switch by 2007. The number is even more startling in the UK with 50 per cent opting in favour of "on-all-the-time" internet connectivity. The average user can now work comfortably from their own home, download and watch net-based programming and enjoy the Web's latest offering, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). The new broadband sensation, voip is rapidly changing the way we communicate: voice is routed over the internet, through general purpose packet-switched networks which rely on greater bandwidth provided by broadband companies as opposed to relying on the servers of each individual instant messaging program such as Yahoo! or MSN Messenger. One of the most popular voip  programmes, Skype currently has 52 million subscribers worldwide explaining why eBay shelled out 2.3 billion dollars for its acquisition. The newest offering in this department is Google Talk, a well-kept secret until it was made public in August this year, which is rapidly cornering the market and sidelining Yahoo! and MSN Messenger both of whom have failed to provide VolP service.

At the moment there are more VolP users in the United States than the UK since British users are simply using it as a net-based conversation service. In the US, however, people are actually making the shift to VolP from their traditional telephone services since they merely pay a start-up subscription fee to their broadband provider and are able to make free calls outside the country. In addition, users can retain their assigned phone number worldwide and benefit from audio conferencing and transferring data files all for an affordable monthly fee.

Clearly, VolP is emerging as the preferred mode of communication with programmes' such as Paltalk, Gizmo Project, Skype and Google Talk providing clear voice conversations between users of the same - programme, bringing an end to the internet telecommunication dilemma - no more lags, delays or frustrating attempts at "connecting to servers". Also, Skype has now collaborated with German mobile phone network E-Plus. Their bundle offering consists of Skype software and E-plus' flatrate data subscription, allowing users to gain high-bandwidth internet connections and make free Skype calls over the E-plus network regardless of location. Packet Video is another company merging the internet and telecom worlds by allowing users to make video phone calls, capturing and sharing high-quality videos and playing livedigital music on the 3G networks across

Europe. Such partnerships and offerings indicate the birth of a new telecom market, it seems.
Broadband services have certainly brought about a serious change in the everyday lives of many people. Residing in London, all five members of the Chaudhry family connect to a single two-megabit-persecond line via a router and each individual connection shares the bandwidth allowing every family member to continue working without slowing the others down.

Fayyaz Chaudhry often travels to destinations such as Lyon, Moscow and Johannesburg on business and finds himself increasingly satisfied with faster broadband connections and Wi-Fi facilities available at most international airports and hotels not to mention the convenience of his connection at home. "There are times when I can work comfortably from home without worrying about connection speed, disconnections or problems downloading data from my office network," he says. "Things have never been this simple." Naveera Chaudhry, on the other hand, enjoys the advantages of Skype and now Google Talk: "sometimes you just want to t(3Jk to family or friends;' she says. It's easy now with these new instant messengers and their fantastic voice quality, it's just like being on the phone." As for Hamzah, a freshly graduated banker, broadband has made him inseparable from his palm pilot "I take it with me on the way to work," he reveals. "And use it wherever Wi-Fi facilities are available, which includes most major train stations, restaurants and of course my office. Downloading e-mail, streaming radio stations and surfing the Web helps kill time while commuting." Hamzah can now also work from home every so often, something approximately over four million people in the UK are now doing.

To gauge how broadband has affected the younger age bracket, we can use the example of Ali, the youngest member of the Chaudhry family, an undergraduate student at Oxford. While he feels broadband has made the internet faster and easier to use.

Ali is still disappointed with the quality of video streaming. "You can have the fastest broadband in the world but the quality of music videos available online is still not up to par;' he says.”It looks as if things are getting better though. An American network exclusively aired the premiere episode of a new series, "Supernatural", online and it was almost as good as TV, but that's just it, almost" ,
Service providers such as UK Online are now relying on local loop unbundling - they now have their own exchanges and networks to transmit data across lines and no longer rely on British Telecom, which was the monopoly organisation in the UK until recently. Despite all the innovations, however, increased connectivity speeds simply mean everything on the digital highway is available quicker and faster. But videoconferencing, transmitting and streaming videos online and other such services are still playing catch-up with the promises made by broadband. Faster connections, it seems, come with promises the internet itself is not yet equipped to honour.

As is well-known, in the world of technology when a product or service emerges with pledges of being faster and superior to what was there before, consumers hardly have a chance to test it out before something replaces that given item. In addition, there are risks and costs that come with quicker speeds and 24-hour connectivity. Spam, viruses, Trojans, spyware, malware and corrupted files are a bigger menace than ever before. Virus scanners, anti mal- and spy-ware scanners and firewalls are not developing at the same pace as connectivity and this gap is widening with the average user and small business falling victim. Hamzah recalls that while his brother was away at university he left his home PC connected for a number of weeks without realising that it may become vulnerable to external attacks not to mention internal malfunctions. As expected, even though it was a top-of-the-line piece of equipment, it did not fare well at the end of the three weeks - antivirus checks and anti-spyware programs revealed hundreds of infections throughout the hard drive. "That's the problem with broadband," he complains. "You don't feel the need to turn off the machine or disconnect from the internet but Windows and the current structure of home computers is not equipped to handle this:' Unfortunately, we have not reached a stage where we can milk high-speed internet for all it's worth. First, there is only so many users can do with broadband at the moment: surf the net, download or stream faster. Second, PCs are going to suffer tremendously until the next operating system or highly proficient firewalls and antivirus scanners hit the market and are equipped to tackle the complications presented by broadband.

Until that stage arrives, it seems voir will be the one thing broadband has over other connections and perhaps "moblogging". The latter combines all the services that advanced mobile phones offer - such as recording, sharing and transmitting videos on selected mobile networks across the world - with the help of broadband connectivity. At the moment, however, voip is having some serious teething problems which most users have come to expect and adjust to with all things related to the internet. The modern consumer is willing to cash in his or her chips and spend the winnings on the newest product, it seems, as long as the words affordable, luxury and comfort are associated with it, as they are with VolP. Critics are cautioning people about jumping the gun when it comes to voip telephone services. At the moment, providers are experiencing a great deal of trouble securing the transmission lines and adding on firewalls and encryption services resulting in disrupted and poor sound quality and call-dropping. It seems, once again, the service has come before the hardware to facilitate its use has been developed, which could be why the more cautious "European market has been slower to embrace voip telephony.

Until the gulf between technology and the equipment it relies on is bridged, the average can only get a taste of what is being cooked up in Silicon Valley and the like. It is simply matters of time before the wonders of broadband unfold and if the recent past is anything to go by, it seems quite likely that we will have high-speed connectivity in cars, videoconferencing on mobile phones and advanced communication between people around the world in the near future. With what broadband promises to deliver, the futuristic gadgets reserved for the use of a certain 007 might fall into the hands of Johnny B. Goode.

_{source Spider Mag.}