Terminology

Bandwidth: Measure of capacity in "the pipe". Digital Bandwidth is measured in bits per second (bps).

Units: Kilo (k), Mega (M), Giga (G), and Tera (T) represents thousand, million, billion, trillion. Pecta (P) is quadrillion.

Bit: The smallest unit of digital transmission, a single state, often expressed as On or Off or also a "one" or "zero". A million bits per second is Mbps.

Byte: Consists of 8 bits and can convey 256 separate characters A million bytes per second is MBps.

Broadband: Data transmission scheme that sends multiple pieces of data over a single medium. Often refers to high-speed data transfer speeds when benchmarked with dial-up. The FCC currently defines broadband speeds to be upstream/downstream data flow of a MINIMUM OF 768 kbps, which doesn't even meet the IEEE definition for baseband speeds. The FCC is currently seeking input for a new definition.

10-base-T: Baseband (or narrow band) Ethernet capable of transmitting 10 million bits per second over a network.

100 base-T: Broadband Ethernet capable of transmitting 100 million bits per second over a network.

802.11: An IEEE standard for wireless data transmission at 2.4 Mhz

BPL: Broadband over Power Line, an emerging technology that utilizes existing medium voltage to transport data at broadband speeds.

Cat 5: Four pair of twisted telephone wires capable of up to 100 million bits (100Mbps) data transmission for up to 100 meters (inside wiring)

Cable Modem: A new popular high-speed (2 Mbps or less) that utilizes two-way cable TV systems. Most installed cable TV systems in the past two decades were one-way.

CPE: Customer Premise Equipment, the “box” or device that is the interface with the customer to the broadband utility.

Dark Fiber: A fiber optic cable that is installed but does not have the lasers installed to "light" the fiber. It is either spare or leased to entities that intend to install the electronics.

DSL: Digital Subscriber Line , A telecommunications provider high-speed (128 kbps or more) offering that is popular in urban areas for users within three miles of a provider’s central office.

Ethernet: Defined by IEEE, a packet based data transmission protocol that defines how data is transmitted then retrieved on a network.

Fiber Optics: A strand of glass thinner than a human hair that is capable of carrying a light signal close to 70 miles without amplification. The light can be pulsed in a single wavelength to represent 45 Gigabits of information. Adding a wavelength doubles that capacity. In the year 2000, the wavelength technology is at 16 and growing.

High-speed: Synonymous to Broadband for quantifying the amount of data

IEEE: Institute of Electrical Electronics Engineers a standards making body comprised of industry professionals.

ISP: Internet Service Provider. A network service provider that supplies a path to the World Wide Web without controlling the content.

T-1: Bell system introduced the T carrier system, which digitized voice into 24 channels, in the 1960s. This system allowed 4 wires to carry the information of 48 wires. The bandwidth of T-1 is defined at 1.544 Mbps. A voice channel was 64 Kbps.

Digital Divide: A common euphemism that describes the haves and have nots of the information age, usually urban versus rural communities.