Broadband v. baseband ... again?

Thu Jul 5 18:26:06 UTC 2001

> From: Tom Lettington [mailto:tom at tfl.net]
> Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 11:01 AM
> 
> At the risk of incurring the wrath of Mr. Meyer by posting without 
> permission, I offer the following: Harry Newton, of "Newton's TELECOM 
> Dictionary - The Official Dictionary of Telecommunications & 
> the Interent" 
> (Updated 15th Expanded Edition), defines "Broadband" (in the 
> WAN context) 
> as anything over 45Mbps (T3).

heh, that dictionary may be a good marketing tool, but try and pass your
engineering exams with it ... you won't. By that definition, my 1.5Gbps
switched backplane is a broadband system. It isn't, regardless of what that
dictionary says.

> The language we use in our industry is evolving at an extremely rapid 
> rate.  The great unwashed masses don't necessarily stick with 
> the time 
> honored definitions we would prefer that they admire, 
> respect, and accept 
> as gospel.  Get over it!

You must work in marketing. Fuzzy definiions mean fuzzy equations, which
reults in things not working.

The unwashed masses are allowed to be imprecise, we are not. That's why we
get the big bucks (not).