broadband clarification

Thu Jul 5 22:18:19 UTC 2001

It appears I was incorrect about cable modems.  I humbly apologize to the group.  I thought that cable modems were digital at least out to the street.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Larry Diffey 
To: nanog at merit.edu 
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 2:34 PM
Subject: broadband clarification

Alright, for all of you who decided to lecture me on the definition of broadband and it's meaning in strict engineering terms, allow me to clarify (especially for the snotty ones).

First off, words can have more than one meaning and that meaning should be taken in context.  For example; I'm sure that none of you really think that a cable modem is a modem since it doesn't do AD/DA conversion but we all understand that it's simply a device used to connect a customer to a provider.  After all "cable modem" is nothing more than a marketing term so that customers have a rough understanding of what the device does (not that they always understand that either).

When I chose to use the term broadband as a reference point for my survey, I mistakenly thought that your brains would parse that out to mean "an minimum acceptable level of bandwidth for consumer internet traffic".  If you consider that to be current DSL/Cable speeds fine.  If you take that to mean some future technology using quantum mechanics fine.

So, if you're going to lecture me on the definition of bandwidth then please stop using the term modem unless you're talking about an actual modem device.

The question then remains: What (in your opinion) constitutes broadband according to the services that have been promised to consumers but not yet delivered?

Yes, I understand that it's not just speed, but take everything else into account when  you consider the minimum speed.

Feel free to be immature enough to flame me for my lecture.

Larry Diffey
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