The question of whether to go with a broad band cable high speed Internet connection instead of DSL or satellite Internet can be a tricky one to answer when it comes to your home computing needs. After all, each of these technologies has something to offer, but it's only practical to choose one for your home. There are some things that you can base the decision on though. The high speed Internet connection that you choose should balance versatility, reliability, and value. When you look at it that way, the choice becomes clearer.



In terms of versatility, there are two ways that you can measure a high speed Internet connection: bandwidth and latency. Bandwidth is the amount of data that the Internet connection can handle all at once. The more bandwidth your Internet connection provides, the better off you are. Greater bandwidth will allow you to download more data from more places at the same time and access richer multimedia experiences. One way in which more bandwidth provides greater versatility is that it allows you to have more computers and other electronic devices accessing the Internet all at once without slowing each other down. This means that more bandwidth is better for households where a lot of people use the Internet all at once. It's also an excellent choice for anyone who wants a wireless network in their own home. A wireless network will not only allow all of the computers to connect to the Internet without the annoyance of cabling all over the house, but it will also allow laptop users to access the Internet rom any part of the house.

In addition, there are many mobile devices available these days that can benefit from wireless networks. This includes everything from VoIP phone handsets and smart phones to many types of media devices. Broad band cable high speed Internet connections win out by the bandwidth measure because they provide a lot more of it than the other connections do.

Latency is a more subtle concept than bandwidth, but at least as important when it comes to versatility. Latency is the amount of time between when a computer sends out a request for data over the Internet and when it starts to receive that data. While larger bandwidths are better, smaller latencies are better than larger latencies because too large of a latency can create a time lag that can cause problems for some types of software and may even be noticeable to humans. It's especially bad for real time collaborative and gaming applications like World of WarCraft and VoIP services. While broad band digital cable and DSL both provide low latency Internet connections, satellite Internet is a really poor choice in this way because of a built in time lag.

When considering value, you want the largest bandwidth and the smallest latency in your Internet connection for any amount of money that you spend. Broad band cable and DSL are very comparable in terms of latency and price, but broad band cable provides upwards of four times the bandwidth of DSL so it's obviously the better value of the two. We've already seen that satellite Internet has an extremely large latency compared to the other two, and since it's no faster than DSL, broad band Internet would be the clear winner over it for that reason as well. When you look at the cost of satellite Internet compared to the others- roughly twice as much per month and a large set up fee- it's really a nail in the coffin of this kind of technology.

All of this makes broad band cable the high speed Internet technology of choice.