Sunday, May 11, 2008

The Importance of High Speed Internet Service

The invention and continuing popularity of the internet changed the way we live. Life certainly became a bit easier with the internet. With the internet, we now have the ability to search archives of files in the library, communicate with relatives half way around the world and we can now even shop for groceries right in the comfort of our own home.

It has changed the way we communicate and live our lives. Even businesses now use the internet as a tool for making more profit.

A few years ago, we accessed the internet using a modem; this would seem fast for someone who grew up using snail mail, but after the invention of high-speed internet, we now notice how slow a 56kbps dial up internet can be.

You might have experienced using a 56kbps dial up internet and after you typed in the website, it would seem that you can actually go to the kitchen make yourself dinner and after you come back to find out the webpage you typed isnt even finished loading.

Today a speed of 256kbps and higher is considered a high-speed internet, it would seem that 56kbps is puny. It the time of the 56kbps internet, downloading a simple mp3 file could take a long time.

Today, the 256kbps high-speed internet gives you the ability to download full-length movies.

There are so many advantages with high-speed internet. One would be online gaming. It is now possible for people with high-speed internet to play with others from every part of the world with high-speed internet connection.

Another great feature is that you can update Windows protection software half the time a dial up internet can. Since many viruses are circulating the internet, your computer should have updated anti-virus software. The dial up internet is much more prone to viruses because of slow updates.

High-speed internet changed the way we communicate. With this technology, it is now possible for us to communicate not just by plain text but also through video and voice, much like a video telephone. The cost of putting up this technology in our home is very affordable. Almost everyone can afford it.

As the years passes, the demand for high-speed internet connection increases. Because of the growing demand, many companies opened as providers of high-speed internet and created competition. This increase in competition enabled people to afford high-speed internet.

The competition between providers did not only result into more affordably priced high-speed internet connection but it also caused a wide variety of products for high-speed internet connection. Some companies now offer VoIP phones. They also offer different high-speed internet packages that you can choose from to suit your needs.

Choosing the best high-speed internet providers is easy; all you need is a little time and effort.

Here are some few tips to keep in mind before you choose your high-speed internet provider:

Find out what you really need from a provider and estimate how much time you will be using the internet.

Bob Hett has extensively covered the Internet Service Provider industry as an analyst and has researched the various companies for factors based on price, reliability, support and overall quality. Learn more at High Speed Internet Service

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What Are The Bandwidth Requirements For IPTV Implementation?

Many see IPTV as the "next big thing". However, often both providers and users are unclear on one of the most basic tenants of IPTV quality functionality. The required bandwidth. So... just what is the minimum bandwidth which will give a "good" movie experience?

Actually, the question posed in those terms does not make a lot of sense.

As a matter of fact you must take into consideration the resolution in pixels of the video. Example, for a 16:9 broadcast the numbers are as follows:

704x480
1280x768
1920x1080

The frame rate will be 24, to match the cameras used to film movies.

Then you should consider the codec in use to compress the image ..... and the bitrate you want to use.

Then you must move on to the audio part. Again you should use an appropriate codec and bitrate.

The TV set used plays an important role as well. For example, a 52 inch 16:9 LCD/plasma flat panel will show more artifacts than a 32 inch analogue 16:9 CRT TV.

Also the media could be a notebook or a mobile phone instead of a TV...

As stated earlier, this is a difficult question to answer and it all depends on your network design to be honest. Some providers have done HD quality streams at a constant 1Mbps and viewed it on a 50+ inch plasma .... which wow'd clients. One sample provider streamed a maximum 8 sessions on a demo from 8 different countries via MPLS ..... and has a multicast stream of about 2.5Mbps in HD.

MPLS helps ..... but you have to keep in mind that your network engineers should know multicasting extremely well, as well as QoS. Plus your equipment should not slack. MPLS means nothing if your network is engineered improperly. It also means nothing if your MPLS provider is clueless ..... and or peering with someone else who is not honoring packet coloring.

Generally speaking, there are quite a few variables as to how much bandwidth is required. On ITVN and Fios systems, 1.2Mbps seems to deliver 480 equivalent video and 5.1 audio. HD content usually requires at least 5 Mbps. The biggest issue normally seen is the consistent availability of bandwidth. If there are multiple users in a household or in the same area, the bandwidth fluctuations can cause buffering and degrade the picture quality. You may also see latency issues running ping tests or excessive pings.

To be able to truely predict (IPTV) Bandwidth Requirements on equipment selection and deployment it is useful to have a base starting point for simultaneous Multi - Play Service Delivery to the Digital Home.That makes sense as a Portofolio offering and not separating the streams vs. the whole package when predicting capacity.

The initial assumption would include 2 x Standard Definition (SD) and one High Definition (HD) TV streams ..... and let's say three Voice over IP (VoIP) phones along with some streaming digital audio/music.

Using H.264 this B2C basic scenario suggests a minimum bandwidth requirement of 15 megabits (not 6 Mbps) .

This most probably will increase as HD content is becoming more ubiquitous and HD-capable displays are appearing more and more in every home.

The planning folks within your orginization have to bear in mind that there'll be about three simultaneous HD streams - usually and nowadays the average number of streams per household. This means about 24 megabits give or take... without even considering the potential future applications (e.g. video telephony , personal broadcast). With potential future applications ..... the bandwidth required to the Digital Home may go up to 50Mbps!

As for planning from an Operator's point of view - understand that IPTV is a major investment critical to the success for your orginization. Not to be confused with WebTV which is a step before (full) IPTV.

With this in mind choose your Bandwidth Service Providers (BSP) carefully. There's more to consider than just cost. A stable Tier 1 provider with a solid SLA (Service Level Agreement) and QoS (Quality of Service standard) is a MUST.

Try to work with your chosen BSP on Capacity Planning and Backhaul. Validate 4 major critical investments: 1 to 6 months , 6 months to 1 yr. , 1 yr. to 3 yrs. and 3 yrs. to 5 yrs. Try to use a MPLS backbone to the full extent that you can. (Note: you may get lot of potential applications on top of it later on as likely move to "Intelligent" BackHaul.)

Again ..... make sure you take into consideration the HD implications as mentioned above which will double your bandwidth requirements per household served.

You'll incur significant investment if you plan to provide IPTV. It is not only about Fiber Optics to the Premises/Homes ..... but also the whole backhaul design plus the transport and enablement of such capacity. Thus my suggestion(s) to approach your BSP with some type of partnering arrangement (at least in the early stages) to share the Business Case in a fairly win-win proposition (keeping your initial costs lower).

Michael is the owner of FreedomFire Communications....including DS3-Bandwidth.com and Business-VoIP-Solution.com. Michael also authors Broadband Nation where you're always welcome to drop in and catch up on the latest BroadBand news, tips, insights, and ramblings for the masses.

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