[Wireless] What is broadband?

What is Broadband.
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The U.S.Federal Communications Commission (FCC),for the purpose of interpreting its instructions in the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, has defined high-speed access as any Internet connection that offers more than 200 kb/s of data in either direction.Any data connection that offers more than 200 kb/s in both directions is dubbed advanced service. The common term ?broadband ?is not defined,and is a vague concept in any case.Service providers,equipment vendors,and chip makers all use the term reely.When asked to define broadband after using the term in a speech he gave at ComNet 2002 in Washington,D.C.,this past January,Ivan Seidenberg,president and CEO of Verizon Communications pegged it at 640 kb/s and above,which is as good a number as any.
Another perception of broadband has to do with video:one expects to be able to send real-time video streams over any connection labeled broadband.Even using powerful MPEG-4 compression,a standard
TV transmission still needs about 4 Mb/s to do that.So using the video definition, neither cable modems nor digital subscriber lines (DSLs)qualify as broadband. But they do qualify as always-on,which when you think about it,is often all the subscriber really wants.At present,most subscribers seem more willing to pay for immediate access than for blazing speed.So,at least until a real broadband killer app comes along,that may well be the best real-world definition of the term.