[39386] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Broadband v. baseband ... again?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tom Lettington)
Thu Jul 5 14:04:29 2001
Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.2.20010705105120.03085c20@pop3.tfl.net>
Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 11:00:52 -0700
To: Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com>,
"'Larry Diffey'" <ldiffey@technologyforward.com>, nanog@merit.edu
From: Tom Lettington <tom@tfl.net>
In-Reply-To: <EA9368A5B1010140ADBF534E4D32C7280259BE@condor.mhsc.com>
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Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
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).
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!
- Tom
At 10:28 AM 7/5/2001 -0700, Roeland Meyer wrote:
>Broadband isn't a speed, it's a signaling architecture. The alternative is
>baseband. Ethernet is baseband. Broadcast radio is broadband. Now that you
>have the two competing terms, please see your friendly neighborhood search
>engine (PSYFNSE).
>
>BTW, silence is a poor excuse for posting a message.
>
>--
>From: Larry Diffey [mailto:ldiffey@technologyforward.com]
>Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 10:13 AM
>
>Since it's so quiet in here, I want to stir things up a little with an
>informal survey.
>
>With all of this talk about broadband (mostly in reference to cable modems
>and xDSL), consumers have been tricked into actually believing that if it's
>faster than a modem then it's broadband.
>
>I have a number in my head as to what I consider broadband. It's not an
>unreasonable number but it certainly does exceed what is available to the
>average consumer.
>
>Oh wise nanogers, what speeds do we need to achieve for the average consumer
>before we truly have broadband?
>
>I will try and keep track of all the numbers that you give you an average
>and I'll also give you the number I had in mind.
