Internet Access Technologies

The Internet access can be established using various technologies simply called "last mile". Below are informations about all of them.

Internet access technologies articles

DSL

The DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) technology allowed the fast growth of the Internet and popularisation of on-line services. The classic modem connection (dial-up Internet access) provides the 56 kbps speed.

ADSL

This is the most popular version of the DSL technology used by many providers. It differs from the less common symmetric link (SDSL). The ADSL provides wider bandwidth for the transmission towards customer (i.e. downlink) than in the reverse direction (i.e. uplink).

VDSL

The VDSL is the hybrid technology which combines the fibber and the cooper media. The fibbers are used in the operator network and so-called the last mile (i.e. the connection between the nearest provider’s device and the customer) is covered by the cooper line.

WiFi

WiFi is a trademark term for the IEEE 802.11 family standards. The first 802.11 standard was released in 1997 and it was providing up to 2 Mbps wireless link speed. It was slow, but it was the first technology which has allowed to connect several computers in the local area network without cables.

LTE - Long Term Evolution

LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and it is commonly marketed as 4G LTE. This is the standard of mobile wireless communication which provides high transmission speeds, low latency and high network capacity. 

LAN over power line

Nowadays, practically every home and small office local area network use the WiFi as an access technology. Sometimes, also the classical Ethernet cables are used, but their application is uncomfortable and messy.

Digital Video Broadcast (DVB)

The most popular family standard of digital television is the DVB (Digital Video Broadcast). These standards are maintained by the DVB Project and are published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).

Local Area Network (LAN)

LAN (Local Area Network) is a computer network which provides the connectivity between hosts (i.e. computers) located within a limited area, e.g. home, office, school, university campus etc. The LAN can be connected to the WAN (Wide Area Network), which covers a larger geographic area.

Mobile Communication Systems

The most popular mobile communication system is GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications). This is worldwide used second-generation (2G) cellular system which replaced first-generation (1G) analogue systems (e.g. NMT – Nordic Mobile Telephone).