Misuse of the term 'Broadband'

[Floid]

that_punk_guy wrote:
....I'm confused, what's wrong with saying "CD-ROM"??

Absolutely nothing, as ROM itself stands only for "Read Only Memory" (though Phillips may or may not have used 'Read Only Media' in their lit, same difference) ... Presumably there's some protest as to the way the information is addressed (for instance, CD, whether -ROM, -R, -RW, or -DA, was never quite designed for random reads), and it's right we should remember that shiny laser-read LPs are not the only route we've found to data storage,* but nobody ever said read-only memory had to be directly accessible ... and there have probably been some competing technologies for blowing ROMs in silicon, as well.**

*Though the spiraling that makes CDs (and MOs!) a bit weak for random access in trade for density has now apparently snuck into hard drives... and there are various ways to trade it off such that you'll never notice in practice.

**I'm fairly certain there are, but I forget the names now.

---

If I remember right, the whole DVD+/- fiasco hinges on both on-disk formats (+ supports Mt. Rainier, or the DVD equivalent, while - perhaps doesn't?) and differing dyes for the physical media, prerogative of the keiretsortiums backing each.  -RAMs were backed by a third party, came in caddies, and were incompatible with everything.  [IMHO, yet another reason not to get too attached to the 8-tracks in favor of whatever will obsolete them, but then, I'm just not kewl like that.]

[GadgetMaster]

Roj wrote:
While windmills seem to be all the rage...

The one that gets me is "...when I plugged my monitor into my Windows box, blah blah blah..."

Isn't the Windows box the part of the packaging that's covered in shrink-wrap and tossed aside as soon as the Windows CD is removed? :-D

Well you obviously haven't seen this then: http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/windowsxpbox/

 :-D  :lol:

[GadgetMaster]

iamaboringperson wrote:
I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed this.

Why do so many people and companies (and government organizations etc.) use the term 'Broadband' incorrectly ?

They use it when they refer to:
-ISDN
-xDSL (eg ADSL)
-T1, T3, E1 etc.
-Sattelite internet access

OK just to show how googley technical I am I will cut and paste the following:
______________
Broadband
------------  
Also see bandwidth.

In general, broadband refers to telecommunication in which a wide band of frequencies is available to transmit information. Because a wide band of frequencies is available, information can be multiplexed and sent on many different frequencies or channels within the band concurrently, allowing more information to be transmitted in a given amount of time (much as more lanes on a highway allow more cars to travel on it at the same time). Related terms are wideband (a synonym), baseband (a one-channel band), and narrowband (sometimes meaning just wide enough to carry voice, or simply "not broadband," and sometimes meaning specifically between 50 cps and 64 Kpbs).

Various definers of broadband have assigned a minimum data rate to the term. Here are a few:

Newton's Telecom Dictionary: "...greater than a voice grade line of 3 KHz...some say [it should be at least] 20 KHz."
Jupiter Communications: at least 256 Kbps.
IBM Dictionary of Computing: A broadband channel is "6 MHz wide."
It is generally agreed that Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and cable TV are broadband services in the downstream direction.
 
 


from HERE

and

broadband
A class of communication channel capable of supporting a wide range of frequencies, typically from audio up to video frequencies. A broadband channel can carry multiple signals by dividing the total capacity into multiple, independent bandwidth channels, where each channel operates only on a specific range of frequencies.

The term has come to be used for any kind of Internet connection with a download speed of more than 56 kbaud, usually some kind of Digital Subscriber Line, e.g. ADSL.

See also baseband, narrowband.


from FOLDOC


:-D

[iamaboringperson]

Okay....

Broadband is analogue. Baseband is digital.

I'll write out some of what I have in my CCNA notes:


WAN technologies:

Circuit-switched services:
-POTS
  . Twisted pair copper wire
-Narrow band ISDN
  . Max bandwidth 128kbs for BRI, or 3mbps for DRI
  . Twisted pair copper wire

Packet-switched services:
-x.25 - old, widely used
   . extensive error checking
   . bandwidth up to 2mbps
   . twisted pair copper wire
-Frame-relay
   . Packet switched version of narrowband ISDN
   . More efficient than x.25
   . 44.736 mbps max b/w
   . twisted pair copper wire & optical fiber

Cell-switched services:
- ATM (Asynchronous transfer mode)
   . Uses 53 byte frames
   . Max 622 mbps B/W
   . Twisted pair copper wiere & optical fibre
   . Cost high
-SMDS (switched multimegabit data service)
   . Related to ATM
   . used in MAN's
   . 44.736bps max B/w
   . Twisted pair copper & optical fibre

Dedicated digital services:
-T1,T3,E1,E3 - T series for US - E series for Europe  (Australia uses a combination of them
   . Use time division multiplexing - slice up & assign time slots for data-transmission
   . T1 - 1.544 mbps
   . T3 - 44.736 mbps
   . E1 - 2.048 mbps
   . E3 - 34.368mbps
   . + more
   . Twisted pair copper & optical fiber
-xDSL (DSL - Digital subscriber line, x family tech.)
   . 51.84mbps max b/w
   . HDSL - High bit rate DSL
   . SDSL - Single-line DSL
   . ADSL - Asymetric DSL
   . VDSL - Very-high-bitrate DSL
   . RADSL - RAte adaptive DSL
-SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork)
   . Optical fibre + copper
   . OC-1 - 51.84mbps
   . OC-192 - 9,952mbps
   . Uses WDM - Wavelength Division Multitapping
   . Lasers tuned to slightly different colors

Other:
- Dial-up modem
   . 56kbps max b/w
   . twisted pair phoneline
   . low cost, common
- Cable modem (shared analogue)
   . Data on same line as TV
   . 10Mbps max (degrades as more users attatch to given network segment)
   . Coaxial cable
- Wireless
   . Electromagnetic waves
   . Two classes of wan links: - Terrestrial (11mbps range - line of sight usually required) - Satelite (high cost, serves mobile users)


Okay, that didn't have much about Broadband V's Baseband, so I'll keep searching through my journal until I find some more

[iamaboringperson]

BTW, the problem I have with the term 'CD-ROM' is that since CD's were released, THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN READ ONLY. Why append -ROM to CD? There is actually little difference.

'Read Only' is redundant!

ROM has always stood for Read Only Memory. When 'CD-ROM' was first used, the ROM part stood for Read Only Memory.

The -ROM part was apparently the idea of some marketing guru who had very limited computer knowledge, and was only used in one country for a while and then it spread world-wide.

I say 'CD', it's so much easier!

[adolescent]

iamaboringperson wrote:
Okay....

Broadband is analogue. Baseband is digital.

All this because Cisco says so?  :-)  Well, Cisco says right here that it's digital...  

broadband
 
Describes facilities or services that operate at the DS3 rate and above. For example, a Broadband DCS makes cross-connections at the DS3, STS-1, and STS-Nc levels. Similarly, Broadband ISDN provides about 150 Mb/s per channel of usable bandwidth.
 

[Floid]

iamaboringperson wrote:
BTW, the problem I have with the term 'CD-ROM' is that since CD's were released, THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN READ ONLY. Why append -ROM to CD? There is actually little difference.

'Read Only' is redundant!

ROM has always stood for Read Only Memory. When 'CD-ROM' was first used, the ROM part stood for Read Only Memory.

The -ROM part was apparently the idea of some marketing guru who had very limited computer knowledge, and was only used in one country for a while and then it spread world-wide.

I say 'CD', it's so much easier!

Well, the words "Compact Disc" themselves don't say much beyond "disc, relatively not-big."  "CD-ROM" is defined by a separate set of standards (Yellow Book) from CDDA (Red Book), and a redbook CD is poorly suited to acting as a data ROM because "-DA" didn't actually have to worry about bit-accuracy (more like probabilistic accuracy).*  So they did have to define some sort of new standard to, er, standardly use the medium defined in the Red Book for data... and since that standard was designed to allow CDs to function as bit-accurate Read-Only Memory, it deserves the name.

With Phillips as the arbiter of all things "CD," it's little different than Sony branding "MD Data."  A little redundant, but their prerogative, and without such specs there were no specs for using either medium for bit-accurate 'read-only' operations.  (In other words, whence previously you had 'recordings,' you could say the data specs raise the bar to 'memory' levels of tolerance.  Even the 'recording' technology probably performed a hell of a lot better than old drum memory, see below.)**

You're perfectly welcome to call it a "CD," you're just not being specific. ;-)  Phillips left the semantic door open wide enough to be able to release a "CD-Analogue" or "CD-Random Noise Generator" if they ever had the need, which was actually sort of smart.  (It was the '80s, after all- who could've foreseen the SmartMedia-to-floppy adapters, and on the same token, who would've predicted that there wouldn't possibly be something similar in the optical domain?  They were just out to create a shiny improvement on the LP, when they started...)

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*Of course, you *can* use a redbook CD with alternate error correction/error tolerance technologies; hipsters today are backing up old Atari and Commodore tapes to Red Book CDDA, and the noise tolerance to those low-bitrate encodings lets them function as well as they did from the original media; similarly, there are a couple ways to add error correction to the bitstream on the disk itself, and since Yellow Book was to some extent cobbled-up "after the fact," there are a few competing ways of doing it allowed.  You could come up with your own incompatible method, but then it wouldn't be a "CD-ROM."  :-o

**Actually, for all I know, bit-accurate duplication was part of the original MD spec, at least.  But barring the 'official' designations, neither Phillips or Sony would've given you any sort of guarantee on the sanctity of their designs for data operations.  Semantic wanking, but also what counts; you can't use something that "doesn't exist," though in turn I do think Yellow Book "took back" under Phillips' mantle a number of hacks that worked fine before anyone thought to worry.

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Now if you want to point out things-pathetic, it's disappointing to see Sony coming up with BS like "NetMD" after killing and burying the first "MD Data" spec.  Not only can they not manage to pretend things are somehow related or compatible (and they're not; they screwed up too badly at first), but the new branding doesn't even have anything to do with anything; it's as if Chrysler/GM/whoever were to start marketing a "fission car" because they think their latest 4-cylinder is just that good. :destroy: