The Different Types Of Internet Connection?

What are the different types of Internet connections?

There are many different types of connections and speeds to get on the information superhighway. I'll name a few and explain em' here.

Dial-Up connections - To 'Dial-up' you will need a phone-line, modem, and ISP. A few US ISP's include AOL, NetZero, Juno, and others. They operate at speeds of 14.4Kbit, 28.8Kbit, or 56Kbit download.

ISDN - ISDN(Integrated Services Digital Network) is a type of Dial-up connection with faster speeds, but you need to pay the extra cash to get it. Common speeds of 128Kbit and 256Kbit download.

DSL - Digital Suscriber Line. There are MANY different types of DSL. I'll name a few...

ADSL - Asymmetric DSL is Common to most households, supports up to 24Mbit down and 3.5Mbit up, but you never see that much. You get like 1.5MBit down and 128Kbit up.

SDSL - Symmetric DSL is like ADSL, but with the same download speed as upload speed.

Cable - Cable internet is connected through the coaxial cables that you would normally use for cable tv. It is very fast, and in Texas, Comcast Cable gives you 4Mbit download and 256-384Kbit Upload. Sweet!

Tier-Carrier - Consists of many tiers of speed.

T1 - Tier1- Very expensive and 'slow'. It's a great connection for hosting servers, yet the download speeds are lacking. It is 1.5Mbit/1.5Mbit, symmetrical download and upload.

T3 - Tier3- Droolingly awesome. Very fast, but very expensive. 44Mbit downloads. Whoa!

T2,T4,T5 - Tier 2,4, and 5 are not used as much as above but have speeds of 6Mbit(T2), 274Mbit(T4), and 400Mbit(T5)

Optical Cable - The cream of the crop. The best darn internet period. From OC3 to OC255 and beyond, speeds of 1Gbit are possible.

Internet 2 - Not a real 'connection', but a study. Speeds of 6.63 GigaBYTES a second. Can't wait!

Source:Overclock.net