Technology has been growing at staggering rate and router technology is no exception. It can be difficult to keep up with and there are lots of terms and vocabulary to keep up with as well. To get our feet wet, let's just take a look at the difference between the term "broadband" and "narrowband" with respect to router technology.
Most people became aware of modems before routers. Modems used to be pretty archaic in the early days. The early modem's speed was measured in kilobits per second, abbreviated kbps. Modem technology progressed from 14kbs, to 28kbps, and then to 56kbps. How times have changed. These older modems directly connected to a standard phone line and were considered "narrowband".
Modems are interesting but let's move on to routers which are mostly broadband today. Modern broadband routers typically connect to high speed internet through DSL or cable.
We've made some hints about the difference between broadband and narrowband but what's the real difference? Boiling it down, it's the frequency band over which something can operate. So, broadband routers use a larger range of frequencies than narrowband routers.
Let's take a look at an analogy to try to make this a bit clearer. There are many broadband and narrow band devices you come by everyday. A tuning fork, for example, is a narrow band device, commonly resonating at exactly 440Hz (middle A). This narrowband device is great for guitarists who want to tune their "A" string to a "narrow band" as close to "A" as possible. A human on the other hand can sing many notes. You might therefore say a human has a "wider band" of frequencies than a tuning fork and therefore could be termed a broadband device.
Understanding the difference between broadband and narrowband is interesting but how is it important? Well, broadband devices are typically faster! Why?
Let's take another look at our analogy.
Now consider trying to send two streams of data at the same time. Two tuning forks at the same time are hard to tell apart. However two singers at once are easy to differentiate.
Similarly, digital devices use ones and zeros. If we think of "ones" and "zeros" as being "on" and "off" respectively we can apply this to tuning forks and singers. Two tuning forks "on" is hard to differentiate from one tuning fork "on" and the other "off". However, it is easy to tell which of two singers is "on" or "off" or even if both are "on". We therefore call tuning forks narrowband since they can only stream one set of data at a time, while the singers can send many streams of data.
Broadband devices can push a lot more data than a narrowband devices and although a bit more complicated they are becoming more common place.
Most people became aware of modems before routers. Modems used to be pretty archaic in the early days. The early modem's speed was measured in kilobits per second, abbreviated kbps. Modem technology progressed from 14kbs, to 28kbps, and then to 56kbps. How times have changed. These older modems directly connected to a standard phone line and were considered "narrowband".
Modems are interesting but let's move on to routers which are mostly broadband today. Modern broadband routers typically connect to high speed internet through DSL or cable.
We've made some hints about the difference between broadband and narrowband but what's the real difference? Boiling it down, it's the frequency band over which something can operate. So, broadband routers use a larger range of frequencies than narrowband routers.
Let's take a look at an analogy to try to make this a bit clearer. There are many broadband and narrow band devices you come by everyday. A tuning fork, for example, is a narrow band device, commonly resonating at exactly 440Hz (middle A). This narrowband device is great for guitarists who want to tune their "A" string to a "narrow band" as close to "A" as possible. A human on the other hand can sing many notes. You might therefore say a human has a "wider band" of frequencies than a tuning fork and therefore could be termed a broadband device.
Understanding the difference between broadband and narrowband is interesting but how is it important? Well, broadband devices are typically faster! Why?
Let's take another look at our analogy.
Now consider trying to send two streams of data at the same time. Two tuning forks at the same time are hard to tell apart. However two singers at once are easy to differentiate.
Similarly, digital devices use ones and zeros. If we think of "ones" and "zeros" as being "on" and "off" respectively we can apply this to tuning forks and singers. Two tuning forks "on" is hard to differentiate from one tuning fork "on" and the other "off". However, it is easy to tell which of two singers is "on" or "off" or even if both are "on". We therefore call tuning forks narrowband since they can only stream one set of data at a time, while the singers can send many streams of data.
Broadband devices can push a lot more data than a narrowband devices and although a bit more complicated they are becoming more common place.
About the Author:
If you are looking to buy a router, make sure you check AJ Jensen's excellent free guide to buying a travel router, or check out his small wireless router web site.
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