Home Internet Terminology
Choosing an internet service provider can be a complicated and time consuming process. There are a lot of numbers and industry specific terminology that you need to know to make an informed decision on your purchase. Bloomingdale is breaking down the barriers for you by providing a comprehensive guide that includes everything you need to know when purchasing Home Internet. Here are the most commonly used words and phrases you should know when buying from Internet Service Providers.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
The term that is used for the company that delivers your home’s data connections. Your ISP is almost always the company that sends you a monthly statement for your internet services.
Copper vs Fiber
This distinction is explaining the difference in the type of lines that your ISP uses to connect to your home. There are 3 different versions for how companies provide services using copper or fiber facilities: all copper, hybrid, or all fiber. While all 3 methods can still provide acceptable internet speeds for the state of the internet today, networks that are design exclusively using fiber tend to offer faster speeds and are more reliable.
Megabits (Mb) & Megabytes (MB)
Notice the difference in the capital “B” vs the lowercase “b” in the names. It’s amazing that such a small difference can notate 2 very separate things. Both of these terms are measurements for digital data, but Megabits have to deal with the transfer rate of data from one location to another and Megabytes typically deal with the storage of data. So what does that mean?
Megabits (Mb) will almost always be used when speaking about your internet speed; whereas, Megabytes (MB) are used when you are referring to the amount of data you are allowed to download in a month if your ISP has data caps.
Speed vs Bandwidth
These are probably the most misunderstood terms when it comes to discussing the internet. Having a cursory understanding of the Megabits & Megabytes helps understand the difference between these two terms so if you’ve skipped ahead to this point, I suggest looking up to the previous section.
The best analogy we’ve found to understand these concepts is that of a highway. Simply enough, the speed for internet compares to the speed of the highway and the bandwidth compares to the number of lanes on the road. The cars driving down the road will be the data that is flowing through your connection. If there is a 70 MPH speed limit and 2 lanes, you can drive dozens of cars through a section of that road without typically slowing traffic down below the speed limit. However, if you try to put hundreds of cars through a small section of that highway, all traffic will slow down to a top. Open that same highway up to 4 lanes, and the traffic flows again.
The only part of this analogy that doesn’t map well is that on an internet connection, bandwidth and speed are given as the same number (e.g. 150 Mb). So that would be a 150 MPH speed limit with 150 lanes. Even though you’d never have a speed limit match the number of lanes on a highway, the concept still applies.
Upload
Every time you send data through the internet, you are uploading it. The term upload comes into play when you are pushing data to someone else (e.g. let me upload a video and post it to YouTube so others can watch it). It can also be used when talking about internet speeds, which are typically displayed as 2 number separated by a forward slash (e.g. 500/50 Mb). The second number in the speed is your upload speed.
Some carriers have opted to avoid displaying the upload speeds on their connections, but make sure you are aware of the speed you are receiving if upload is important to you and your family. It is very beneficial to have a higher upload speed on your internet connection if you are doing a lot of video conferencing, or sending large files.
Download
Pulling data from the internet requires you to download it. Most of usage on the internet is downloaded from a provider to end-users. Downloading content includes everything from streaming your favorite shows on Netflix, to reading emails, to scanning social media.
The download speed of your internet connection is notated by the first of the two numbers in the speed (i.e. in a 150/20 Mb connection, 150 Mb is the download speed). Some carriers will just notate their speed with one number, and this is almost always the download speed as well.
Symmetrical and Asymmetrical Speeds
Symmetrical internet speeds simply mean that the speed at which you can download data (like streaming videos or loading web pages) is the same as the speed at which you can upload data (like sending emails or uploading photos).
Similar to our traffic analogy above, think of it like a two-lane road: one lane for incoming traffic (downloading) and one lane for outgoing traffic (uploading). If both lanes are equally wide, traffic flows smoothly in both directions.
With the growing popularity for things like video chatting and uploading content to social media, symmetrical speed are are becoming highly recommended because on non-symmetrical (or asymmetrical) connections, the upload is usually quite a bit lower than the download.
WiFi & Access Points
WiFi is a radio-style signal that allows your devices, like phones and laptops, to connect to the internet without any wires. Your internet connection travels from the equipment your ISP installs into your home to a WiFi router, which broadcasts that signal throughout your home or office.
However, WiFi signals can only reach a certain distance. If you’re far from the router, the signal might get weak or even drop out. That’s where access points come in to play.
In larger homes, or homes that are built with materials that reflect radio signals (metal, concrete, etc.), the router is like the main DJ playing music in one room. If you want to enjoy the music throughout the entire house, you might need some extra speakers (access points) in different rooms. These access points pick up the signal from the router and extend it, making sure you have a strong connection no matter where you are.
So, using access points helps create a stronger and more reliable WiFi network, allowing you to connect to the internet easily, no matter where you are in your space.