the.com/broadband
the invisible firehose we curse for buffering after watching forty cat videos in 4K
means A high-capacity, always-on internet connection that carries lots of data fast over a wide range of frequencies, far quicker than old dial-up.
from A compound of 'broad' and 'band,' straight from radio and telecommunications engineering. A 'band' is a range of frequencies; a 'broad' band spans many of them at once, letting more signal through — the opposite of 'narrowband.' The term lived quietly in mid-20th-century signal theory before the late-1990s internet boom dragged it into everyday speech, where it came to mean simply 'fast internet.'
- speed of light
- Fiber signals travel near light speed through glass strands
- undersea cables
- Over 95% of intercontinental traffic runs underwater
- thin glass
- A fiber core is thinner than a human hair
- the term
- Originally meant any wide frequency range, not internet
- sharks bite
- Sharks have attacked undersea cables, prompting protective armoring
starlink — satellite internet service by spacex with 6,000+ satellites launched as of 2024
verizon fios — fiber-optic broadband in us serving 5.9 million customers as of 2023
nbn australia — national broadband network built across australia, rollout completed 2023