Summersault Support Site - Internet Connection Speed Comparison Chart

This chart is provided by Summersault to help you understand the different kinds of internet connection technologies available. (If you're in Richmond/Wayne County Indiana, see a list of available local connection options.)

Carrier Technology	Description	Speed	Physical Medium	Comments
Dial-up Access	On demand access using a modem and regular telephone line (POT).	2400 bps to 56 Kbps	Twisted pair (regular phone lines)	Cheap but slow compared with other technologies. Speed may degrade due to the amount of line noise
ISDN	Dedicated telephone line and router required.	64 Kbps to 128 Kbps	Twisted pair	Not available everywhere but becoming more widespread. An ISDN line costs slightly more than a regular telephone line, but you get 2 phone lines from it. 56K ISDN is much faster than a 56K dialup line
Cable	Special cable modem and cable line required.	512 Kbps to 20 Mbps	Coaxial cable; in some cases telephone lines used for upstream requests.	Must have existing cable access in area. Cost of bring service into an area and trenching cable can be prohibitive. Networkable
ADSL/DSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL is the same as DSL)	This new technology uses the unused digital portion of a regular copper telephone line to transmit and receive information. ADSL is asymmetric since it recieves at 6 to 8 Mbps per second but can only send data at 64 Kbps. A special modem and adapter card are required.	128 Kbps to 8 Mbps	Twisted pair (used as a digital, broadband medium)	Doesn’t interfere with normal telephone use. Bandwidth is dedicated, not shared as with cable. Bandwidth is affected by the distance from the network hubs. Must be within 5 km (3.1 miles) of telephone company switch. Limited availability. Not networkable
Wireless (LMCS)	Access is gained by connection to a high speed cellular like local multi-point communications system (LMCS) network via wireless transmitter/receiver.	30 Mbps or more	Airwaves Requires outside antenna.	Can be used for high speed data, broadcast TV and wireless telephone service.
Broadband over Power (BPL)	Uses existing electrical infrastructure to deliver broadband speeds using BPL "modems"	500Kbps to 3Mbps	Ordinary power lines	Still an emerging technology, not widely available Significantly lower deployment costs than comparable technologies like DSL/Cable.
Satellite	Newer versions have two-way satellite access, removing need for phone line. In older versions, the computer sends request for information to an ISP via normal phone dial-up communications and data is returned via high speed satellite to rooftop dish, which relays it to the computer via a decoder box.	6 Mbps or more	Airwaves Requires outside antenna.	Bandwidth is not shared. Satellite companies are set to join the fray soon which could lead to integrated TV and Internet service using the same equipment and WebTV like integrated services Latency is typically high Some connections require an existing Internet service account. Setup fees can range from $500-$1000.
Frame Relay	Provides a type of "party line" connection to the Internet. Requires a FRAD (Frame Relay Access Device) similar to a modem, or a DSU/CSU.	56 Kbps to 1.544 Mbps (or more, depending on connection type)	Various	May cost less than ISDN in some locations. Limited availability. Uses one of the connection types below, fractional up to OC3
Fractional T1 (Flexible DS1)	Only a portion of the 23 channels available in a T1 line is actually used.	64 Kbps to 1.544 Mbps	Twisted-pair or coaxial cable	Cheaper than a full T1 line with growth options of 56 Kbps or 64 Kbps increments as required.
T1	Special lines and equipment (DSU/CSU and router) required.	1.544 Mbps	Twisted-pair, coaxial cable, or optical fiber	Typically used for high bandwidth demands such as videoconferencing and heavy graphic file transfers. Minimum for large businesses and ISPs. Expensive
T3	Typically used for ISP to Internet infrastructure.	44.736 Mbps	Optical fiber
OC-1	Typically used for ISP to Internet infrastructure within Internet infrastructure.	51.84 Mbps	Optical fiber
OC-3	Typically used for large company backbone or Internet backbone.	155.52 Mbps	Optical fiber

About Bandwidth

Bandwidth, or capacity, refers to the amount of data a given technology or infrastructure can transmit over time. It is usually expressed in kilobits per second (Kbps) or megabits per second (Mbps).

There is often confusion about bandwidth due to the difference between kilobytes and kilobits. Bits are used to talk about data transfer rates (1 kilobit = 1000 bits), while bytes are used to talk about storage size calculations (1 kilobyte = 1024 bytes). There are 8 bits in a byte. So a 28.8 Kbps (kilobits per second) modem can actually only handle a maximum of 3.6 KB/s (kilobytes per second) of data, including the connection to the ISP, the data holding the TCP/IP packets together, and other essential information. Given all these facts together, your download speeds will often be slower than the "potential" advertised.

About Latency

Latency, or "network latency" refers to the speed at which traffic is traveling over an internet connection. It is usually measured according the round-trip time that it takes a single chunk of data to reach a remote host and then come back. This is not always the best measure of overall performance, however, as it is possible for a high latency link to also be a high bandwidth link (Satellite and DSL are good examples of this.)

Parts of this document were originally obtained from from Ontario Library Services in Canada. Updated in 09-2000 with help from Alan Moore and various other web resources. Last significant update on 10-11-2005.