The term Broadband can have different meanings in different contexts. The term's meaning has undergone substantial shifts.

In telecommunications

Broadband in telecommunications is a term that refers to a signaling method that includes or handles a relatively wide range of frequencies, which may be divided into channels or frequency bins. Frequency is a measure of the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit Time. Broadband is always a relative term, understood according to its context. A relative term, also called a rhema or a rheme, is a logical term that requires reference to any number of other objects called the Correlates ' of The wider the bandwidth, the greater the information-carrying capacity. In radio, for example, a very narrow-band signal will carry Morse code; a broader band will carry speech; a still broader band is required to carry music without losing the high audio frequencies required for realistic sound reproduction. Radio is the transmission of signals by Modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible Light. Morse code is a Character encoding for transmitting telegraphic information using standardized sequences of short and long elements to represent the letters numerals Music is an Art form in which the medium is Sound organized in Time. An audio frequency (abbreviation AF) or audible frequency is characterized as a periodic vibration whose Frequency is audible to the average human A television antenna described as "normal" may be capable of receiving a certain range of channels; one described as "broadband" will receive more channels. Television ( TV) is a widely used Telecommunication medium for sending ( Broadcasting) and receiving moving Images, either monochromatic In data communications a modem will transmit a bandwidth of 56 kilobits per seconds (kbit/s) over a telephone line; over the same telephone line a bandwidth of several megabits per second can be handled by ADSL, which is described as broadband (relative to a modem over a telephone line, although much less than can be achieved over a fiber optic circuit, for example). Modem (from mo dulator- dem odulator is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode Digital information A telephone line or telephone circuit (or just line or circuit within the Industry) is a single-user circuit on a Telephone Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line ( ADSL) is a form of DSL, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over Copper Telephone An optical fiber (or fibre) is a Glass or Plastic fiber that carries Light along its length ^[1]

In data communications

Broadband in data communications can refer to broadband networks or broadband Internet and may have the same meaning as above, so that data transmission over a fiber optic cable would be referred to as broadband as compared to a telephone modem operating at 56,000 bits per second. Computer networking is the Engineering Discipline concerned with communication between Computer systems or devices Networking routers The ideal Telecommunication network would have the following characteristics Broadband, multi-media, multi-point, multi-rate and economical Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just Broadband, is high-speed Internet access—typically contrasted with dial-up access over a Modem Data transmission is the transfer of Data from point-to-point often represented as an Electro-magnetic Signal over a physical point-to-point or point-to-multipoint An optical fiber (or fibre) is a Glass or Plastic fiber that carries Light along its length Modem (from mo dulator- dem odulator is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode Digital information In Telecommunications and Computing, bitrate (sometimes written bit rate, data rate or as a Variable R or f b

However, broadband in data communications is frequently used in a more technical sense to refer to data transmission where multiple pieces of data are sent simultaneously to increase the effective rate of transmission, regardless of actual data rate. Computer networking is the Engineering Discipline concerned with communication between Computer systems or devices Networking routers In Telecommunication, data signaling rate (DSR also known as Gross bit rate, is the aggregate rate at which Data pass a point in the transmission In network engineering this term is used for methods where two or more signals share a medium. In Telecommunication, the term network engineering has the following meanings 1 ^[2]

In video

Broadband in analog video distribution is traditionally used to refer to systems such as cable television, where the individual channels are modulated on carriers at fixed frequencies. An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature (variable of the signal is a representation of some other Video is the technology of electronically capturing, Recording, processing storing transmitting and reconstructing a sequence of Still images In Telecommunications, modulation is the process of varying a periodic Waveform, i ^[3] In this context, baseband is the term's antonym, referring to a single channel of analog video, typically in composite form with an audio subcarrier. In Signal processing, baseband is an adjective that describes signals and systems whose range of Frequencies is measured from zero to a maximum bandwidth In Lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male: female, long: short Composite video is the format of an Analog television (picture only signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF A subcarrier is a separate analog or Digital signal carried on a main radio transmission, which carries extra information such as Voice ^[4] The act of demodulating converts broadband video to baseband video.

However, broadband video in the context of streaming Internet video has come to mean video files that have bitrates high enough to require broadband Internet access in order to view them. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks In Telecommunications and Computing, bitrate (sometimes written bit rate, data rate or as a Variable R or f b Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just Broadband, is high-speed Internet access—typically contrasted with dial-up access over a Modem

Broadband video is also sometimes used to describe IPTV Video on demand. IPTV ( Internet Protocol Television) is a system where a Digital television service is delivered using Internet Protocol over a network infrastructure which Video on demand ( VOD) or Audio video on demand ( AVOD) systems allow users to select and watch/listen ^[5]

In DSL

The various forms of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) services are broadband in the sense that digital information is sent over a high-bandwidth channel above the baseband voice channel on a single pair of wires. In Signal processing, baseband is an adjective that describes signals and systems whose range of Frequencies is measured from zero to a maximum bandwidth ^[6]

In Ethernet

A baseband transmission sends one type of signal using a medium's full bandwidth, as in 100BASE-T Ethernet. In Signal processing, baseband is an adjective that describes signals and systems whose range of Frequencies is measured from zero to a maximum bandwidth Ethernet is a family of frame -based Computer networking technologies for Local area networks (LANs Ethernet, however, is the common interface to broadband modems such as DSL data links, and has a high data rate itself, so is sometimes referred to as broadband. Ethernet provisioned over cable modem is a common alternative to DSL. A cable modem is a type of Modem that provides access to a data signal sent over the Cable television infrastructure

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