The term broadband refers to the wide bandwidth characteristics of a transmission medium and its ability to transport multiple signals and traffic types simultaneously. The medium can be coax, optical fiber, twisted pair or wireless. In contrast, baseband describes a communication system in which information is transported across a single channel. Different criteria for broad have been applied in different contexts and at different times. Its origin is in physics, acoustics and radio systems engineering, where it had been used with a meaning similar to wideband.Later, with the advent of digital telecommunications, the term was mainly used for transmission over multiple channels. Whereas a passband signal is also modulated so that it occupies higher frequencies (compared to a baseband signal which is bound to lowest end of spectrum, see line coding), its still occupying a single channel. The key difference is that what is typically considered a broadband signal in this sense is a signal that occupies multiple (non-masking, orthogonal) passbands thus allowing for much higher throughput over a single medium, but with additional complexity in the transmitter/receiver circuitry. Finally, the term became popularized through the 1990s as a vague marketing term for Internet access, only barely related to its original technical meaning.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 07:10:00 +0000
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