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E-Business Magazine
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The Internet access technology is witnessing rapid changes over the years. Presently, the emphasis is laid on the availability of high-speed, secure, and economically-viable access. Technology has shifted from dial-up to broadband access over wired or wireless or hybrid connectivity. This article examines the technological growth in broadband arena, its usage in knowledge economy, security and policy-related issues. It also recommends a set of best practices to overcome these issues.

 
 
 

A dial-up access is just an overlay over existing telephone network. Although this is almost at the evolutionary dead end, the major advantage is its reach through available network. In almost every country, telephone is more ubiquitous than cable or any other broadband carriers.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has defined broadband as any medium, capable of transferring data at more than 200 kbps in upstream or downstream. This has led to the evolution of various carriers of broadband. For instance, cable, Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL), Broadband over Power Lines (BPL), Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN), Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi), Worldwide Interoperability for Microware Access (WiMAX), etc., are all technologically different. They have advantages as well as disadvantages over others. In brief, dialup is matured in terms of technology and economic feasibility whereas broadband is still emerging in an unpredictable manner.

The need for bandwidth-intensive internet access for data, voice, image or video transfer has never been higher across the globe than now. The DSL market, based on wired infrastructures, has reached millions of subscribers and is growing through the upward curve. Various options are given in Table 1.

 
 
 
 

E-Business Magazine, Broadband Revolution, Federal Communications Commission, FCC, Digital Subscriber Lines , DSL, Broadband over Power Lines, BPL, Wireless Local Area Networks, WLAN, Knowledge Economy, E-commerce, Electronic Communications, Geographical Information System, Business Environment, Consumer Behavior, Global Economy.