Broadband Glossary

  • Bandwidth – The capacity your internet connection has for transmitting or receiving data ie the speed your will be able to upload and download data.
  • Cable broadband - a type of broadband using the same optic fibre technology as cable TV. It provides good service but is only available in areas that have cable service in the area.
  • Cloud – Storing and accessing data and programs over the internet instead of your computer’s hard drive.
  • CRM – Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a system for managing a company's interactions with current and prospective customers. It involves using technology to organize, automate and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support. Faster broadband allows you to run CRM software from the internet giving staff access to vital customer, supplier and product information whether they are out in the field or working from home.
  • Download Speed – How quickly you can transfer data from a network or the internet onto your computer.
  • Download limits - This caps the amount of data you can download from the internet in a specific period of time, also known as a bandwidth cap.
  • DSL - Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) is the technology used to provide internet access by transmitting digital data over copper telephone lines at very high speeds.
  • Exchange – Telephone lines go through a local exchange in order to reach the rest of the telephone network. The exchange separates voice from data communications and forwards them on to the correct part of the telephone network.
  • Fibre Optic Broadband – A broadband internet connection using fibre optic cables to transfer data.
  • FTTC - Fibre to the Cabinet delivers fibre optic lines to a cabinet in the street and then existing copper telephone lines to your premises. This can deliver speeds of up to 80Mbps for downloads (against 5-6Mbps for standard ADSL broadband).
  • FTTP - Fibre to the Premises delivers fibre optic lines directly to the premises, making it even faster. This can deliver download speeds of up to 330Mbps at present.
  • IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a form of cloud computing that provides virtualized computing resources over the Internet. Hardware, software, servers and storage costs can all be reduced by having your IT infrastructure hosted on the cloud.
  • IP address - Internet Protocol address. A unique number identifying the location of your computer on the Internet, enabling it to communicate with other computers
  • ISP – Internet Service Provider. A company that provides you with access to the internet eg. BT, Virgin, Sky or Talk Talk etc.
  • Mbps – Megabits per second. The amount of data transferred per second and relates to the speed of your internet connection.
  • Modem - A hardware device allowing computers to connect to the internet via telephone line.
  • Router - A hardware device used to manage the flow of data at high speed between the exchange and computer networks. Your broadband connection will pass through a router so that it's channelled onto the internet correctly.
  • SaaS – Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software licencing and distribution model where applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available to customers over the cloud reducing the requirement for IT infrastructure and technical expertise.
  • SFBB – Superfast Business Broadband. super-fast broadband delivers internet speeds of up to 330Mbps through sophisticated fibre-optic broadband networks.
  • Speed – The speed of your internet connection and how quickly you will be able to send / receive data eg.100mbps.
  • Streaming - When you are online, you can often watch or listen to digital audio or video without storing it on your computer - when you are doing this, you're streaming the information.
  • Superfast broadband - Traditional broadband (known as ADSL) is delivered via copper telephone lines, whilst superfast broadband uses fibre optic cables (and copper telephone wires in some instances) making it much faster and more reliable. Currently there are two ways of delivering this technology, FTTC and FTTP (see above).
  • TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol. The basic communication language of the internet. TCP / IP is a two-layer program. Transmission Control Protocol assembles the message / file into smaller packets that are transmitted over the Internet and then reassembled into the original message. Internet Protocol ensures each packet gets to the right destination.
  • Upload - To copy a file from a local computer to the Internet.
  • VoIP - Voice over Internet Protocol is a category of hardware and software that enables people to use the internet for telephone calls by sending voice data in packets using internet protocols rather than by traditional use of the PSTN or ‘Public Switched Telephone Network’.  One advantage of VoIP is that the telephone calls over the Internet do not incur a surcharge beyond what the user is paying for Internet access, much in the same way that the user doesn't pay for sending individual emails over the Internet.