Broadband may be defined as a data transmission capacity associated with a particular speed of transmission and the provision of high-speed Internet access. Broadband provides support to applications such as web-browsing, video services IP TV, and so fort h. Broadband can be used as a marketing term to designate “always on” access to the Internet at data transmission rates above a specific threshold. Broadly speaking, broadband infrastructure is the underlying communication infrastructure that is deployed to enable the provision of broadband services, that is, Internet access at a certain speed/bandwidth. By way of contrast, a narrow-band subscription commonly designates a connection to the Internet that does not meet the requirements to qualify as broadband (e.g. dial-up technology, ISDN, slower wireless connections, and so forth).
The technical capabilities of broadband services may be measured by the use of certain metrics. One of them is the data transmission rate that a given technology can enable. Transmissions over a certain threshold are considered broadband as opposed to narrowband. Thresholds are also used by telecommunication carriers to market their services and by governments to establish goals, monitor market developments and create statistical information. Other metrics have an impact on the service capability of broadband connections. Some of them are the delay of the data transmission, the jitter (delay variability), and the type of service provided (e.g. best effort delivery, guaranteed bitrate).
Basic functional broadband
There is no standard threshold for broadband and different governments/institutions have adopted different measures:
OECD The OECD has used a working definition based on 256 Kbps advertised downstream speed, to refer to broadband service, as this was the baseline advertised speed of the first commercial offers launched by cable and DSL operators. This threshold also allowed for the exclusion of other technologies (e.g. Basic Rate Interface ISDN), which facilitated statistical collection. The OECD Broadband Portal data for fixed and wireless broadband are based on this threshold.
European Commission The European Commission ’s 2010 high level group adopted the 256 Kbps benchmark for basic broadband for 2011-2015 to reflect ongoing progress and to facilitate international comparisons with the OECD area. This definition not only affects the collection of European Union statistics, but also becomes the baseline for the European Union ’s Digital Agenda initiative to provide broadband for all by 2013.
The International
Telecommunications
Union (ITU)
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Standardisation Sector defines fixed broadband Internet subscription as high- speed access to the public Internet at downstream speeds equal to, or greater than, 256 Kbps, and wireless subscriptions as satellite, terrestrial, fixed wireless, and terrestrial mobile wireless subscriptions with advertised download speeds of at least 256 Kbps.
United States The United States decided to adopt the minimum speed threshold proposed in their National Broadband Plan in 2010. The Plan recommends speeds of at least 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream. These are considered by the FCC to be the minimum speeds required to stream a high quality - even if not high definition - video while leaving sufficient bandwidth for simultaneous basic web-browsing and e-mail. The FCC is currently reviewing its definition of “advanced communications capability”.
Despite the variation, and with a few limitations (for instance the exclusion of ISDN), all of these thresholds can be delivered through a variety of fixed and wireless technologies including satellite. This makes thresholds for basic or functional broadband technology neutral.
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High speed broadband
Several OECD countries and institutions have also established additional guidelines to distinguish between basic broadband and more advanced types of Internet access services. Unlike basic broadband, some of these advanced broadband varieties limit the types of technologies that can be used to deliver the service and are therefore, not technologically neutral (in practice not all technologies can deliver service beyond certain speeds). Specifically, at the current stage of technological development, varieties that involve transmission speeds over 30-50 Mbps can only be reached using fixed fibre or hybrid fibre coax connections.
There is, however, considerable variation in the types of high speed broadband, their definitions and their designations, which can cause confusion. For instance, the
European Union’s Digital agenda for Europe distinguishes between basic broadband (between 256 Kbps and 30 Mbps), fast broadband (above 30 Mbps and up to 100
Mbps) and ultra fast broadband (above 100 Mbps). Meanwhile, Japan deems ultra-high speed broadband accesses capable of delivering 30 Mbps or more, and Korea calls ac cesses as providing speeds between 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps “Giga Internet”.
Additional broadband metrics
Although data transmission rates are often the only metric used to define broadband, they are not necessarily the most reliable measure of the quality of service provided. Additional metrics such as throughput, latency, jitter and packet loss are more useful in assessing quality performance. Not all Internet applications are sensitive to these additional performance measures. Some applications like e-mail or websurfing are hardly affected by quality features, while others like video-conferencing or health applications will not operate safely and efficiently unless a high quality of service is guaranteed. Countries that decide to include these functionalities in the scope of broadband services will need to consider the utilisation of additional quality metrics.
Source: Calvo, A. G. (2012), "Universal Service Policies in the Context of National Broadband Plans", OECD Digital Economy Papers, No. 203, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5k94gz19flq4-en .
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