[Air-L] Air-L Digest, Vol 48, Issue 2

[David M Silver]

Barry,

you should consider blogging!

david silver
http://silverinsf.blogspot.com

> From: Barry Wellman <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca>
> Subject: [Air-L] broadband/narrow band
> 
> The "band" in broadband stands for bandwidth.
> 
> Once upon a time, when I was only 35, there was only POTS (plain old
> telephone service) to transmit the internet (and its precursors like
> Bitnet) very slowly (I remember 11 characters per second). Although 
> POTSgot faster until it was good enough for reading email in almost-
> real time: 256Kb/second as I recall.
> 
> It wasn't until new technologies came along to transmit information 
> muchmore quickly through not-so-plain phone wires, cable and then 
> satellite.This made it possible to read without cursing our current 
> graphics-heavy web sites. (And to download stuff quickly, instead of 
> overnight.)
> 
> In comparison to the narrow bandwith of POTS (narrowband), the new
> technologies collectively became known as "broadband".
> 
> Want to know more? I'm "sure" Wikipedia has it for you.
> 
> Limping along these days at 500kB (note capital B), but soon to 
> upgrade to 4MB.
> 
> Barry Wellman
> 
> _______________________________________________________________________
>  S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC              NetLab Director
>  Department of Sociology                        University of Toronto
>  725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388                  Toronto Canada M5S 2J4
>  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman            fax:+1-416-978-3963
>  Updating history:     http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
>         Elvis wouldn't be singing "Return to Sender" these days
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