Connectivity

Connectivity

1. What do you need to connect a device to the internet?

   • An ISP (Internet Service Provider)
   • A modem/ router
   • A web browser/ app
   • A connection to the network (copper wire/ fibre optic cable)

2. Fibre Optics (medium)

   • Made from glass that becomes flexible when thin
   • Light is passed through the cable using a transmitter
   • Light travels quickly through the light- reflecting interior of the cable
     • Travels at the speed of light- 300 million metres per second
   • Trasmitter in the router sends light pulses shown by binary
   • When the message is received, it's decoded back to binary from
   • Very expensive

3. Copper Cable (medium)

   • Uses electrical signal to pass data between networks
   • Coxial: degenerates over a long distance
   • Unshielded twisted pair: made by twisting cables around each other (reduces degeneration)
   • Shielded twisted pair: copper shielding around wires to make them less susceptible to interference
   • Ethernet Cable: the Ethernet networking standard uses twisted pair copper cabling or fibre optics
   • Cheap, but there's lots of interference

4. Broadband

   • Internet is transmitted on both wired and wireless connections
   • Broadband internet is transmitted on physical wires under the ground and ocean
   • Download speed is usually faster than upload speed
     • More bandwidth is assigned for downloading as there is a higher demand
   • Network speeds are measured by how many megabits they can download per second (Mbps)
   • Can be provided on an ADSL or cable connection

5. Buffering

   • Buffer- temporary storage space in a computer where data can be held and processed
   • Buffer hold data to watch/ listen to the media
   • As a data file is downloaded, it's temporarily held in the buffer
   • As soon as there's enough data in the buffer, the file will start playing
   • When a buffering sign appears, the client is waiting for more data from the server
   • Buffering is smaller on a better connection

6. Connection Speed

   • The speed that data is transferred between a device and the internet (bandwidth)
     • Bandwidth- the amount of data that can be transmitted at once
   • Speed depends on the cable used, the distance from the cabinet and line quality.
   • Measured in Megabits per second (Mbps)
   • Higher Mbps, faster connection
   • Downstream bandwidth- maximum rate at which data can be received over an internet connection
   • Upstream bandwidth- maximum rate at which data can be sent
   • Downstream bandwidth is higher than the upstream bandwidth