Broadband refers to a signaling method which includes a wide range of frequencies which may be divided into channels. Broadband is often in the form of ADSL (along phone lines), carried along cables or transmitted to devices like mobile phones or across next-generation broadband systems like Now Broadband.

Broadband is actually a relative term because it can only be understood in context - i.e. narrowband (this is essentially 'dial up' to the layman) and broadband describe parameters. However, in summary, the wider the broadband's bandwidth, the more information can be carried.

In broadband-speak, a bandwidth of a few megabits per second can be handled by ADSL which is also a more technical way of describing broadband over telephone lines (the traditional copper type).

Why broadband?

a) Broadband gives you faster internet – it’s as simple as that. From 512k broadband to super-fast 24Mb broadband, the days of slow “dial up” are surely numbered.

b) Broadband is also now more affordable than ever (in fact, it is often offered free as part of a TV or mobile package). However, broadband services are typically as little as £10 a month or less for stand-alone packages without being part of a wider broadband contract – still good value!

c) Broadband opens you up to a whole world of entertainment and media content for your enjoyment: it makes downloading easier (whether music files, film or other downloads), it allows you to watch film and listen to music and film in realtime (this is typically called “streaming”) and it allows you to send big emails in next to no time.

d) Broadband is the future – for example in 10 years time, will conventional TV and radio sets even exist? We could all be watching TV over our broadband connections, listening to live radio and downloading films routinely. Will anyone bother with DVDs if broadband gets even faster and we can download a DVD’s worth of film in minutes over our broadband connection? What is clear is that broadband has changed how we interact with entertainment media forever and the changes it will bring in the future will defy our current expectations.

Broadband Suppliers

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In recent years the choice of TV has grown massively, with new options coming to customers all the time. Here we have listed some of the different options you can choose to get Digital & improved TV.

Digital TV represents an alternative method of transmitting the pictures and sounds that make up a television broadcasts. Programme information is converted and compressed into a digital format, using much less space on the airwaves than an analogue transmission. The signal is reduced to a binary code (the same as in a computer) therefore the quality and consistency of the signal can be improved over the analogue equivalent.

Broadcasting programmes in this way enables multiple television channels to be carried in the space used currently by a single analogue channel, making more channels and features available to viewers. Digital images are also much clearer and sharper than standard analogue images, and can broadcast programmes in a widescreen format. Some of the extra capacity in the airwaves is used by digital broadcasters to send extras such as Electronic Programme Guides (EPG) and other interactive services.

Digital signals can be received by standard TV aerials, satellite dishes or fibre-optic cables. All signals sent to a household are decoded by either a separate receiver, or a receiver that is built into a television set. The separate receivers are commonly known as set-top boxes, and sit outside your current television set. A TV set that has its own digital receiver is called an integrated digital TV set, mostly referred to as an iDTV set.

Digital television has already changed the way more than 15 million UK households think about TV.