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Question: What does connection speed refer to?

Answer: Connection speed is talking about how fast your computer is able to talk to other computers or how fast a computer can send and receive information.

Depending on how you are connected to the internet it will take a certain amount of time for information to be transferred to your computer. The following table summarizes the most common types of connections to the internet.

Modem
 T1
 T3
28,000 BPS
baseline for comparison

33,600 BPS
1.2 times faster

56,000 BPS
2 times faster

 1.544 MBPS

55 times faster

 44.736 MBPS

1500 times faster
than 28,800 modem

30 times faster than a t1

For web page design, a good rule of thumb is to try to design web pages that take no longer than 15 seconds for someone using a 28,800 BPS modem to download.

Question: What is BPS, KBPS, MBPS?

    Answer: BPS stands for Bits Per Second. A Bit is a single ZERO (off) or ONE (on). So BPS refers to the number of bits (zeros and ones) that can be sent over the modem in a second. KBPS k=thousand bits per second. MBPS m=million bits per second.
Question: So I'm on a T3 connection, why are some pages really slow?

    Answer: Anytime you are on the internet you are limited by the slowest connection between where you are and the information you are requesting. If I trace the route between me and another site, the internet may direct me through 20, 30, or even more different connections until I get connected to the destination. Through all of this - the slowest link is always the restricting limit. I might have even been connecting to a web page that was running on someone's home computer being served on a 14,000 BPS modem (it happens.)
Question: I've heard that 56k modems don't work?

    Answer: Well you have to have a 56k modem or larger at the other end also. If you dial into a network connection that has a 28,800 modem, then you are going to be restricted to the lowest connection speed. There is also the limitation of the phone lines - current limits on the phone line actually restrict the modems to around 53k and in some rural areas that is not even possible.
Question: What are the speeds of the different type of wiring?

    Answer: The following table summarizes the different types of cabling common on the internet today.

    type of wiringminimum speedmaximum speed
    Twisted Wire 300 BPS 10 MBPS
    microwave 256 KBPS 100 MBPS
    satellite 256 KBPS 100 MBPS
    coaxial cable 56 KBPS 200 MBPS
    fiber optic 500 KBPS 10 GBPS

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