Can I Get Broadband Internet Service at My House?

Cable broadband Internet uses the cable TV wire installed at your premises to transmit data that allows you to connect to the Internet. If a cable TV wire has not or cannot be installed at your house, you will not be able to subscribe to this type of broadband Internet. Subscribers can expect speeds that range anywhere from 1 Mbps up to 105 Mbps, in some instances. The speeds you will be able to access will depend on the plan you select as well as the area in which your house is located. Not all advertised speeds are available in all areas, so be sure to ask the provider about the plans that are offered in your area.

Digital subscriber line or DSL broadband technology streams digital data over a local telephone network. The data travels on a separate frequency from analog data, allowing subscribers to engage in telephone conversations on their phone line while accessing the broadband Internet simultaneously. Most homes are already wired with land lines, so your land-line provider should be able to provide you with broadband Internet service. Some DSL broadband providers will even establish your service from an existing land-line connection without requiring you to subscribe to a home phone service. AT&T; and Verizon offer a "naked DSL" service that doesn't require you to have an active land-line phone at all.

Your house may be in an area where neither cable nor DSL broadband Internet are available. In such an instance, satellite technology can allow you to subscribe to broadband Internet. You'll need to install a mini satellite dish on your premises that will communicate with an orbiting satellite some 22,000 miles in the sky. This communication allows you to access download speeds of up to 2 Mbps, depending on which provider you select. Due to the distance data has to travel--from the computer to the satellite and back--this technology does suffer from latency, which is a delay in displaying information caused by this round-trip data transmission.

Wireless technology employs wireless towers that transmit signals to wireless devices at your house or that you can use when traveling. Your house will need to be within a certain range of the wireless tower for this broadband technology to be an option for you. The technology allows you to roam your house freely with a laptop, media tablet or a smartphone and access broadband Internet from all three.