Bandwidth
Each types of communications media has different transmission speed. The bandwidth is a measure of the transmission rate of communications channels.
- Baseband: Digital signals are commonly called baseband signals. Baseband is a communications technique in which digital signals are placed onto the transmission line without change in modulation. It transmits up to a couple of miles, and does not require the complex modems. Typical Token Ring and Ethernet use baseband signals.
- Broadband: Broadband is a technique for transmitting large amounts of data, voice and video over long distances simultaneously by modulating each signal onto a different frequency. Using the FDM (Frequency division multiplexing) technique, several streams of data can be transmitted simultaneously.
Broadband is the bandwidth used for direct communication between very high-speed computers (e.g., large mainframe computers). This bandwidth includes microwave, satellite, coaxial cable, and fiber-optic media.