Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and Broadband Cable Internet access are becoming widely available to the public at affordable prices. DSL service is typically offered by the phone company and uses the phone line to your home/office to carry the internet connection. Broadband Cable service is typically offered by your cable television company and uses the coaxial signal line to your home to carry the internet connection. Typical cost for DSL service is $30-40 per month for internet download connection speeds up to 1.5 Mbps. Typical cost for Broadband Cable service is $40-60 per month for download connection speeds up to 3 Mbps. Note: upload speeds are generally a fraction of the download speeds, on the order of 10%. So, what's the difference in performance? Downloading Microsoft's Media Player 9, a 13.3 MB download, takes about 72 seconds via DSL and 36 seconds via Cable. Your 56 kbps modem will take at least 32 minutes!

Both DSL and Cable services require an interface device that converts the internet signal from the phone line/coax cable to a standard CAT5 network connection. You've probably heard of this device, known as a DSL modem or cable modem. Service providers have been favorably rated for user-friendly installation kits, including documentation, software, and hardware for connecting the CAT5 cable to your computer and setting up your internet connection.