Speaking of internet connections, the most common ones we hear today are DSL, Cable, and Fiber Optic, with DSL being the slowest of the three. DSL stands for dial-up internet, and such a device works by transmitting data in the same fashion as a conventional fax machine. The massive drawback for a DSL connection is their incredibly slow kilobits per second uploading and downloading speeds. DSL connections have mostly become obsolete in our current society, primarily due to the rise of cable internet. An example of such a DSL service provider is AT&T.

The cable-powered internet service was first introduced in the early 1990s (California Cable & Telecommunications Associations History of cable). It works by plugging a coaxial cable into a modem to achieve its internet capability. And a coaxial cable is most commonly found on switch boxes provided by cable service providers. The modem acts as an intermediary translator for the data that travels through the computer and the outer switch box. An example of such a cable provider is Charter Spectrum.

The first viable fiber optic cable was invented by Corning Glass back in 1975. And since then, fiber optic technology has become ever more advanced. However, it wasn’t until the early 2000s when internet service providers began to implement and build massive fiber-optic infrastructure (Plouffe A brief history of fiber optic communication). The most popular option of fiber-optic internet provider today is Google Fiber. It boasts a gigabit, which is equivalent to 1000 megabit per second transfer speeds. My house is currently connected with Frontier’s gigabit fiber optic internet service.

Despite these three traditional types of internet connections, there’s also SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet. Starlink was first introduced in 2015 as a pilot program to test the viability of creating a reliable satellite internet service that could cover rural and mountainous areas. The program seems to have gained massive success, and SpaceX’s founder Elon Musk wants to expand on this project to cover more geographical areas. Starlink works exceptionally similar to a traditional satellite internet that we see on a typical commercial airliner. However, the most significant difference is that Starlink boasts a much faster transfer speed and a shorter latency time of only thirty-six milliseconds. If we compare it to the traditional satellite internet, it almost sounds too good to be true. Because for a conventional satellite, they usually have a couple of hundred milliseconds of latency time—the lower the latency, the faster the response time in real-time applications such as gaming (Crist What is Starlink? Elon Musk’s satellite internet venture explained).

Works Cited

“History of Cable.” Edited by California Cable & Telecommunications Associations, CCTA, https://calcable.org/learn/history-of-cable/.

Plouffe, Jill. “A Brief History of Fiber Optic Communication.” Light My FIBER, 10 Oct. 2017, https://www.lightmyfiber.com/a-brief-history-of-fiber-optic-communication/.

Crist, Ry. “What Is Starlink? Elon Musk’s Satellite Internet Venture Explained.” CNET, 18 Sept. 2021, https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/starlink-satellite-internet-explained/.