With all the technologies in use today over the Web, like animation and video streaming, broadband access has certainly become a necessity for those who would like to take full advantage of the offerings on the Web.

However, the early adopters of the Internet, back in the 90s, only had one way of getting on-line from home and that was by dial-up access. Dial-up access uses a device called a modem (modulation-demodulation) that makes use of the telephone wires to transmit and receive the zeros and ones that computers understand. The fastest speed that a dial-up modem can receive and transmit data is about 56Kbps (Kilo bits per second) - that's 56,000 bps.

This may sound quite slow but believe it or not, 56Kbps was considered FAST in those days. It was more than enough speed where E-mail was the most popular application and Web pages, being quite new, were mostly just text and pictures. The only downside was that if you went online by using your modem, your telephone line became busy, so most heavy users were forced to get a second telephone subscription.

As the Web slowly grew to what it is now, by supporting animation, video and voice, dial-up access quickly became a frustrating experience for the Web users. This is the first warning sign that dial-up would soon be a thing of the past. The demand for faster access grew and just like in any market where demand is high, supply quickly followed. Although broadband was already available in the late 90s, broadband service was still expensive and only available in very limited areas.

The telephone companies were the first to provide wide spread broadband service, which allowed 10x the speed of dial-up access over the same telephone line. That's a speed of between 512Kbps to 768Kbps, a significant difference in user experience when accessing the Web. The most common technology the telephone companies used to deliver broadband service to the home is called DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), which comes in different "flavors" like ADSL or SDSL. In either case, it's still based on the DSL technology.

With DSL broadband, both data and voice are able to share the same copper wire of the telephone in your homes in such a way that even if you're online surfing the Web, your telephone would still be usable. That means no need for that second telephone subscription. One other advantage of broadband technology is that it is always "on", meaning it is always connected to the Internet. You don't have to dial before you can use it and neither do you have to disconnect to use the telephone.

Broadband is definitely gaining acceptance around the globe. In some countries, the monthly fees for a telephone line are given for FREE if the customer subscribes to the broadband service. Also, other service sectors are starting to offer their own technology to provide broadband solutions to home consumers, like the Digital Cable companies and believe it or not, even the Electric companies. Even cell phone service companies are now moving offering broadband access for your mobile phone.

Today, there may still be more dial-up users than broadband users at home, but the second half of this decade may prove to be the last days of dial-up access.