The "band" in broadband stands for bandwidth. Once upon a time, when I was only 35, there was only POTS (plain old telephone service) to transmit the internet (and its precursors like Bitnet) very slowly (I remember 11 characters per second). Although POTS got faster until it was good enough for reading email in almost-real time: 256Kb/second as I recall. It wasn't until new technologies came along to transmit information much more quickly through not-so-plain phone wires, cable and then satellite. This made it possible to read without cursing our current graphics-heavy web sites. (And to download stuff quickly, instead of overnight.) In comparison to the narrow bandwith of POTS (narrowband), the new technologies collectively became known as "broadband". Want to know more? I'm "sure" Wikipedia has it for you. Limping along these days at 500kB (note capital B), but soon to upgrade to 4MB. Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology University of Toronto 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php Elvis wouldn't be singing "Return to Sender" these days *** HAPPY CANADA DAY *** _______________________________________________________________________