Are you an existing dial-up Internet subscriber who’s been hearing a lot of things about a faster Internet connection called broadband?  Or are you just a broadband subscriber who doesn’t really know how his connection works.

Either way, you're probably curious.

To understand how broadband works, let’s first take a look at how its older brother, "Dial-Up," functions.

A dial-up connection uses your existing phone line. The digital signals are converted by your modem into analog signals sent through the line to be decoded back into digital signals by your service provider’s own modem.

Those are the screechy sounds that you hear when you pick up the phone while you're online.

Broadband, on the other hand, came to be when phone lines began to be utilized to their full potential.

Instead of being used as a single data pipe, the line is split into several channels, each allowing for more information. More space for information means you can be reached at your landline phone while you’re online at speeds of up to 8 megabits per second. That's about 100 times faster than dial-up.

And some people even use boosters to make their Internet reach speeds of up to 20 Mbps!

Now, if you’re a dial-up user and are now convinced that you want faster Internet speed with a broadband connection, you’ll need an ADSL modem (it’s kind of like your old dial-up modem) to connect your computer to your ISP.

These days, it’s not just enough to be connected. With broadband, you’ll be able to do more at faster speeds to make the most out of your online experience.

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