Paul Brislen: Broadband more than just a faster internet connection

Broadband is, at its most basic, a very fast internet connection. That's only the beginning, of course.

Colin Goodwin from Ericsson tells me "broadband" is an adjective not a noun (so it's not a thing, it's a way of describing something). Goodwin says we should think about it in terms of broadband internet access or broadband TV and so on rather than as a thing in and of itself.

A more interesting question, I believe, is: what can you do with it? It's faster than dial-up. So what? ask many non-believers. Why should I pay the extra costs involved?

If we just look at broadband as a faster way of doing what you do online today, then there is very little justification for paying more for it.

Websites load only so fast regardless of your connection. Email is email and can be dealt with quickly or slowly.

Fortunately, once you have a broadband connection that's just the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately, that raises the spectre of traffic charges, but more on that below.

The internet has become synonymous with music, and while it's still not legal in New Zealand to copy your own CDs in any way shape or form, the new Copyright Bill is probably going to change that. In the meantime, you can find free and legal music if you want to avoid the clink.

Apple will eventually launch its iTunes service here.

If you've got a particular band you want to listen to online, check out their website and see what's available for free.

There are plenty of online radio stations. You can hear local stations, such as bFM or even the various BBC stations or you can try for something more exotic. Try Radiotower as a good starting point.

Unfortunately, having online radio on the background while you do other things is going to cost you in the long run.

All that traffic will be counted against your monthly limit, which means you'll soon run up against either excess usage charges or having your speed cut back to almost dial-up speeds again.

It's a good argument against having traffic limits in the first place, but at least the newly released Telecom limits (up to 10 GB/month) are better than the old (as low as 500 MB/month).

Over at Ihug you can send and receive national traffic to your heart's content - it's unlimited.

Of course, there are also movies. I watch a lot of movie trailers online Apple Trailers, and I could probably find TV programmes and movies from just about anywhere in the world. Copyright issues abound in this area as well, with even less legal clarity than there is in the music industry, so be aware of the ramifications before agreeing to download anything. BitTorrent, the latest "son of Napster" file-sharing network is a good starting place.

A movie will run to several gigabytes in size, so your traffic limit will again be an issue.

With a broadband connection you can play games online. Got an XBox? You can play against friends and neighbours as well as strangers.

You can also use the Xbox's headset to make free voice calls to other Xbox players wherever they may be.

If you're someone who wants to learn more and play with their PC instead of playing on their PC, broadband is a must have. Download operating systems, send and receive huge data files, upgrades and more.

I know of one Wellingtonian who loves the free operating system Linux and downloads the latest version daily. That's a lot of traffic and needs a lot of bandwidth to be useable, but he's got both so why not?

Then of course there's the serious business of business. Want to get that file off your office PC over the weekend without driving in? With a virtual private network connection you can.

Want to work from home but retain full access to the network? Just use your broadband connection.

And let's not forget digital photography, running your own business, hosting your own email server - the list goes on.

The best thing about it all, however, is every time someone new jumps into the broadband game they think up a new way to use their connection.

This isn't just faster email and web pages, this is a whole new internet. Climb aboard.