Broadband is a high-capacity and high-speed communications pipeline that is capable of delivering, simultaneously, a range of voice, video and data services to homes, offices and other places. It can do this in an interactive and reliable manner through a variety of technologies: cable, telephone lines, satellite, wireless and power lines.

Described by many as the ultimate medium of the future, broadband is generally referred to in the context of telecommunications, in which a wide band of frequencies is available to transmit information. Because a wide band of frequencies is available, information can be communicated through two or more signals over a common channel, and sent concurrently on many different frequencies or channels within the band.

The broadband technology of communication allows more information to be transmitted in a given amount of time in much the same way that multiple lanes on a highway allow more cars to travel on it at the same time. The broadness of any broadband service depends on bandwidth (the number of lanes a particular highway has).

Broadband has acquired great relevance in the context of interactivity, which requires a large amount of data being transferred in two directions, rendering 'narrowband' options slow, inefficient and expensive. Examples of broadband services include video conferencing, video on demand and interactivity-driven content. Most importantly, broadband will be the backbone which supports the coming together, in every respect, of television and the Internet.

Because it channels colossal streams of data into and out of our homes and offices, broadband represents the next great leap in world communications. While the morphing of the Internet and television media gathers momentum, there are many web-related benefits that broadband already delivers.

For those perplexed by the jargon that the broadband technology mostly comes dressed up in, the explanation in Webster's dictionary could be of help. It defines broadband thus: "Of, relating to, or being a communications network in which a frequency range is divided into multiple independent channels for simultaneous transmission of signals (as voice, data or video)." That definition, incidentally, is from the dictionary's 1956 edition.