-: In this section of the course,
we're going to cover the different types
of internet connections that you're going to come across
as a technician in the field.
Now in technical circles though,
we normally refer to these as WAN connections, W-A-N,
instead of calling them internet connections
because they connect our home and offices
to the wide area network known as the WAN
and the internet is just one type of WAN
that we can connect to.
Now to get an internet connection,
you're normally going to enter a contract or service agreement
with an internet service provider, which is called an ISP.
Now these companies establish high-speed links
between their networks and your home or office
and the greater internet at large.
When you purchase an internet connection,
you're going to be tied to a particular technology
or type of service depending on who you buy it from.
For example, at my home office,
I have AT&T as my internet service provider,
and they provide me with a fiber optic connection
all the way to my home office
and terminate it using an ONT,
which is an optical network terminal,
which converts the optical signal
from their fiber optic connection
to an electrical one that can be routed onto my home network
using a copper twisted pair of cable like a CAT6 cable
at speeds of up to one gigabit per second.
Now, conversely, at my offices,
fiber connections aren't available there yet,
so we had to rely on our local cable company
to act as our internet service provider.
This company uses what's called
a hybrid fiber coaxial solution
where they use fiber to the general area of our offices,
but then run a coaxial cable
from their terminal inside to our offices.
Now, when the internet connection enters our office,
it looks just like a coaxial cable
like you plug your TV into,
but then it connects to a cable modem
and that converts it from this radio frequency signal
that's being sent over the coaxial cable
into an electrical signal that can be sent
over a copper twisted pair of cable like CAT6
into my office's networking devices
like our router, our firewall, and our gateways.
Now, in general, when you connect
your internet service provider's connection
to some kind of device in your offices,
whether that's an optical network terminal,
if you're using something like fiber
or a cable or DSL modem,
if you're using one of those connection types,
we call that device the gateway
and that's the gateway between your network
and your ISP or internet service provider's network.
Then you connect your ISP's gateway
to your own router, firewall, or gateway
and this device will act as the go between
for your network clients and the larger internet
that you want to access through the ISP connection.
So in this section of the course, we're going to be talking
all about the different internet connectivity options
that you may come across when working in a small office
or home office network.
Our focus in this section of the course
is going to be on Domain 2 networking,
and we're going to be covering Objective 2.7.
Now, Objective 2.7 states
that you must be able to compare and contrast
internet connection types, network types,
and their features.
And we're going to cover the rest of this objective fully
in this section of the course.
Now, as we begin this section,
we're going to first take a look
at the oldest type of wide area network connection out there
which is known as dial-up internet.
Now, almost nobody uses dial-up internet anymore,
but we're still going to cover it for the sake of thoroughness.
Then we're going to talk about digital subscriber lines,
known as DSL, which was a replacement for dial-up
and still relies on the same
telephone-based networks to operate,
but are decreasing in popularity a lot these days.
Next, we'll move into cable modems and cable connections.
And we already talked a little bit about this
when I started talking about my office here
where we have a hybrid fiber coaxial network.
Then we're going to move into fiber connections,
including fiber to the curb, fiber to the premises,
and fiber to the home.
After that, we'll move into our coverage
of cellular connections and their associate technologies.
Next, we're going to discuss
wireless internet service providers
and their microwave and satellite connections.
Finally, we'll move into a short demonstration
where you're going to see what a wide area network connection
looks like when it's terminated
at your home or office network.
So let's go ahead and get started
with our coverage of internet connections
in this section of the course.