Broadband

In telecommunications, broadband is a wide bandwidth data transmission with an ability to simultaneously transport multiple signals and traffic types. The medium can be coaxial cable, optical fiber, radio or twisted pair.

In the context of Internet access broadband is used much more loosely to mean any high-speed Internet access that is always on and faster than traditional dial-up access.

Overview

Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times. Its origin is in physics, acoustics, and radio systems engineering, where it had been used with a meaning similar to "wideband". Later, with the advent of digital telecommunications, the term was mainly used for transmission over multiple channels. Whereas a passband signal is also modulated so that it occupies higher frequencies (compared to a baseband signal which is bound to the lowest end of the spectrum, see line coding), it is still occupying a single channel. The key difference is that what is typically considered a broadband signal in this sense is a signal that occupies multiple (non-masking, orthogonal) passbands, thus allowing for much higher throughput over a single medium but with additional complexity in the transmitter/receiver circuitry.

List of Marvel Comics characters: B

Baal

Baal was the leader of the Sandstormers, who found Apocalypse as a baby and raised him. The character, created by Terry Kavanagh and Adam Pollina first appeared in The Rise of Apocalypse #1 (October 1996).

Baal is the leader of the Sandstormers, raiders and scavengers in ancient Egypt who lived by the dogma of survival of the fittest. When Kang the Conqueror went back in time, in his spaceship, the Sphinx and crash landed, he was found by the Sandstormers. Inside, Baal and his people found a wounded Kang, and nursed him back to health. When Kang recovered, he ran away and became pharaoh of Egypt as Rama Tut. He returned with soldiers to reclaim his jewel, which the Sandstormers had stolen. The Sandstormers did not reveal where it was and many of Baal's men were massacred.

The jewel, "The Eye of the Ages" gives its holders glimpses into the future and Baal saw in it a man who would defeat him, this man was En Sabah Nur. The Sandstormers raided village after village in search for Nur and finally found him left to die on an altar of stones. Many of the Sandstormers wished to slay the baby, thinking it a demon. From the moment Baal had found Nur, he was attached to him and even slew his own men to defend him.