The term "Internet connectivity" refers to the way people are hooked up to the Internet, and may include dial-up telephone lines, always-on broadband connections, and wireless devices. Among these, wireless access to the Internet is the newest and, as of the early 2000s, had only reached a small group of users. Broadband connections, including DSL (digital subscriber line), ADSL (asymmetrical DSL), and cable modems, were becoming more widespread, but still represented a small percentage of Internet users. A study by Nielsen/NetRatings covering the year 2000 found that more than 85 percent of home-based users connected to the Internet with ordinary telephone modems ranging from 28.8 Kbps (thousands of bits per second) to 56 Kbps. Only 6.4 percent had high-speed Internet access, while 8.3 percent were still using 14.4 Kbps telephone modems.
Since the early days of the Internet, connectivity for the typical user has improved markedly by offering greater speeds for data transmission and wider bandwidth to accommodate special services such as audio and video. In the consumer market, the first improvements were made in dial-up telephone connections, with modems increasing in speed from 14.4 Kbps to 56 Kbps. With the growth in popularity of the World Wide Web and its ever expanding stock of multimedia content, the need for more bandwidth and higher transmission speeds created new demand in households and small businesses for broadband alternatives, which until that time were common only in large corporations, universities, and government agencies.
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