A bridge (not to be confused with a router) is a data network device used to connect two network segments of different protocols.

For example, if you want computers on a TCP/IP network to talk to computers on a token ring network, you need a bridge to connect the two segments.

Broadband is a general term used to describe any high-speed, high-bandwidth, “always on” internet connection.

Cable modems, DSL modems, satellite link-ups, and T1 lines are all broadband devices. Dial-up modems and other low-bandwidth devices are called “narrowband.”

Channels refer to the conduits in which to deliver content or data.

In web development, channels may refer to the data feeds allowing content onscreen without reloading the page or redrawing the whole screen. Channels may also refer to the paths a computer uses to transmit information between peripherals.

The dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) is an addressing protocol for TCP/IP networks.

IP addresses are leased to individual computers on the network from a DHCP server. DHCP allows users to move to different locations on a network without having to bother a network administrator (and they hate being bothered) to manually assign a new IP address. DHCP is useful in homes with several computers sharing a single high-speed internet connection.

A digital subscriber line, or DSL, is a communications technology that allows data to travel at very high speeds over standard telephone wire without interrupting normal telephone service.

The primary market for DSL is the home office since the technology makes it easy for residential homes to receive high-speed internet access at a reasonable price. DSL speeds, on the average, run at about 600kbps for downstream and 128kbps for upstream.

Short for internet service provider, an ISP owns and operates all of the equipment (telephony, digital cable, servers, etc.) that allow you to connect to the internet from your home or office.

Most ISPs sell access to their services for a small monthly fee, which you can access by connecting to your ISP’s computer network through a phone or cable line.

Mbone is short for multicast backbone on the internet, and is an extension to the internet designed to support IP multicasting, or the transmission of data packets to multiple addresses. Most of this traffic is streaming audio and video which, like radio and TV broadcasts, is sent to many people at once. The Mbone was established in 1994 by the Internet Engineering Task Force.

Mbone is likely to go obsolete with the adoption of IPv6 which supports multicasting by default.

Short for network address translation, a NAT server acts as a transition point between your local LAN and the internet at large.

The NAT server converts all of the IP addresses on your local LAN to one single IP address. When NAT is active, your LAN appears and acts as one entity when viewed from the internet. The NAT server continues to resolve individual local addresses when requests from the internet are received.

NetCaster was Netscape Communicator’s push delivery system. It was basically a web environment that is always active and can update its onscreen appearance without going to a new URL or reloading. Like all push mechanisms, NetCaster doesn’t require the user to manually check for new content or sit through an update. It let the developer put new content in front of users instead of hoping they come looking for it.

The Netscape Communicator browser ceased development in 2002.

The domain name system (DNS) is an internet service that translates domain names (like wired.com) into IP addresses (like 208.77.188.166).

We use domain names because people can remember words better than numbers, but web servers still need the IP numbers to access the page. Every time you use a domain name, a DNS server must translate the name into the corresponding IP address.