Well, the answer to that question is that there are simply so many things happening on today's Internet that weren't really popular before the rise of broadband. Let's take a look at a few of them. The biggest effect of broadband has been the rise of streaming multimedia: music, video, games, and more.

The ‘70s and the ‘80s could be easily described as the ‘computer war'. Every company had a new kind of computer, better than the last that they wanted to change the world. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before one was adopted as the standard, with all the advantages for software compatibility

Your computer desk, it might not look like much, but if you work with your computer a lot, it's actually a very important thing in your life. If it's configured wrongly, you could find yourself with wrist and back pain, not to mention struggling to think or work up the motivation to do anything at all.

So you've got broadband. Great! After a while, though, many people find that they've got so used to having broadband on one computer that they want to be able to use it from any other ones they own, too - including their laptop, and computers that are nowhere near the broadband line. Traditionally, the

With broadband, you're always connected to the Internet. While that's great if you want to fire up your web browser or email quickly and check something, it can also be dangerous. If a dodgy program gets onto your computer, it will be able to phone home all the time, whether you're actually using the