In computer networks and telecommunications, a dedicated line is a communications cable or other facility dedicated to a specific application, in contrast with a shared resource such as the telephone network or the Internet.
In practice, such services may not be provided by a single, discrete, end-to-end cable, but they do provide guarantees of constant bandwidth availability and near-constant latency, properties that cannot be guaranteed for more public systems. Such properties add a considerable premium to the price charged.
As more general-purpose systems have improved, dedicated lines have been steadily replaced by intranets and the public Internet, but they are still useful for time-critical, high-bandwidth applications such as video transmission.
Famous quotes containing the words dedicated and/or line:
“I made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me; bond unknown to me
Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,
A dedicated Spirit.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“The line that I am urging as today’s conventional wisdom is not a denial of consciousness. It is often called, with more reason, a repudiation of mind. It is indeed a repudiation of mind as a second substance, over and above body. It can be described less harshly as an identification of mind with some of the faculties, states, and activities of the body. Mental states and events are a special subclass of the states and events of the human or animal body.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)