According to Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC), a partnership between National White Collar Crime Center and FBI, number of fraud victims is in hundreds of thousands and total dollars lost are in hundreds of millions, and rising at an exponential rate. A search on Google for "internet fraud" results in over 3,200,000 listings at time of this writing!

It is difficult sometimes to tell difference between reputable online sellers and criminals who use Internet to separate people from their money. You can protect yourself by learning how to recognize danger signs of fraud. If you are a victim of Internet fraud, it is important to file a complaint with IFCC at http://www.ifccfbi.gov quickly so that law enforcement agencies can quickly shut down fraudulent operations.

· Know whom you're dealing with. If seller or charity is unfamiliar, check with your state or local consumer protection agency and Better Business Bureau (http://www.bbb.org). Search Federal Trade Commission website (http://www.ftc.gov) for company or organization that you are considering doing business with. Some Web sites have feedback forums, which can provide useful information about other people's experiences with particular sellers. Get physical address and phone number (and actually make a call before you give them money-to make sure that phone number is correct) in case there is a problem later.

Often too many people get confused with all definitions, here we have explained in easy to understand terms.

ADSL: Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line - asymmetric meaning it's faster downstream than upstream.

ASAM: Advanced Services Access Manager -Whether you have a DSLAM or ASAM in your exchange doesn't really matter. They do same thing. See DSLAM's as well.

ATM: Asynchronous Transfer Mode - a method of encapsulation which is capable of many virtual circuits. With these, providers (ISP's) can split an ATM connection (155Mbit or 622Mbit) up into many connections. ATM isn't just used for DSL but in case of DSL it's used to provision each customer.

Contention Ratios A contention ratio is number of users to xMbit of bandwidth. For example some providers offer 2Mbit DSL, with a ratio of 50:1, meaning 50 users to 1Mbit of bandwidth.

CPE Customer Premises Equipment, term that describes equipment used on customer end of a connection, for example your DSL modem/router, cable modem, black box on Wired Country etc.

DSL Digital Subscriber Line.

DSLAM Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer - They are placed in DSL enabled Telecomm exchanges, when your modem syncs up and DSL light comes on, it means you are connected. When data travels down your connection, it goes from CPE -> DSLAM -> RAN -> ISP