Does Dial Up Internet Have a Future?
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 6:18 pm
Dial up internet has almost been forgotten due to the advances in modern technology. At one time dial up was the only way you could access the internet and still has some benefits today.
Due to the fact that user requirements were very simple when the internet was just starting out there wasn’t much call for super fast connection speeds. However, as user demand changed so did the way the internet was delivered. Videos and music which is something most of us take for granted was very challenging to access with the inherent bottlenecks that dial up access offers.
DSL and Cable are now commonplace in most households; however, before this the only option available was dial up internet. The story started with a 9800 baud modem and then later moved on to 28.8kb/s which was new technology and at its peak managed 56kb/s.
Dial up was so popular due to the fact it was convenient meaning it was easy to access for most customers. By using the existing telephone infrastructure a person could use these copper wires to connect remotely to a server and access the internet.
The challenge with that technology is the large amount of electromagnetic interference that these copper wires had. This meant a great deal of frustration amongst those who lived in rural areas as there were problems with connections and the speed of these connections.
After a government intervention, DSL and Cable services became more widespread and mainstream. In order to create a faster more reliable service, these methods used the existing infrastructure but also used higher frequencies which meant more data could be transferred.
Dial up internet is still used, although by the minority. If a person is using dial up to connect to the internet there are some things they can do to improve their experience online. Try to minimise the amount of tabs you keep open in your browser. Bandwidth will be consumed quicker the more tabs you have open at one time. Also make sure that the phone line that is used for the connection is not shared with a telephone. You will find that you internet will run slower if you are using features such as call waiting on your phone line, it may also affect your connection speed.
Categories: Internet
