Dial-Up

Anyone who has ever had to use a dial-up Internet connection knows that it can sometimes become a nightmare. Your dial-up speed is really determined by the bandwidth of telephone lines. If you really think about it many websites have a lot of information and data that has to be squeezed through a dial-up connection. There are companies that are now offering what is called high speed dial-up two companies that stand out are NetZero and EarthLink.

Companies that offer the high speed dial-up are using what they call an acceleration server. Simplifying the entire process into layman terms, when you search for a particular web page using the high speed dial-up your request will be sent from a dial-up modem to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) acceleration server. The server now as the ability of requesting and serving web pages for you while using a broadband connection. When your ISP’s acceleration server finds the web page you are looking for it will then send the accurate information needed to your computer, and the web page should appear on your screen. In the need acceleration servers can speed up dial-up by using techniques like compression, filtering, and caching.

File compression is an ever evolving technology that does not work with every kind of file out there yet. So for a quick over view some common types of files that can be compressed with high speed dial-up are HTML/Java-based web pages, JPG/GIF-based graphics, text, and e-mail. Some types of files that can not be compressed using high speed dial-up yet are downloads, secure web pages, streaming media both audio and video, and music and photos sent as e-mail attachments.

Many high speed dial-up companies are filtering things that slow down your connection like pop-ups. So companies are now offering what is called pop-up blocker software for their subscribers. The pop-up blocker will refuse the ad’s information, thus having less information sent across your telephone line to your computer. Which just means the less information and data sent, the faster your connection speed and the faster your web pages will load.

High speed dial-up companies use what is called server-side caching which saves everyone time by being able to reduce redundant requests. The acceleration server will look for all the web pages that a companies subscribers are requesting continually. The acceleration server will then store these pages in its memory instead of having to continually ask to see particular web pages thousands of times a day. The acceleration server can now just transmit the popular web pages out of its memory for any subscriber that requests a popular web page. There is also client-side caching which is when Internet Explorer and Netscape cache popular web pages to help lower load times by storing the web pages on your computer’s hard disk.