Dial-up Internet access
Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telephone line. Dial-up connections use modems to decode audio signals into data to send to a router or computer, and to encode signals from the latter two devices to send to another modem at the ISP.
Dial-up internet reached its peak popularity during the dot-com bubble with the likes of ISPs such as Sprint, EarthLink, MSN Dial-up, NetZero, Prodigy, and America Online (more commonly known as AOL). This was in large part due to the fact that broadband internet did not become widely used until well into the 2000s. Since then, most dial-up access has been replaced by broadband.
History
In 1979,
Dial-up Internet access has existed since the 1980s via public providers such as
Commercial dial-up Internet access was first offered in 1992 by Sprint in the United States and by Pipex in the United Kingdom.[5][6] After the introduction of commercial broadband in the late 1990s,[7] dial-up became less popular. In the United States, the availability of dial-up Internet access dropped from 40% of Americans in the early 2000s to 3% in the early 2010s.[8] It is still used where other forms are not available or where the cost is too high, as in some rural or remote areas.[9][10][11][12]
Modems
Because there was no technology to allow different carrier signals on a telephone line at the time, dial-up internet access relied on using audio communication. A modem would take the digital data from a computer,
The simplicity of this arrangement meant that people would be unable to use their phone line for verbal communication until the internet call was finished.
The Internet speed using this technology can drop to 21.6
Availability
Dial-up connections to the Internet require no additional
A 2008 Pew Research Center study stated that only 10% of US adults still used dial-up Internet access. The study found that the most common reason for retaining dial-up access was high broadband prices. Users cited lack of infrastructure as a reason less often than stating that they would never upgrade to broadband.[16] That number had fallen to 6% by 2010,[17] and to 3% by 2013.[18]
A survey conducted in 2018 estimated that 0.3% of Americans were using dial-up by 2017.[19]
The CRTC estimated that there were 336,000 Canadian dial-up users in 2010.[20]
Replacement by broadband
Broadband Internet access via
However, many rural areas remain without high-speed Internet, despite the eagerness of potential customers. This can be attributed to population, location, or sometimes ISPs' lack of interest due to little chance of profitability and high costs to build the required infrastructure. Some dial-up ISPs have responded to the increased competition by lowering their rates and making dial-up an attractive option for those who merely want email access or basic Web browsing.[21][22]
Dial-up has seen a significant fall in usage, with the potential to cease to exist in future as more users switch to broadband.[
Since an "always on" broadband is the norm expected by most newer applications being developed,[citation needed] this automatic background downloading trend is expected to continue to eat away at dial-up's available bandwidth to the detriment of dial-up users' applications.[24] Many newer websites also now assume broadband speeds as the norm, and when connected to with slower dial-up speeds may drop (timeout) these slower connections to free up communication resources. On websites that are designed to be more dial-up friendly, use of a reverse proxy prevents dial-ups from being dropped as often but can introduce long wait periods for dial-up users caused by the buffering used by a reverse proxy to bridge the different data rates.
Despite the rapid decline, dial-up Internet still exists in some rural areas, and many areas of developing and underdeveloped nations, although wireless and satellite broadband are providing faster connections in many rural areas where fibre or copper may be uneconomical.[citation needed]
In 2010, it was estimated that there were 800,000 dial-up users in the UK. BT turned off its dial-up service in 2013.[25]
In 2012, it was estimated that 7% of internet connections in New Zealand were dial-up. One NZ (formerly Vodafone) turned off its dial-up service in 2021.[26][27]
Performance
Modern dial-up modems typically have a maximum theoretical transfer speed of 56 kbit/s (using the
Some connections may be as low as 20 kbit/s in extremely noisy environments, such as in a hotel room where the phone line is shared with many extensions, or in a rural area, many kilometres from the phone exchange. Other factors such as long loops, loading coils, pair gain, electric fences (usually in rural locations), and digital loop carriers can also slow connections to 20 kbit/s or lower.
[The dial-up sounds are] a choreographed sequence that allowed these digital devices to piggyback on an analog telephone network. A phone line carries only the small range of frequencies in which most human conversation takes place: about three hundred to three thousand hertz. The modem works within these [telephone network] limits in creating sound waves to carry data across phone lines. What you're hearing is the way 20th century technology tunneled through a 19th century network; what you're hearing is how a network designed to send the noises made by your muscles as they pushed around air came to transmit anything [that can be] coded in zeroes and ones.
-Alexis Madrigal, paraphrasing Glenn Fleishman[28]
Analog telephone lines are digitally switched and transported inside a Digital Signal 0 once reaching the telephone company's equipment. Digital Signal 0 is 64 kbit/s and reserves 8 kbit/s for signaling information; therefore a 56 kbit/s connection is the highest that will ever be possible with analog phone lines.
Dial-up connections usually have
Video games released from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s that utilized Internet access such as
Using compression to exceed 56k
The
For instance, a 53.3 kbit/s connection with V.44 can transmit up to 53.3 × 6 = 320 kbit/s if the offered data stream can be compressed that much. However, the compression ratio varies considerably. ZIP archives, JPEG images, MP3, video, etc. are already compressed.[29] A modem might be sending compressed files at approximately 50 kbit/s, uncompressed files at 160 kbit/s, and pure text at 320 kbit/s, or any rate in this range.[30]
Compression by the ISP
As telephone-based Internet lost popularity by the mid-2000s, some Internet service providers such as TurboUSA, Netscape, CdotFree, and NetZero started using data compression to increase the perceived speed. As an example, EarthLink advertises "surf the Web up to 7x faster" using a compression program on images, text/html, and SWF flash animations prior to transmission across the phone line.[31]
The pre-compression operates much more efficiently than the on-the-fly compression of V.44 modems. Typically, website text is compacted to 5%, thus increasing effective throughput to approximately 1000 kbit/s, and JPEG/GIF/PNG images are lossy-compressed to 15–20%, increasing effective throughput up to 300 kbit/s.
The drawback of this approach is a loss in quality, where the graphics acquire
Usage in other devices
Other devices, such as
Note that the values given are maximum values, and actual values may be slower under certain conditions (for example, noisy phone lines).[32]
Connection | Bitrate
| ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
110 baud ( Bell 101 ) |
0.11 kbit/s |
(110 bits per second) | |||
300 baud ( V.21 ) |
0.3 kbit/s | ||||
1200 baud ( V.22 ) |
1.2 kbit/s | ||||
2400 baud ( V.22bis ) |
2.4 kbit/s | ||||
2400 baud (V.26bis) | 2.4 kbit/s | ||||
4800 baud ( V.27ter ) |
4.8 kbit/s | ||||
9600 baud ( V.32 ) |
9.6 kbit/s | ||||
14.4 kbit/s ( V.32bis ) |
14.4 kbit/s | ||||
28.8 kbit/s ( V.34 ) |
28.8 kbit/s | ||||
33.6 kbit/s ( V.34 ) |
33.6 kbit/s | ||||
56k kbit/s ( V.90 ) |
56.0 to 33.6 kbit/s | ||||
56k kbit/s (V.92) | 56.0 to 48.0 kbit/s | ||||
ISDN | 64.0 to 128.0 kbit/s | ||||
Hardware compression ( V.44 ) |
56.0 to 320.0 kbit/s | (variable) | |||
Server-side web compression | 200.0 to 1000.0 kbit/s | (variable) |
-
V.90 - 3Com USR - 56k
-
V.90 - RockWeller - 56k
-
ZyXEL Omni 56K
-
V.90 - Momenta 56DSP
-
V.34 - Sindrome 21600
-
V.80 - Helicopter
-
V.34 - RockWeller - 33.6k
-
V.92 - ElCom HSP PCI Fax modem - 56k
See also
References
- ISBN 0-8186-7706-6. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
- ^ "BBC Internet Services - History". support.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-09-19.
- ^ Houlder, Peter (19 January 2007). "Starting the Commercial Internet in the UK" (PDF). 6th UK Network Operators' Forum. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 February 2020. Retrieved 2020-02-12.
- ^ Reid, Jim (3 April 2007). "Networking in UK Academia ~25 Years Ago" (PDF). 7th UK Network Operators' Forum. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 May 2017. Retrieved 2020-02-12.
- ^ "H-Net Discussion Networks – SprintLink Commercial Availability Announced (fwd)". h-net.msu.edu. 31 July 1992. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
- ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 2022-01-12. Retrieved 2019-09-17; "About PIPEX". GTNet. Archived from the originalon 2012-11-01. Retrieved 2012-06-30.
- ^ "Who invented broadband? How copper telephone lines became high-speed internet connections". BT. 25 July 2018. Archived from the original on 24 January 2021. Retrieved 19 September 2019.
- ^ Brenner, Joanna. "3% of Americans use dial-up at home". Pew Research Center. Retrieved 2024-01-21.
- ^ "What's it like to use AOL dial-up internet in 2017?". Digital Trends. 2017-04-01. Retrieved 2018-06-03.
- ^ a b "Dial-up internet used by hundreds of thousands in Canada | CBC News". CBC. Retrieved 2018-06-03.
- ^ Cossick, Samantha (2019-06-20). "Dial-up Internet And Our Fondness For The First Internet Connection". Allconnect. Retrieved 2024-01-21.
- ^ "U.S. household dial-up internet connection usage 2019". Statista. Retrieved 2024-01-21.
- ^ Quine, Alison (2008-01-28). "Modem (Modulation/Demodulation) Definition". ITPRC. Retrieved 2021-06-14.
- ^ "СИHДРОМ 21600/V34 или Правда о том, как USR выбирает Symbol Rate". www.usrmodem.ru. Archived from the original on 15 July 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2022.
- ^ "Синдром 21600 как с ним бороться ? [1] - Конференция iXBT.com". forum.ixbt.com.
- Fox News Channel. Associated Press. 2008-07-07. Retrieved 2009-11-03.
- ^ a b Todd, Deborah M. (2012-02-15). "Plenty of Internet users cling to slow dial-up connections". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved February 17, 2012.
- ^ "3% of Americans use dial-up at home", Pew Research Center, retrieved 2013-11-28
- ^ "Percentage of households in the United States in 2017, by internet subscription". statista.com. Joseph Johnson. Retrieved 17 February 2021.
- ^ "Dial-up internet used by hundreds of thousands in Canada | CBC News". CBC. 2012-05-12. Retrieved 2018-06-03.
- ^ LaVallee, Andrew (2009-02-27). "Could You Go Back to Dial-Up? - Digits - WSJ.com". Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones. Retrieved 2009-02-27.
- ^ "Recession Has Many Holding on to Dirt-Cheap Dial-Up". Fox News. 2009-02-26. Retrieved 2009-02-27.
- ^ "Home Broadband 2013". Pew Internet & American Life Project. Archived from the original on February 9, 2014. Retrieved April 20, 2015.
- ^ Kaspersky Technical Support website [search "dial up" slow] July 17, 2015
- ^ "BT turns off dial-up internet access service". BBC News. 2013-08-31. Retrieved 2022-03-19.
- ^ "Dial-up and broadband Internet connections in New Zealand - Figure.NZ". 2017-04-15. Archived from the original on 2017-04-15. Retrieved 2023-11-07.
- ^ "Dial-up internet service closing on Monday as Vodafone helps customers onto new tech". Media - One NZ. 2021-05-26. Retrieved 2023-11-07.
- ^ Alexis C. Madrigal (June 1, 2012). "The Mechanics and Meaning of That Ol' Dial-Up Modem Sound". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 2015-08-16.
- ^ Pavel Mitronov. "Modem compression: V.44 against V.42bis". Pricenfees.com. Archived from the original on 2017-02-02. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
- ^ Karl Willdig. "What You Need to Know about Modems". Fermilab Data Communications and Networking Group. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Archived from the original on 2007-01-04. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
- ^ "EarthLink Dial-Up Internet service – fast, reliable dialup access nationwide". www.earthlink.net. Retrieved 2017-01-12.
- ^ "Data communication over the telephone network". International Telecommunication Union. Retrieved 2008-02-18.