Wednesday 5 August 2009

How We Went From Dial-Up to Broadband Internet Connectivity

By Karsten Hansen

Once upon a time, more than a decade ago, when the term internet wasn't even in the dictionary yet. People communicated through post mails, phone calls or beepers. Mobile phones, although already being marketed, has not yet reached the mainstream market.

The online revolution came as a welcome respite from all the troubles of looking for effective ways to get in touch with friends, family and colleagues. Dial-up was the most popular online connection method at the time.

Slow, oftentimes hitting glitches when downloading online and basically, requiring ones utmost patience; it nonetheless got the message across no matter the distance - and at a faster rate than snail mail.

With the increasing demand for a reliable internet connection, Internet Service Providers have turned their product focus from dial-up internet to broadband technology. These functions include Digital Subscriber Line and Cable internet connection.

The concept behind a broadband connection is to give customers the ease of being online with a higher speed rate than dial-up; and the free use of their phone simultaneous with being connected to the internet.

Dial-up internet require the use of the telephone line solely for the internet at the time that you are hooked on your dial-up modem.

This ultimately put dial-up connections in the backseat, with broadband now considered as the most reliable online connection thus far. While Internet Service Providers tend to get more customers than their bandwidth can take, the assumption that not all users will be connecting to the internet at the same time, their clients still get to fully utilize their share of bandwidth.

There are a lot of things to be got from having broadband internet instead of a dial-up access. Other than the faster download speed and the usually glitch-free online connection; having your phone line free for calls while connected to the internet is as good a benefit as any.

This is especially beneficial for micro businesses where the use of both online connection and the telephone is very important.

As a whole, having a broadband internet connection is advantageous to all users in the sense that this is more reliable than dial-up - with practically no down times, no glitches with downloads and better support for online applications.

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