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Sunday, 3 June 2012

How does Dialup Internet work?

Today we will be talking about Technology History. The oldest yet still existing form of Internet - Dialup!

Remember connecting through your telephone to the internet, if not then you have missed one of the oldest form of internet connectivity options. Here is a quick note on how this form of technology works.

Its quite simple but quite unique, the computer connects to the internet through the telephone lines. This is the same technology that works when you connect your cellphone to your computer to connect your PC to the internet.

The service provider sets up a telephone number that helps establish a connection to the internet. The user sets up his computer to dial that number and a connection is established. The problem is that the computer understands or speaks in a digital language where as the telephone can only understand or speak the analog language. The only solution is a Modem - Modulator Demodulator, this devices acts as a translating device which translates the phone's language to the computer and the computer's language to the phone.

So, when the phone company sends a signal with details of your Google search the modem helps the computer in translating it into text and images that are understandable. Dialup internet can reach a maximum of 56kbps and is ideal for downloading email. It's more advanced predecessors are ISDN and Broadband. Which are quite different and we will talk about them sometime later. The videos below talk more about how dial-up works in real life and how slow & frustrating it can be.

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