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A reader recently wrote in to ask why anyone would even consider using a
hi-speed connection considering that it costs more, but does basically the same
thing as dial-up. This is a great question because the answer is not as simple
as it first appears
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To a nerd the only advantage that dial-up has is the cost of the service. Some
Internet Service Providers (ISP) offer pre-purchased blocks of time at discount
rates. Many ISPs charge as little as $9.95 per month. Nerds argue that the
cost advantage is quickly offset by the time you save by using hi-speed. But
not everyone that uses the internet is a nerd.
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Before we go any further, let's compare dial-up and hi-speed. The easily
distracted can skip this part. Dial-up uses a device called a
modulator/demodulator, or more familiarly a modem, to send data over the voice
frequencies of the telephone line. This use of voice frequencies limits modems
to a maximum of 56 thousand bytes (56Kb) of data per second. This might seem
fast but a new computer can handle 3 billion (3Gb) bytes of data per second.
Because dial-up uses the same frequencies as voice transmission, you can't
talk on the phone and use the internet at the same time.
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Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), hi-speed over the phone line, uses frequencies
higher than voice to transmit data. You can talk on the phone and surf the web
at the same time. Cable hi-speed doesn't use the phone line at all. You can
use it anytime for the same reason that you can watch CBC in one room and TVO
in another. Cable, unlike DSL, is always connected. Just to confuse things, both
cable and DSL use devices called external modems although they should probably
be called converters. The fastest residential hi-speed connection I have ever
used was 1 million bytes per second, (1Mb) per second, nearly 20 thousand times
faster than dial-up.
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But what does all this mean in practical terms? Like everything else in
computers, it comes down to what you use it for. Those, like myself who
download and upload large amounts of data, really appreciate hi-speed. Because
the web has become so graphics intense, anyone who wants to do some serious web
surfing will benefit immensely from hi-speed. If you use the internet to send
email or occasionally check the movie listings on the web, you can get by quite
comfortably with dial-up.
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One final word. Cable service has only one ISP per region, but there are many
local DSL service providers. Since there is only one telephone service
provider (telco), the connection speed is always the same, but the cost of
equipment rentals and the quality of tech support vary quite a bit from ISP to
ISP. It pays to shop around.
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