Dial-up: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality?
Re:
by gdkay2 - 11/5/04 6:19 AM In reply to: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by Jay MI wouldn't go as far as to say it's HIGH speed, but it is better than standard. Images are received at a decreased resolution in order to get the whole page loaded faster to the workstation. This will make shopping a bit faster on an Overstock.com or Amazon.com, since the elements on their pages (even a lot of text) is image-based. I can opposite-click whichever images I want to re-load at full resolution, so the slightly fuzzy look is reversible if need be. Note that the relative "speed" effect will vary UP TO 5 times faster-- you may get a day where it's merely 1.9 times faster, for example. Most times, the acceleration monitor ranges between 3 and 4 times faster page downloads for my service.
Here's the catch- my ISP (JOINET) seems to use a different set of servers for regular vs. high-speed subscribers. If the phone line gets fuzzy, I lose the speed advantage until that server can re-identify my username and password-- hence the resulting dialog box. Sometimes that can be for 5 to 10 minutes. Since I don't game online, I can live with that for 6.95 per month. Other more expensive services may very well perform more consistently, but price is a very important issue on the budget I have to work with. JOINET does have very good pop-up blockers and a very good email SPAM blocking tool-- incoming messages must have identifiable senders send a single reply to pass through. It's all give-and-take.
Unfortunately, you *will* miss the speed you have become accustomed to, even with graphics acceleration. Ultimately, the tradeoffs don't affect the type of activities I perform on-line. If you game, like many folks do, you might want to keep the DSL.
Good luck!
Re: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality?
by bigjohn910 - 11/5/04 8:01 AM In reply to: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by Jay MI do not know how it compares to dial up but I switched from cable broadband to Netzero "highspeed" dialup premium service. There is absolutely no comparison! Net zero highspeed is SLOW! Very Slow! Turtle/hare slow!
-John
Re: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality?
by Bill Conley - 11/5/04 8:49 AM In reply to: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by Jay MI've used dialup, with myway speedbar which makes surfing a lot faster, and kind of liked it. However since going to cable, there is nothing that will ever take it's place. Now, no matter what you do with dialup, you will never be satisfied with it. If you like downloading stuff you will be very disappointed. It is so slow. Highspeed means only that you can surf faster, it will not speed up downloads. If I ever get tired of downloading stuff, than I may go with dialup. I've used AOL which sucks, Compuserve, Bluelight .com and Net Zero. Net Zero is the best dialup if a person has to have dialup.
Re: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality?
by jtranch1 - 11/5/04 9:10 AM In reply to: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by Jay MThey are blowing smoke. I use "High Speed" Dialup and it is no faster than not using it.
Jerry Doyle
Thanks! Here's what I am experiencing....
by Jay M - 11/5/04 9:58 AM In reply to: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by Jay MThanks to ALL of you for the responses. I am pretty convinced the "High Speed Dialup" is a joke, or at best good for surfing, but not for downoads.
After a lot of comparison and research, I decided to go with ISP.COM for dialup service. I did not get the 'high speed' they offer, just the regular for $8.95 a month. So far I am very impressed. After a year with DSL, I thought I'd really suffer waiting for dialup to do its thing. But it is rarely much slower than DSL for moving around the web. Pictures download more slowly, but not so it bothers me (it's like 30 sec vs 5 sec for DSL, and they start blurry but clear up right away), as for video, yes that is where the biggest difference lies: I don't always want to wait for a video clip to download now--it can take several minutes for a very short clip. However, last night I downloaded several clips in less than 2 minutes each. I never download music files.
For my personal use, I am finding this service very acceptable. Compared with what I know of Netzero (which is free), you don't get bothered by advertising with a paid service. I heard somewhere that Netzero can load up your computer with spyware and adware. $8.95 is worth is doing without that.
Thanks again to all of you!
JM
Re: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality?
by hairymon - 11/5/04 10:03 AM In reply to: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by Jay MI have a lot of experience with this so I'll put in my 2 cents.
"High Speed" Dialup is technically no faster than real dialup. What it does is compress Web images so that it appears to be up to 5x faster than dialup. This does make Web pages load faster, but it will not speed up file uploads/downloads and will not speed up "secure" pages. And the more you compress, the more you lose in image quality.
I eventually switched to DSL because in most areas if you use the same phone company for local and long distance (and usually doing that is a savings anyway, unless you only use a cell phone and never a landline), it really isn't much more than dialup anymore. I have a deal with MCI where I pay $25/month for DSL...and if I opted for their $49/month unlimited local/long distance plan it would only be $19/mo. SBC Yahoo has a similar deal for $26/month and Verizon for $29/month.
Re: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality?
by cedrowilli - 11/5/04 10:20 AM In reply to: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by Jay MWorks by using a "hidden" IP address, not the same one that hooks you up to the ISP directly. As a result, Norton AV/IS cannot recognize your computer properly due to mismatched IPs, so it can't perform the updates very well. Hence, you need to temporarily disable the Accelerated software to allow your "true" IP address to be recognized when updating. The same may be true for Microsoft security critical updates.
The accelerator enlists you as a member, remembering sites you visit on the ISP server side. Repeat hits allow faster download time except when the site web page is updated. Certain elements on the page, remaining the same, download faster not because of any electrical tricks on the phone lines, but because the server supposedly uploads faster onto your computer than the web site probably would.
Are accelerators any faster? Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't.
Re: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality?
by Atlantis98 - 11/5/04 11:09 AM In reply to: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by Jay MHigh Speed Dialup isn't really worth the effort put forth! There are some things that seem to be a bit faster while surfing net. Downloading? Forget it! No change! I don't believe there is anything that will improve the speed of dialup. There are a few offering the 5x speed but don't look for any improvements. Some form of DSL is the only way to go. You should checkout DirecWay.com for what they offer. Really not too bad.
Re: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality?
by cmalot2001 - 11/6/04 9:09 AM In reply to: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by Jay MI've used this "high speed" how it works is when you open up a page say www.download.com what happens is the text will be fine but all the pictures will be blurry/fuzzy. That is how they achieve the "high speed". I've try'd 3different company's that addvertise this and found that NetZero has the best program for this. You can adjust the quality of the pictures in 3 different way's. 1. under settings use the slider to the left or right to adjust the quality that the pictures that are loaded. You can go to the left and get the best quality or the right for the poorest ie the fastest page load's. 2. Keep your setting on a faster page load setting ie poor pictures and then when the page loads right click on any picture and then select display ALL Pictures in full quality (defeats the purpose of "high speed" though.) 3. This is the best way. Keep your setting's more towards faster page loads and then when you see a picture that you would like to see better or save for your purposes then just right click on that picture and select Display Picture in Full Quality. If you do not want to do any of these ALL THE TIME. Then it is NOT worth the extra $5 or so a month. AOL, Surfbest and NetZero are the one's I've had just to compare them while I waited for my Zoomtown to be activated. They are all comparitively priced. The Surfbest comercial against NetZero I found to be very false. You still have to pay an extra $5 a month for the "accelerator" meaning they cost the same either way. NetZero has awsome support and friendly people as well as a better layout of there product and easier to use and much more reliable ie Way less getting Disconnected". Happy Shopping.
Re: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality?
by hairymon - 11/8/04 8:01 AM In reply to: Re: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by cmalot2001NetZero (also Juno, which I had and is owned by NetZero) is the best for this, but what you didn't note is if you adjust for better picture quality, you get lower speed).
I just heard on the radio today that SBC-Yahoo has matched MCI's $19/month DSL if you fully use them for local and long distance.....just thought I'd pass it along.
Re:
by swoolfolk - 11/6/04 9:58 AM In reply to: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by Jay MThe truth is....your ISP is not the controlling factor concerning speed on a dial-up connection. Your telephone company is. The speed over copper wire is at best about 53.3Kbs, generally much slower than that. DSL and ISDN are conditioned telephone lines that are run through devices that speed up the signal to about 384.4 to 768 Kbs. Cable internet is run over cowax which is a single wire similar to your TV wire and can run much faster. I actually don't know how fast. I have High Speed Cable and I just tested at 3675.7 Kbs. The best speeds are run over fiber, a single glass wire (fiber). Very few people have fiber to the curb (your house) simply because the telephone companies don't have the money to build the network to your house and the average customer could not afford the cost if they did. Fiber signals in your telephone company switch may be running at speeds approaching 30,000Kbs. High Speed Dialup pachages may help some.
Re:
by hairymon - 11/8/04 8:03 AM In reply to: Re: by swoolfolkWhile cable is now for the most part faster than DSL (and is the reason I believe that DSL prices dropped and are now below cable). DSL is better than 384-768, though it depends on your distance from the central office. 768 is about the worst speed I get and I've sometimes received 1000-1200 Kbps. I think in theory you can get up to a 1500 Kbps connection with DSL, but of course with cable you can get much more than that now. But even 768 lets you do most broadband things...
Re: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality?
by flannigan - 11/6/04 10:40 AM In reply to: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by Jay MJay: Used Earthlink Accellerator for quite a while. Yes it did speed up the opening of sites in I.Explorer. However, the problems outweighed the speed advantage. I uninstalled, reinstalled and used again and uninstalled and currently am not using it. I believe I will not reinstall due to past expereiences. Mike E
Re: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality?
by douggsbc - 11/6/04 11:26 AM In reply to: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by Jay MI have probably the most inexpensive dialup ISP 777ACCESS. You can pay by check if you do 3 months at a time. I had it for about 6 months when they offered NetRocket about the same price as the other accelerators. I sure notice a difference with graphics. If I am just downloading data however there is no difference.
Re: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality?
by haroldwalker - 11/6/04 7:06 PM In reply to: "High Speed" Dialup: Myth or Reality? by Jay MPlease remember that there is a concept called limits. There is also a concept called caveat emptor . There is a limit as to what dialup can actually do so buyer beware.
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