Planet Earth Central

In this article I’m going to explain a few of the differences between different choices for methods to connect to the Internet.

To begin with, allow me to explain the two main way to connect to the Internet before getting more specific about some of the more specific ways inside these two larger categories.

When when one looks at it as broadly as possible there are two frequently used computer terms which are for ways to connect to the Internet: dialup and “broadband”.

Dialup is, of course, the outdated way to get on the Internet, where you utilize a dialup modem. Dialup modems have been around far longer than most people realize: I bought my first one around 1986 and they were originally introduced in the 1960s.

It was a “1200 bps” (bps is a way to measure of how fast it works) modem that I paid about $200 for back in the day. Dialup modems hit a maximum speed of 56K bps a good ten years or more ago, and now go for less than $10 if you know where to look.

So in other words that’s approximately 46 times faster, and twenty times cheaper.

Now you could think to yourself “Wow! That sounds really fast!”

If that’s what you think, you’re mistaken.

Dialup is old technology, and hasn’t really been upgraded in over a decade, which means it’s something like 150 years out of date relatively speaking!

The bottom line is, dialup = slow.

A lot of computer users are using dialup still, either because they don’t understand why to upgrade, or they don’t have any other option where they are.

Unfortunately, even if you are still on dialup and think “I’m not upgrading; what’s the point?” — you are making a mistake.

I’ll get to why that is in a moment.

First, allow me clarify the primary alternative to dialup. I’m talking about “broadband”, which generally just means “fast Internet”.

Broadband can be found in a variety of different types, with a range of speeds, all of them lots faster than dialup.

Beyond much better, broadband generally doesn’t tie up your phone line, so people you know don’t get busy signals if they try calling you, and you’re able to place phone calls even when you’re connected to the Internet.

The two most commonplace flavors of broadband are cable and DSL. Cable internet comes over the same cable as cable TV, and is available from a variety of companies using a variety of different brand names — Roadrunner is one example of cable internet.

DSL actually comes over your phone lines much like dialup, but is quite a bit faster and, much like cable Internet, you can place phone calls while you’re connected.

You’ve got less-used varieties such as satellite, which gives you fairly fast connections to the Internet using a satellite dish like satellite TV. It is kind of slow for broadband, but much faster than dialup. It’s mostly used by people way out in the country who don’t have any better choice.

What I tend to tell to most people is to get DSL, if they can get it where you live. In most cases it’s just a little more expensive than dialup is, and in many instances it’s the same price or even costs less!

It’s not generally as fast as cable Internet, but it is plenty fast for most people, and lets you do a lot of things that just aren’t possible (or are very very irritatingly sluggish) on dialup, for example, watching videos on YouTube or other sites, or downloading large files.

This takes us to one of the biggest reasons I strongly suggest people stop using dialup and switch to some flavor of broadband — downloading large files.

You might think that you never do that, but on the other hand… Maybe you do (or should be) and don’t realize it.

To start with, computer users are distributing big photos (or several smaller photos), or even videosby email all the time now.

Maybe you’re using dialup and you’ve tried checking your email and it never seemed to arrive, or it took forever to do it, you may have become a victim of this.

So that’s one reason.

But there’s an even more critical one: computers need something called “security updates” or “patches” which are incredibly important to download. It’s important for both Windows PCs or Macs.

Unless you have these patches, your computer can be vulnerable to infection from viruses, worms, and other threats.

But these security updates (think Windows Update, or OS X’s Software Update) more and more frequently can be very large files.

So gigantic that it can take many hours, or even DAYS to get. And if you don’t download them, your computer is left at risk.

Which leaves you between a rock and a hard place if you’re still using dialup.

So think about upgrading if you haven’t already, and forward this to your friends who haven’t. And remember there are a selection of good sites out there where you can find computer how to lessons, so it’s perfectly normal to seek to learn more if you need to.