| > | | | | All right, now you are getting 3.5 thousand characters |
| So how fast is your internet connection anyway? | | | | per second, if youhave a 28K modem, right? Well, not |
| Yeah, I knowthat many companies now (especially | | | | exactly. First off, the quality of yourphone line may |
| DSL - for more information see and cable) are | | | | drop that down significantly. What happens is your |
| advertisingspeeds of upwards of a megabit or more. | | | | computersends some data to the "internet"; it is |
| Well, what does that really mean? | | | | received but there was an error, sothe internet |
| And how fast is 56K or 28.8 anyway? | | | | computer requests that the data be resent. The |
| I know this is hard to believe if you're relatively new to | | | | worse thequality (you can hear how bad it is by the |
| the world ofcomputers or the internet, but back in 1978 | | | | amount of static you can hearwhen you listen on the |
| modems were running at 110 or | | | | line) the more times the data has to be resent, |
| 300 bits per second (the technical term is baud). The | | | | theslower the line. |
| table below is notprecisely accurate but gives a rough | | | | On top of that, there is a certain amount of overhead |
| idea of how the speeds have beenworking their way | | | | associated with eachconnection. This is "handshaking", |
| upwards for the past few years. | | | | which means the modem is asking theinternet |
| Speed Timeline | | | | computer if it got the data and the internet computer is |
| 1978 100 to 300 baud | | | | responding |
| 1988 1200 to 2400 baud | | | | "yes" or "no". There is also a certain amount of data to |
| 1993 14,400 baud | | | | define what isbeing sent (an email or a web document |
| 1995 28,800 baud | | | | or whatever) which eats into the linespeed. |
| 1997 33,000 baud | | | | Well, okay, let's assume you are actually getting 20K |
| 1998 56,000 baud | | | | from your 28.8K modem. |
| 1999 1,500,000 baud DSL and cable mode connections | | | | There's worse news to come. The internet has lots of |
| In comparison, local network connections run at | | | | things that actuallyhave nothing to do with content. |
| 10,000,000 bits per secondat least and it is becoming | | | | There are cookies |
| more common for these to be running at 100million bits | | | | ( advertising banners,comments, web bugs ( anda host |
| per second. | | | | of other things inserted into your web experience. A |
| But what does all this mean? Well, a character is eight | | | | typicaladvertising banner is 7.5K, which in our 20Kbps |
| bits (a bit is azero or a one, and it takes 8 of them to | | | | example requires severalseconds to load to your |
| make a single character). Theletter K means 1,024, so | | | | machine. |
| a 28K modem is 1,024 times 28 or 28,672 bits | | | | What can you do? First, if you can get a DSL or |
| persecond (also called bps). | | | | Cable modem connection tothe internet. It will probably |
| Now divide the 28,672 by 8 and you have the | | | | cost about the same or only slightly morethan your |
| maximum number of characters persecond that your | | | | dialup connection and will improve your surfing |
| modem can run at. This works out to 3,584 characters | | | | experience by manytimes. |
| persecond, which in today's world is considered pretty | | | | Second (or if you cannot get a higher speed |
| slow (you willunderstand why shortly). | | | | connection) get an ad blocker |
| Interesting fact: Modem speeds are all standardized by | | | | ( installed on yoursystem to remove those ads before |
| International | | | | they are downloaded to your machine. Whyeven |
| Telecommunications Union (ITU). The ITU defines 28.8K | | | | bother downloading banners that you are never going |
| bps modems as v.32 and | | | | to look at anyway? |
| 33.6K bps modems as v.34. | | | | I hope that helps clear things up a bit. |