# Has dial-up reached its maximum speed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 4, 2007, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523 "2007-03-04T08:15:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gus\_Handsome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@Gus\_Handsome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gus_Handsome)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/1 "2007-03-04T08:15:24Z")
Since I’m not sharp with this subject, I was wondering, is dial-up internet service at the maximum speed it can ever be? Could there be a faster dial-up someday? I’m stuck on the fringe without high-speed, and was wondering if this 44.0 Kbps is something I will have to live with forever, or if technology one day will make it better. DSL stop 2 houses from me so I’m SOL. Thanks Gus ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/2 "2007-03-04T08:20:22Z")
you can use multiple lines to increase your speed. it isn’t very cost effective but if thats all you got… ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/3 "2007-03-04T08:33:28Z")
[QUOTE=boytyperanma] you can use multiple lines to increase your speed… [/QUOTE] [Shotgunning!](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1563/is_5_17/ai_63502563) > [@](#): > > …another option, modem bonding (also known as modem teaming, channel bonding, and dual analog), lets you create a dial-up connection that delivers Internet content at near-ISDN speeds–theoretically as fast as 112Kbps, though real-world data transfer rates of a still impressive 75Kbps to 100Kbps are more common… CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/4 "2007-03-04T08:38:15Z")
There are places (in the U.S.) that still don’t have high-speed internet access? Where are you, or are you even in the U.S. at all? ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/5 "2007-03-04T11:33:05Z")
[QUOTE=Rigamarole] There are places (in the U.S.) that still don’t have high-speed internet access? Where are you, or are you even in the U.S. at all? [/QUOTE] There are plenty of places that are too far from the central office for DSL and are not served by cable. Look at any rural area. Regarding the original post, there isn’t much room for dialup modems to get faster. There are fundamental theoretical limits on the speed of modems, based on bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratio. Today’s modems are already close to that limit. ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/6 "2007-03-04T11:58:07Z")
You could check to see if any providers in your area offer ISDN, not sure of the cost though, it’s been awhile. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/7 "2007-03-04T12:47:28Z")
[QUOTE=Rigamarole] There are places (in the U.S.) that still don’t have high-speed internet access? Where are you, or are you even in the U.S. at all? [/QUOTE] I would estimate 80% of my county (geographically) has no cable or DSL available. And rural dialup does not approach the city max of near-56K, but we are lucky to get 26K on good days. The local telephone company guarantees only 14K – if you get better than that, they think you are stealing from them and they tell you to quit whining. Not long ago, they even said if I complained too much, they would cut off all data services to me, as they were a voice company only and I was violating the agreement. They lost my account, as I switched all services, including multiple phone lines, to cable as soon as it became available. I’m lucky; I have 5Mb/sec, but many of my neighbors are a lot worse off with no hope for improvement unless they get satellite. I have to remember not to send them youtube or music links. ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/8 "2007-03-04T13:16:36Z")
Well they keep coaxing more out of ADSL, and they seem to be increasing the distances. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/9 "2007-03-04T13:44:13Z")
I suspect part of the reason is that there is no future in dialup. Even if they could get the speed up a tad, the cost of improving the infrastructure of dialup would make it prohibitive for the ISP’s. Not to say their can’t be a nitch market for highspeed dialup ISP’s that have dedicated 75kb/s connections, but I suspect the market is so small that no manufacturer is going to invest in inventing such modems. Homes that still use dialup are usually far away from the CO, if they were closer they would get DSL, and those mean that they usually also have phone wires of poor quality (due to their length), meaning even if they came out with a 75k dialup modem, it is likely that your phone line could only handle 26k. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/10 "2007-03-04T14:05:01Z")
[QUOTE=kanicbird] Homes that still use dialup are usually far away from the CO, if they were closer they would get DSL, and those mean that they usually also have phone wires of poor quality (due to their length), meaning even if they came out with a 75k dialup modem, it is likely that your phone line could only handle 26k. [/QUOTE] The phone techies have told me that many rural lines have had “load coils” installed, way before data transmissions were common in residential areas. The load coils increase the range and improve the voice quality, but degrade the data. Of course there’s no reason why technology can’t get around that, but I agree that the incentive is not great. Cable speeds offered to consumers are throttled back to a fraction of what they could provide, and if dialup improved to 100K with better hardware, cable companies could counter by doubling their speed with just a software tweak. And WiFi and WiMax are looming as serious competitors in rural areas because there’s no need to string wires or fiber to individual homes, just put up a tower. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/11 "2007-03-04T17:28:11Z")
My folks used a satellite-based hi-speed connection with a dish receiver before DSL came to their area. It had a latency issue but aside from that initial hesitation the speed was pretty decent, and a lot better than any dialup. Lousy Mac support back then, don’t know if the folks offering the technology are more cross-platform these days or not. I just looked around on my HD to see if I still have reference to the company that provided the satellite service, but to no avail. ---
**Author:** ![Smitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Smitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smitty)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/12 "2007-03-05T02:07:20Z")
56K is the absolute maximum that regular dial up (not combining channels, or ISDN, etc.) can achieve. The reason is this: Back in the day, voice transmissions were analog. This meant that, due to attenuation, amplifiers had to be put in every 15,000 feet or so. In order to move to a true global communication network, the telco had to convert to digital. This meant that the entire signal wouldn’t be sent - samples of the analog wave would be taken, converted to digital format, and sent. The telco made the decision to sample at 8000 samples per second. Each sample is 8 bits, for a total of 64,000 bits per second. Without getting too technical, one of those bits is a check bit, which means that 7 bits are useful for actually sending information at 8000 of those per second. 8000 x 7 = 56,000 or 56K. On top of that, the FCC limits transmissions to a maximum of 53K, so the political limit is even slower than the physical limit. ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/13 "2007-03-05T02:18:27Z")
[QUOTE=Smitty] Without getting too technical, one of those bits is a check bit, which means that 7 bits are useful for actually sending information at 8000 of those per second. 8000 x 7 = 56,000 or 56K. [/QUOTE] It isn’t a check bit. In **some** line configurations it is periodically stolen for signaling. See [robbed bit signaling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbed_bit_signaling). ---
**Author:** ![Smitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Smitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smitty)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-dial-up-reached-its-maximum-speed/394523/14 "2007-03-05T02:21:47Z")
[QUOTE=mks57] It isn’t a check bit. In **some** line configurations it is periodically stolen for signaling. See [robbed bit signaling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbed_bit_signaling). [/QUOTE] Like I said “without getting too technical”. I know what it is, but I was just trying to keep it simple while making the point that only 7 of the 8 bits per sample is available for sending data.