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Home > Dialup Internet > The Evolution Of Dial Up Internet

The Evolution Of Dial Up Internet

Dial Up Internet access draws from technology that dates back to the telegraph, which sent signals across a copper line by tapping contacts that would open or close the circuit. In 1875 Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone that used the same principle but now had the ability to send voice communications over a phone line. This simple system stretched from New York to San Francisco by 1915, and overwhelming demand by the market led to the first transatlantic phone call via radio signal in 1927.

This new product led to massive technological leaps in communication. American cities were beginning to be connected by microwave stations in 1948, which increased the availability of voice service to virtually anywhere. This same technology is what finally inspired satellite and integrated digital networks that sent their first signal in 1962 following the launch of Telstar 1, the first public communications satellite. 90% of all homes in America had telephone service by 1970. It is this ubiquitous quality that allowed for the Internet Revolution twenty years later.

Dial Up Internet Service Challenges

One of the keys to Dial Up Internet Access was created in 1979 and had the unlikely name of Modulator-Demodulator. This device, now called a modem allowed data packets to be sent over public telephone lines. The earliest modems were slow and inefficient, and utilized individual communication software that was rarely compatible with each other. This meant that modem communication was severely limited.

In the early 1980’s The Internet was introduced to the world, and a very limited number of people used it due to technological constraints. It is the growth of the Internet in the late 1980’s and early 90’s that led to an enormous increase in Dial Up Internet and modem technology.

The next hurdle to overcome in the Dial Up Internet Access world was hardware and software standardization. Too many manufacturers were using proprietary software in the development of communication devices to make market penetration of any measurable depth, and this was slowing down the growth of the Internet considerably. Once Internet Service Providers became a driving force in the American economy, the standardization began out of necessity. Of primary concern was the dialing software. Called a Dialer, this was the software that initiated the connection from the remote terminal to the ISP and allowed an Internet connection to be made. Now almost any dialer will work with any service. Modem communication protocol standardization occurred in 1995, and was forced on manufacturers by ISPs that rejected the need to support more than one type.

POTS lines, or Plain Old Telephone Service are the copper lines that voice communication still travels over in many parts of America. This older technology was generally limited to 33.6 bps speeds with any reliability, and was the only network available to the earlier Dial Up Access users.

Dial Up Internet Today

Dial up now utilizes the PTSN, or Public Switched Telephone Network to allow the transport of information in the form of data packets from one location to another. Modems of today have a maximum speed of 56 kilobits per second (kbps), although they can rarely achieve this speed due too many factors, including:

• Poor quality equipment
• Phone line noise
• Poorly configured communication software

Although Dial Up Internet Access is the slowest connection speed available, due to affordability and availability it is still the most used type of service for accessing the Internet. Even businesses often have Dial Up access as a back up service in case their dedicated connection should fail.

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For more information on dial up Internet, check our Dial Up Internet Providers section to see what current offers may be available to you.